Garrick hesitated. Then he stood up. "Come on," he said. "Down the basement. My mom's at the plant till eleven."
The Thiels' basement was low and damp and smelled like laundry soap and old fieldstone, with a single bulb hanging from a cord and a furnace in the corner like a crouching animal. There was a square of carpet remnant on the floor where Garrick stood to swing, worn down to the backing in two oval patches the size of his feet. The ceiling was too low for a full swing, so he had taught himself to swing level, short and compact, his hands staying inside the ball, because if they went out or up they hit the floor joists. That was half of it. That was the whole secret, almost. The low ceiling had taught him.
He did not say that right away. He took the bat out of his room and brought it down and handed it to Shug, handle first.
Shug held it. He did not swing. He turned it in the light from the bare bulb and looked at the brown patch near the trademark for a long time, and then he ran his thumb over it, very gently, the way you might touch a scar on somebody else.
"She did a good job," he said. "You can't tell at all."
"You can if you know."
"Yeah." Shug stepped onto the carpet square. "Okay. Show me."
So Garrick showed him. Not with words, mostly. He had never been good with words, until Thursday. He showed him with his hands, moving Shug's elbow, pressing on his back shoulder, making him take swings until the bat came down and through without touching the joists. Shug was clumsy at it at first. He was a big man's hitter with a big man's swing, long and looping, and his bat kept clipping the ceiling with a thunk that shook dust down onto both of them.
"Shorter," Garrick said. "Your hands go up before you go."
"They always go up."
"Why?"
Shug stopped. He stood with the bat on his shoulder and frowned. "I don't know. I'm getting ready."
"For what?"
"To hit it."
"You're not getting ready to hit it," Garrick said, and as he said it, he knew it was true, in the same sudden way Shug had known his thing on Friday night. "You're getting ready for after. You're thinking about the notebook. Your hands go up because you're already flinching. Like you're waiting for somebody to grade it."