Three Strikes at Independence

The baseball sat in my sweaty palm like a grenade ready to explode. Tryouts were tomorrow, and my nerves were doing jumping jacks that made my stomach churn worse than Mom's mystery meat casserole.

"Marcus! Your goldfish is looking depressed again," Emma called from downstairs. She was right. Finnegan had been hovering at the bottom of his bowl for three days, his orange scales dull as a pencil eraser. I'd won him at the county fair last summer, back when I thought winning things mattered more than earning them.

Mittens, our orange tabby cat, wound around my ankles, purring like a tiny motor. She'd been eyeing Finnegan since we brought him home — "calculating" was definitely the word. Everyone knew cats and fish were enemies, like me and Jason Miller ever since he'd spread that rumor about me crying in sixth grade.

"What's up with the fish?" Emma asked, leaning against my doorframe. She was sixteen now, practically an adult, with that infuriating older-sister wisdom that made me want to scream sometimes.

"I don't know. Maybe he's lonely. Maybe he knows I'm probably going to embarrass myself at tryouts tomorrow."

Emma laughed. "First of all, it's a fish. Second, since when do you care what Jason Miller thinks? You're the one who's been practicing your curveball until your arm felt like jelly."

She had a point. A really annoying point.

That night, I dreamed about baseball diamonds that turned into fishbowls and cats playing outfield. When I woke up, Finnegan was finally swimming around like his old self, and somehow the panic in my chest had settled into something smaller. Manageable.

Tryouts were still terrifying. Coach Whitman's voice boomed like he was announcing a monster truck rally. But when I threw my first pitch — a perfect curve that caught the outside corner — everything went quiet. Jason Miller's jaw dropped like a cartoon character.

I made the team. Finnegan lived another day. And Mittens? She was just sitting on the windowsill, probably plotting her next move.

Some things you can't control. But sometimes, you just gotta throw the ball and see what happens.