that Shug had stood at the end of the driveway and cried. Shug was waiting for it the way you wait for a pitch you know is going to hit you.
And Garrick could have said it. That was the strange part. For seven years he had wanted Shug Kettleman to know what it felt like to have something taken. And here it was. One true sentence and it was done.
"It's my bat, Coach," Garrick said. "I didn't want him using it. That's all."
Coach Amundsen turned his head and looked at Garrick for a long moment. Then he looked at Shug, whose shoulders had come down maybe half an inch.
"Kettleman?"
"I shouldn't have taken it," Shug said. His voice was rough. "I should've asked."
"You should've asked," Coach agreed. "You should've been asking for about three years now, from what I heard in that dugout." He let that sit. "And you, Thiel. You put your hands on a teammate. In a game. In front of the other team and the umpire and every parent in Lee County."
"Yes, sir."
"I don't care whose bat it is. You don't do that."
"Yes, sir."
Coach looked at the water. "You're both running poles tomorrow. Before practice. Thirty of them. Together. And if I hear one word about this outside my program, if I hear it at the Hy-Vee or the barbershop or from some booster at the Elks, I'll bench you both for Burlington." He turned to go. Then he turned back. "Thiel."
"Sir."
"Four-for-four last Tuesday. One clean hit today and a rope they had to catch. Whatever you've been doing all winter, keep doing it."
He walked away toward the bus. Garrick and Shug stood at the edge of the water, a few yards apart, not looking at each other. The wind came off the river and wrinkled the puddle and smoothed it out again.
"You didn't tell him," Shug said finally.
"No."
"Why not?"
Garrick shifted the bat on his shoulder. He did not have an answer that would fit in a sentence. He thought of his mother at the end of the Kettlemans' driveway with the lid of the trash can in her hand. He thought of a twelve-year-old face through a kitchen window.
"It's not his business," he said.