Friday, July 15, 1994

Friday, July 15, 1994

8:56 a.m.

Billy looks at the baseball in his hand, surprised by how battered it's become after just a few weeks of use. The once-white leather is now a dull gray and scuffed with dirt and grass stains. There are even a few teeth marks from the couple of times Barkley found it before Ethan could. That might happen again today if he's not careful. Billy can hear the dog with Ethan on the other side of the hedge.

He knows it's weird. The way he crouches behind the hedge, listening to Ethan play with Barkley in the yard next door. Other boys would just pop through the greenery and say hello, but where's the fun in that?

No, Billy prefers to do it his way.

The weird way.

Hidden behind the hedge, gripping the baseball, waiting for the perfect moment to spring his secret code.

The first time he tried it was the first day of summer vacation. Already bored by ten a.m., he decided to run next door and ask Ethan if he wanted to go exploring in the woods. Billy's still not sure why he opted to make a game of it. But once he saw the baseball sitting on his dresser, untouched since he got it months earlier as a birthday present, he knew that was what he needed to do with it.

Ethan was confused at first. He'd brought it back to Billy, asking if it accidentally went over the hedge while he and Andy were playing catch. As if that were an everyday occurrence in the Barringer backyard. It wasn't. Andy sometimes tossed a ball back and forth with their dad. But Billy? Never.

"I threw it there on purpose," Billy told him.

Ethan scrunched his eyes. "Why?"

"I dunno. I wanted it to be, like, a secret message. Whenever you find the ball in your yard, it means you need to come over and find me. I saw it in a movie. A man who moved into a haunted house kept finding balls left by a ghost."

"Why would a ghost do that?"

Billy sighed then, as if the answer was obvious. "So the man would know he was there."

Ethan shook his head and passed the ball back to him. "That's weird," he said, but not in a bad way. Not like Ragesh Patel or the other older boys on the school bus who spit the word at him like an insult. Ethan meant it as an observation.

Or so Billy likes to think.

He knows he's not like other boys his age, and sometimes that bothers him. Sometimes he even wishes he could be different. Not so prone to flights of fancy or fits of imagination. Not as much of a nerd, to use another word thrown at him on a regular basis, even though Billy thinks of nerds as being super smart, which he is not. He's okay at English and loves reading, but he completely sucks at math. All the other not-smart boys he knows make up for it by being athletic. Another area in which Billy is hopeless.

"He's eccentric," he once heard his father say to his mother when Mrs. Jensen called them in for a parent-teacher conference because she was concerned about Billy's inability to fit in with the rest of his class. "I don't understand why that's such a bad thing."

"It's not bad, necessarily," his mother said. "But I worry. This world isn't kind to boys who stand out."

That was three years ago, and even though they'd moved to a new house, a new town, and a new school since then, Billy still found himself unable to fit in. He'd feel completely alone if it weren't for Ethan, who never seems to mind Billy's eccentricities. Which is why Billy thought it was fine to try out his baseball-as-secret-message bit on his best friend. And why he's kept it up every day so far this summer.

Well, every day except yesterday.

Yesterday was special.

But today Billy is back to his regular routine, ready to toss the ball while Ethan's still in the backyard. A stealth delivery. As if the ball had indeed been placed there by a ghost.

Peering through the hedge, he sees Ethan in the middle of his yard, shooting a concerned look at Barkley. The dog's at the edge of the woods, growling.

"Come here, boy," Ethan calls.

When Barkley doesn't come, Ethan goes to him. Billy watches his friend cross the yard, waiting until he's at the trees. In one swift, silent motion, Billy stands, tosses the ball over the hedge, and listens to it hit the ground.

Then he runs.

Again, weird.

Since he knows Ethan will see the baseball in two seconds, he might as well stay. Yet Billy hurries back to his house, running through the open back door and up the stairs to his bedroom.

There, he sits—and waits for Ethan to find him.