Throwing Like a Girl Read Online Free Page A

room there’s a really nice old lady who hands out towels and other equipment. Her tag reads M ISS R UBY , and since this is Texas, I’m not sure if Ruby is her first or last name.
    “What can I do you for?” Miss Ruby asks with a friendly twang.
    “I’m trying out for softball today, but I don’t have a glove.”
    “Oh, I don’t have anything like that back here,” she says. She hands me a towel and a lock. “Coach Lauer will probably be able to help you out. Don’t you worry.”
    “Thanks,” I say.
    The rows of lockers are cluttered with girls changing for different sports. No one seems to be staring at me, and I’m grateful for that until I realize I don’t know where I’m supposed to go next. I spot three girls with brand-new softball gloves heading out the door, so I follow them at a slight distance, silently grateful for this, too.
    We walk across the entire campus—away from the track, the tennis courts, and the other fields by the parking lots. I have this sinking feeling that maybe these girls don’t know where they’re going, either. Maybe they’re freshmen pretending to know where they are. I used to do that all the time.
    When they disappear over a crest between the upper school and the library, I jog a little to catch up. And there, down the sweeping, dried-out front lawn of the school, is the softball diamond, unlined and overgrown. Off to one side sits a dilapidated set of bleachers. Steel beams and cranes are casting their shadows over the “field” from a partially constructed building just beyond it. Could this be right?
    I see the coach greeting some of the girls, shaking hands. So this must be it. The softball field where all my athletic dreams will come true. It’s not as scary as I expected. I’m relieved that softball seems to be the ugly stepsister sport at Spring Valley. No one will be around to see me make a fool of myself.
    When Coach sees me, she raises her eyebrows. “Ella Kessler, you came. Good for you.”
    “Hi.” I can barely look around. I feel like the shy girl at the school dance in the movies, who stands off to the side alone. The wallflower. Except there aren’t any walls out here.
    Coach looks at her watch, then up toward campus.
    “Sue Bee, will you take a jog up to the locker room and see if you can round up any more girls? They may not know that the field has been moved down here.”
    Not dressed for sports, and looking slightly older than the rest of us, Sue Bee nods, tucks her clipboard under her armpit, and trots away. She’s too full of purpose to be anything but the team manager.
    “Well, it’s three thirty,” Coach says. “Why don’t we start throwing around before warm-up and maybe more people will show.”
    One of the girls calls out, “Anne Johansson decided to run track this year.”
    “Okay.”
    “And Melanie Norman isn’t trying out, either,” someone else shouts.
    “Thanks for the info.” Coach sighs.
    I wonder if any of these girls is Nate Fontineau’s sister.
    After everyone’s paired up (and I don’t have a partner), I go over to Coach, who’s scribbling notes on a clipboard identical to Sue Bee’s.
    “I don’t have a glove and—”
    “Oh, right.” She smiles. “I think we’ve got a few spares in the bag over there.”
    I follow her.
    “Lefty or righty?”
    “Lefty.”
    “Ooooh, I’m not sure.…Here we go. Great. Here’s a nice worn-in one.” She tosses it to me. “Ever play first base?”
    “No.”
    “Well, let’s warm up that arm and see how you look.”
    Everyone else is already throwing back and forth. This is the part you can’t read in a book. You just have to do it. I close my eyes and quickly run through the pictures in my mind of out-fielders throwing the ball. Heaving it to the infield. I open my eyes and take a deep breath.
    Coach introduces me to Frannie Howard and Maureen Bartlett. Frannie is a big girl with freckles and bushy red hair. Maureen is slight with blond bangs. I repeat this in my