His 47 Seconds of Silence Cost Him Everything novel · Chapter 9 of 24

Chapter 9: Sit-In

On Saturday the league president coached the Wildcats herself.

She was a small woman in a visor with a clipboard, and she'd played softball at Otterbein thirty years ago, and she was clearly terrified.

Mike wasn't allowed inside the fence.

He sat in the top row of the bleachers behind home plate, alone, with his cap pulled low and his arms crossed.

His daughter sat next to him eating a hot dog with her feet on the bench in front of her.

I was in the dugout with my scorebook.

Nobody had suspended the scorekeeper.

Cory had tried. The president told me on the phone Wednesday that he'd called three times. Section four, she said. He'd have to bring it to the full board.

Cory and Stacy were in the bleachers behind first base again, Cory in his good sunglasses, Stacy in a big floppy hat.

The other team was the Gahanna Bulldogs.

They'd finished warming up and were standing on the third-base line with their caps over their hearts, waiting for the anthem.

The umpire looked at our dugout.

"Wildcats. Take the field."

Nobody moved.

I looked up from my book.

All twelve boys were sitting on the dugout bench in a row, in their uniforms, gloves in their laps.

Callen was on the end nearest me, in full catcher's gear, mask on his knee.

"Boys," the president said. "Let's go. Positions."

"No thank you," Callen said.

She stared at him. "Excuse me?"

"We're not playing," Callen said. His ears were going red but his voice was steady. "Not without Coach Mike."

"Callen, honey, that's not up to you."

"It's up to all of us," said the shortstop. "We voted. In the group chat."

"It was twelve to zero," the left fielder said. "Even the right fielder voted, and he never votes for anything."

The right fielder nodded hard.

I put my pencil down very carefully.

The umpire walked over to the dugout.

"Coach," he said to the president. "You've got two minutes to field a team or it's a forfeit."

The bleachers had figured out something was happening.

People were standing up.

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