After his father slipped into his black hole last fall, he hardly ever caught for Nate anymore. But Nate still carried the bucket of balls out back every afternoon, all through October and November, aiming for the red circle of a target on the mattress they’d hung against the barn. More and more, he was hitting it too. When he went to Larry’s, the two of them played catch for hours, and when he was home and throwing on his own, Junie would come out with him and settle herself on an old tractor seat mounted on a tree stump their dad had made. When the bucket of balls was empty, she’d scurry to collect the balls. And after Nate was done throwing a second round, he’d play catch with her, the way their father had done with him in better days. Sometimes he’d try out his screwball, but he could never get the motion right.

Nate would never have believed the day would come when he’d pass up baseball tryouts. But now he pictured how it would be to see Larry, hanging out on the bench with the other guys, and he thought about the words on the bathroom wall at school.

“You coming out for pitcher this year, Chance?” Mr. Johnson asked him in gym class.

“I don’t know,” Nate replied. “I’m pretty busy these days getting ready for the science fair.”

“Try to make it,” he said. “The team could use you.”

Nate stopped in the boys’ room again after school. He was in a stall with the door closed when he heard familiar voices at the sink.

“Hey, get a load of this,” Travis was saying. “Someone drew a picture of Nate Chance’s wacko father and his mom that blew him away. Pretty funny. I bet Pete did it.”

“People shouldn’t put up stuff like that,” Larry’s voice said. “It’s not Nate’s fault, what happened. How’d you feel if it was you?”

“Jeezum,” said Travis. “When did you turn into the pope? It’s just a goof, is all.”

“That’s probably not how Nate sees it,” said Larry.

Hearing his old friend’s voice just outside the door, Nate couldn’t move.

“All I can say is, I sure hope he’s not crazy enough to show up for tryouts on Saturday,” said Travis. “Nobody wants a psycho kid on our team.”

Nate heard the sound of someone pulling a towel from the dispenser and then the door swinging shut. He waited a moment, to be sure, then stepped out.

He caught a glimpse of his face in the mirror, and the sight startled him. Over the last stretch of long, dark weeks, his features seemed to have changed. He looked stronger than before, and older.