April 14

Carrie and Collette visited the community college book sale early that morning. Unfortunately, someone nabbed the Portuguese dictionary and the Swedish dictionary before Collette could take them. Instead, she picked up an old Mohawk Indian stage play for Rose.
Before math began, Francis brought in his newly constructed potato gun.
“Meet Leonardo Davinci,” he said proudly.
Carrie watched Puck in her room for about an hour that morning while Collette worked with Joe on his math. Carrie had put together what she called Puck’s treasure chest: a wicker box full of strings of shiny beads and shiny crinkly blue paper. Puck happily wriggled his fingers in the beads, much like he would do on the piano keys in the living room or the keyboard in Carrie’s room.
That night, everyone but Rose and OLeif and Puck (who were at home), went to Francis’ first baseball game of the year in Old Saint Peters.
It was a nightmare of all baseball games.
“How’d it go?” OLeif asked her, when she got back at 10:45.
“Miserable. Like 53 to nothing in the other team’s favor.”
“How is that possible?”
“The bottom of the 2nd inning was about 45 minutes long. The other team just kept getting hits, walked, etc.”
It was awful. About ¾ of the way through the game, Joe, Carrie, Linnea, Collette, and Mom (Dad refused), did “the wave” from the bleachers for team morale. It didn’t help of course.
Both Francis and his pal were hit in the leg by the ball, the only time they were up to bat for the entire two-hour game. Maybe the official score hadn’t been exactly 53 to nothing, but at least 30, zip.
“Well, good try anyway,” they told Francis at the end.
At least Francis had enjoyed sitting in the bullpen with his pal, talking about burgers and home schoolers. For the ten minutes he had played in the outfield… at least he got some practice.
“And I thought the Penguins were bad,” said Joe (referring to his old baseball team).
Right before the game ended, Joe took off for a walk toward the concession stand. When he returned, as they prepared to leave, Linnea called out to him:
“Joe! Guess who won!”