Sports & Recreation
The driver shut the motor off and just sat there, very still. We froze in our places. He pulled off his helmet and looked around without leaving his machine. It was too dark to see his face, but he looked big. My heart was hammering like a drum. Surely he could hear it. I looked sideways at Sam and the others. Their breath was coming out in tiny streams. Nobody moved a muscle, not even Spider.
The Sharks called us "pond scum."
I breathed deep, like I always did before a race, filling my nose with the smell of chlorine. The Sharks were about to see that this pond scum could swim.
He dug in again, sinking his cleats into the soft clay of the batter's box and getting set for the next pitch. He was determined to hang in there this time and not back away, no matter what happened. White went into his long, deliberate windup. It seemed like forever, but in fact it was only a couple of seconds before the older boy uncoiled and sent the ball again in a flash toward the plate.
This time, Matt stayed in the box, swinging at the spot where he anticipated the baseball would cross. But this pitch was slightly inside. It nicked him on the index finger of his right hand and ricocheted off his cheekbone. The pain shot through his finger and the left side of his face at the same time, but Matt stayed on his feet.
The rumbling didn't come as noise. It came as a vibration that hummed in my chest. Even thought I was blindfolded, I turned my head, as if I needed my eyes to tell me what I already knew. The train was close and coming fast. With me stuck on the tracks...
