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| Their pitcher walks our leadoff man. Greg moves him up to second with a perfect sacrifice. Fabian loops one into right. | |
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| I'm up. Two on, one out. I'm the cleanup man. My job is to bring these guys home. | |
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| I take a pitch. Foul one off. Take a strike. Their left fielder drifts in. | |
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| Bam! I lift one right over his head. A double! Two runs score. I slide into second. Safe! | |
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| That's what I'm thinking, anyway, propped up in bed with some dumb book. | |
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| Than Dad comes in and says, "The doctor called. Your tests came back. You've got mono." | |
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| "So I can't play ball." | |
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| He pats my knee. "You can't even go to school, Kevin. You need to take it real easy." | |
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| He hands me a journal, one of those marbly black-and-white ones he likes. | |
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| "You're gonna have a lot of time on your hands. Maybe you'll feel like writing something down." | |
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| In Bed | |
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| Being sick is like taking a trip, isn't it? Going to another country, sort of. A country nobody wants to visit. A country named Fevertown. Or Virusburg. Or Germ Corners. | |
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| The border guards are glum-looking, with runny noses and pasty skin. Their uniforms don't fit and flap open in the back so you can see their big, ugly butts. | |
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| Nobody wants to go there, but everybody does, sooner or later. | |
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| And some stay. | |
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| Pressure | |
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| Dad's never talked to me about writing before. He's not nuts to have me be just like him. | |
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| Len Boggs has a dad like that. It's been Boggs & Son ever since Lennie was about two seconds old. | |
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| They're plumbers. "Got clogs? Call Boggs!" Don't laugh. Their vans are all over the place. They're rich. | |
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| And Len hates it. | |
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| Lennie's fourteen, like me. He doesn't know what he wants to do when he grows up. Maybe go in the Marines. Maybe play the cello. | |
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| But he for sure doesn't want to be a plumber. | |
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| His dad is already on his case, riding him about it. | |
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| I think mine's just trying to be nice. | |
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| Home Alone | |
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| Well, not exactly. Dad's here, that's why we don't have to get somebody to come in and take care of me. | |
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| First of all, I don't need much care. I sleep all the time, or at least it feels that way. | |
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| Dad works at home. He and I pass each other in the hall- I in my sweats, he in his cap. | |
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| When I was little and I got sick, Mom used to read to me. | |
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| Thinking about that's not going to help. | |
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| Inquiring Minds Want To Know | |
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| Why am I writing down the middle of the page? | |
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| It kind of looks like poetry, but no way is it poetry. It's just stuff. | |
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| So I tiptoe into the den and cop this book of Dad's. | |
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| It feels weird smuggling something about poetry up to my room like it's the new PENTHOUSE. | |
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| But I don't want Dad to know what I'm doing yet. Even though I'm not doing anything. Not really. | |
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| I'm just going to fool around a little, see what's what poetry-wise. | |
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| How Do You Do, Haiku | |
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| I thought I'd start small. I kind of remember haiku from school last year. I at least remember they're little. | |
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| But, man-I never saw so many frogs in the moonlight. And leaves. Leaves all over the place. | |
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| Weren't there any gardeners in ancient Japan? Weren't there any cats and dogs? | |
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| Still, haiku look easy. Sort of. Five syllables in the first line, seven in the second, five in the third. | |
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| Frogs, frogs, frogs, frogs, frogs. Frogs, frogs, frogs, frogs, frogs, frogs, frogs. Frogs, frogs, frogs, frogs, leaves. | |
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| Very funny, Kevin. | |
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| At least I finished it. I can't finish anything else, except my nap. Seventeen syllables is just about right for somebody with my reduced stamina. Perfect thing for an invalid. | |
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| Oh, man-look at that: IN VALID. I never saw that before. | |
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| Just a single space in a word I thought I knew made the difference. | |
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| __________ | |
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| SHAKESPEARE BATS CLEANUP by Ron Koertge. Copyright (c) 2006 by Ron Koertge. Published by Candlewick Press, Inc., Cambridge, MA. | |