Page 13 of Eye on the Ball

“They have to do a lot of stretching, so they don’t pull a hammy.”

Everybody groaned, except Shelley, who just looked confused. Mike explained hamstrings to her while I basked in my punny awesomeness.

We talked about the pig racing and the carnival—I wondered if all small towns had as many carnivals as Dead End—and about Connor Murphy’s new pub, which was scheduled to have its grand opening the evening of the ball game.

“He’s a precog,” Ruby said.

“Not sure how precognition helps run a successful pub,” Mike said. “You know in advance how much beer to order?”

“It’s only a brief window of precognition, so I guess we’ll see,” Tess said. “He’s a nice guy. He moved home to Dead End to take care of his mom when she was sick. She’s better now, but he stayed. I heard he was working from home in an internet job before he opened the pub.”

“It will be nice to have someplace to go in Dead End for a beer and maybe a game of darts. The Swamp Rat is way too loud for us,” Mike said, referring to the bar down by the swamp that had live music on the weekends. The Rat could get rowdy. Tess and I weren’t big fans of the place, either.

“I hope it works out. As I’ve learned the hard way, owning and running a small business is not for the faint of heart,” Tess said.

“What’s he calling it? Murphy’s? The Dead End Pub?”

“His business application listed it as Connor’s Pub,” Ruby told us.

Tess laughed. “Good call. Business names in Dead End are not imaginative. We either name them Dead End Something or Person’s Name’s Something. Nobody here likes ‘fancy’ names.”

After we ate and helped clean up the kitchen, Tess and I headed for the door to go to the softball field for the ceremony I still knew nothing about. Shelley hugged us and raced upstairs to do her homework, play on her computer, or whatever else hyperenergetic ten-year-old girls did.

Tess glanced after her and then told Mike and Ruby about the incident with the Truckmans in the shop. “It was so weird how hostile he was with Brenda. This wasn’t just trash talk about the game. It felt personal.”

“I’m sure it was,” Ruby said. “They were dating, and she just dumped him.”

“What? Ace and Brenda? That’s hard to imagine,” Tess said, grimacing. “How do you know that?”

“A lot of gossip makes its way to the mayor’s office,” Ruby said primly, as if she hadn’t been the center of all the news before the election, too.

“The plot thickens,” I said.

Mike grinned. “We need Sherlock Hams.”

“I hate to admit it, but I’m kind of looking forward to these pig races now, just to hear the names,” I said.

Shelley’s footsteps pounded to the top of the stairs. “Alexander Ham Bell!”

“Great one!” I gave her two thumbs up.

“Well, good luck at the ceremony,” Ruby said.

“What is this ceremony? It’s something weird, isn’t it?”

“It’s Dead End,” Tess said. “You have to ask?”

“It’s not that weird,” Mike said.

* * *

It was pretty weird.

5

Tess

The lights shone brightly on the empty softball field, ready for us to conduct the annual ceremony. I waited for Jack to pull up behind me and then got out of my car, scanning the parking lot. Brenda was already there, sitting in her Prius, and the camouflage-painted truck a few spaces away from her signaled the Truckmans had arrived early, too. The ancient Oldsmobile probably belonged to one of the two old guys who’d founded the annual Dead End/Riverton softball game some three decades ago.

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