Amanda took some bread from the bag. “They seem pretty happy.” She tossed a crust to the biggest, ugliest duck of all, the duck with a fishhook permanently stuck in its beak. He ate it fine.
It took a while for Dad to figure out that I had a girl best friend. But when Matt enlightened him, Mom reassured him that Amanda was “a tomboy” and that we weren’t having tea parties.
Later that night, I heard Mom whispering about Amanda and her dad. Apparently, she’d asked around to the other moms, who’d been happy to fill her in. I heard her saying things like “mother ran out on her family” and “drugs” and “poor child.” I went to bed with my pillow over my face. I didn’t want to hear.
In December, I tried out for Little League. “What if I don’t make it?” I asked Tim. He and Amanda were accompanying me even though Mom was going too.
“Everyone makes it,” Tim said. “Tryouts are just to make the teams fair.”
“There are a lot of people worse than you,” Amanda said.
“Mandy, that’s enough,” Tim said.
But it calmed me down. Amanda thinking people were worse than me was a huge compliment.
We’d stopped using the batting tee at Amanda’s house weeks before, but that’s what they used at tryouts. It would be easy. When Nolan Potter saw me coming, he nudged his friend and said, “Oh brother.” I ignored him. I stepped to the tee and hit every ball with a loud thwack, the way Tim had taught me. And when the coaches hit pop-ups and grounders to us, I got those too. When I finished, Tim walked over and flipped up my cap. “Good job, sport.”
Nolan wasn’t laughing anymore, especially when Amanda said, “Hey, I think he did better than you.”
I thought so too. And so did Nolan, I could tell.
I was on my first team that year, the Tigers, with yellow baseball jerseys that I slept in some nights. I finally made friends with some of the boys at school. They were going to play football in the fall, and Tim promised to teach me that too. But Amanda was still my best friend.
Some days, Amanda played with other girls in class, which I hated. I liked having her all to myself. She had friends from softball, so I couldn’t be part of that group.
“What do you do when you play with them?” I asked every time she had a playdate.
She’d say something mundane like “Sophie has a trampoline” or “We watched a movie,” and I made plans to re-up my trampoline begging or ask for more TV time.
But one day, Amanda walked away from the girls at lunch looking perturbed.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, as we sat down in class again.
“Nothing.”
“Come on.”
“I said nothing.” Amanda took out the sight-word list and started to study it.
“I can do that with you,” I said.
“I’m ahead of you.”
“Then do mine with me.”
She turned her back. “Just leave me alone.”
She stared at the word list for a long time but didn’t ask Mrs. Rosner to test her on it. When we went on to the next activity (filling in a coloring sheet about autumn leaves), she broke her red and yellow crayons, the fat kind that were impossible to break.
After school got out, Sarah Rivas came up to her.
“My mom said I could only ask four friends,” Sarah said.
“Okay.” Amanda put her homework folder and lunch box into her backpack.
“I didn’t think you’d want to go,” Sarah explained. “It’s like a Disney Princess party at a makeover place.”
“So?” Amanda said.
“I don’t know. I’m sorry.”
Amanda looked down. “I have to go.”
I followed her out. “What’s wrong?” But I knew.
“Nothing. Go away.”
We walked to the drop-off not talking. When Mom picked me up, she said, “What’s wrong with Amanda?”
“She didn’t get invited to some birthday party with makeovers. I don’t know why she cares. It sounds stupid.”
“Don’t say stupid. Say foolish,” Mom said. “And all girls like that stuff.”
“Why would Amanda want to be a foolish princess when she can be a ballplayer?”
The next day, when Amanda got in the car, my mother said, “I’m going to get my hair and nails done Saturday, Amanda. My friend Stacey can’t make it. Would you like to come with me?”
I glared at Mom. Amanda would know I told.
But Amanda was smiling, her face all pink. “Really?” Her face fell. “But I have softball.”
“What time is that? We could go afterward.”
“I’ll ask my dad.” She kicked the seat. “Can I do my nails any color I want?” She held out her nails, which were short and ragged.
“As long as your father says it’s okay.”
“And toes too? Or just fingers?”
“Definitely toes too,” my mother said. “Wouldn’t be a proper pampering without a pedicure.”
Amanda giggled. “Pampering.”
I stared at her, incredulous. I just didn’t get this part of her at all.
When I got out of the car, I tagged her while she was still sitting down, yelling, “You’re it!” because impromptu games of tag were our thing lately.