Three Strikes and a Hairball

Marcus stood in right field, literally counting grass blades while his crush, Jasmine, stood on third base looking like she belonged on a magazine cover rather than middle school gym class. Meanwhile, Marcus was wearing his older brother's hand-me-down cleats that pinched his pinky toes and praying the baseball wouldn't come anywhere near him.

"IF IT HITS THE GROUND, YOU GOT THIS, MARCUS!" Coach Miller yelled from the dugout, because obviously shouting made everything better.

The ball launched off Jackson's bat with a sound that made everyone watching flinch. Marcus watched it arc through the sky and thought: this is fine, this is totally fine, except it was absolutely not fine. The ball was descending right toward him at what felt like light speed.

He started running toward where he thought it might land, then pivoted when he realized his original guess was catastrophically wrong. His brain helpfully supplied a highlight reel of every sports-related humiliation he'd experienced since kindergarten, which was a lot of them.

And then a streak of gray fur shot past his legs.

Mrs. Gable's escaped cat – who had been prowling around the school perimeter all week like it owned the place – suddenly decided this baseball situation was its personal business. The cat leaped, somehow intercepted the ball mid-air with a surprising amount of athletic ability, and landed gracefully with the baseball clamped in its mouth.

Everyone stopped running. The cat sat there, looking extremely pleased with itself, like THIS IS WHAT I'VE BEEN TRAINING FOR.

Jasmine started laughing. Not mean-girl laughing, but actual laughing, doubled over with her hand over her mouth. Jackson was laughing too. Even Coach Miller cracked a smile.

"Bro," Jackson said, jogging over. "Your cat just robbed me of a triple."

"That's not my cat," Marcus said, still processing what had just happened.

The cat dropped the baseball and trotted over to Marcus, rubbing against his legs like they'd been best friends forever. Marcus bent down and hesitantly petted its head, and it immediately flopped over for belly rubs.

Jasmine walked over from third base. "That was literally the most athletic thing that's happened in gym class all year."

"The cat carried the team," Marcus admitted.

"You should bring it to every game," she said. "Seriously."

Marcus scratched the cat behind its ears, feeling weirdly confident for the first time ever during sports. Maybe getting rescued by a random cat during the most awkward moment possible wasn't how he'd imagined winning Jasmine's attention, but honestly? He'd take it.