Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: BACK TO BASICS (02/16/17)
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TITLE: Covert Basic Training | Previous Challenge Entry
By LINDA GERMAIN
02/23/17 -
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ADD TO MY FAVORITES
I run into the house where Grammy is stirring something on the stove. She doesn’t say a word about the screen door slamming.
“Hey, Grams…where’s Grandpa’s glove at?”
She doesn’t answer. Maybe she didn’t hear me. I pump up the volume.
“GRAM! WHERE’S THE BALL GLOVE AT?”
Slowly, she turns and fixes me with that familiar, blue-eyed stare that speaks volumes. I know what she’s about to say.
“It’s behind the A-T.”
“Why can’t I say at when I’m searching for something?”
Without looking down at me, she continues to stir the pot.
“All that’s necessary to say is, ‘Where is the ball glove?’”
I know I sound whiny, but I can’t seem to let go of challenging this stern insistence on good grammar.
“Everybody says it. I even hear it on the news, and from my friends.”
I know that won’t cut much ice with her, and that I’m defending a lost cause, but a guy has to take a stand even when it’s on shaky ground.
She changes the subject.
“Would you like some vegetable soup?”
It does smell kind of nice, but I have things to do; people to see.
“Maybe later, when Wheezy Malone and me gets hungry. His momma don’t cook so good as you.”
Grammy winces. Her face looks like she’s having a bad pain somewhere. Suddenly, like the sun waving from behind a dark cloud, it all changes. She’s smiling in a mysterious kind of way.
Why do I get a sinking feeling?
“You know, Scooter (my nickname), I don’t know too much about baseball. Do you think you and the gang would be willing to help me learn a few basics about the game?”
I’m too young and inexperienced to deflect what’s coming down the track. I can almost hear the Grammy-train whistle blasting away, but there’s no way to outrun the impending plan.
For now, all thoughts of the glove have deserted me. I must have been miraculously transported to the kitchen table because suddenly I’m sitting in front of a big bowl of soup and clutching my favorite spoon.
I eat. She talks.
“Now here’s my deal, Scoots. If you can talk your pals into stopping here for one hour on the days you have a game, I’ll furnish lunch for the whole bunch.”
“Uh…what’s the catch?”
She’s loaded for bear and ready to shoot.
“I want to share some splendid secrets with you and the team that will serve you well for the rest your lives.”
My ten-year-old mind leaps into fantasies of buried treasure, or future birthday presents.
“What secrets?”
I can see she doesn’t intend to tell me. She’s humming, and kind of grinning, like that cat in the movie where Alice falls down a hole, and an over-dressed rabbit wears a pocket watch. I feel like maybe I’m the one who’s fallen in that hole.
I find Grandpa’s glove and take off to the empty lot where we pretend we’re the real boys of summer. Gram’s reputation precedes her. My always hungry teammates are excited about the idea of lunch at my house. We decide to play ball every day. She won’t mind.
No obvious treasure is lurking on our horizons, but one of the first secrets she shares is actually pretty neat.
She says that when we aren’t sure whether to use ”I” or “me” in a sentence, just remove all the other names and say it out loud.
In other words, it would sound kind of dumb to say, “She fixed lunch for Wheezy and I.”
Remove old Wheeze, and it’s obvious that “I” is the wrong word.
I don’t know if we’ll ever get around to teaching her about bases and curve balls and such, but she sure is sneaking up on us with the correct way to speak. She also is mixing in some cool stories from the Bible.
A fundamental deduction I have reached is this: Chocolate Chip Cookies are great incentives and amazing equalizers.
One more batch and we might just forget about baseball for a while. After all (and please don’t tell Grammy), now we know where the good stuff is at.
_____
Proverbs 22:6 (NLT)
Direct your children onto the right path, and when they are older, they will not leave it.
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At risk of daring some red ink on a piece that has already passed muster with the judges...
Your MC's vocabulary did not seem, to me, authentic for a ten-year-old. If the story had been written with his adult perspective on events when he was ten, I think the word choices would have worked fine.
Nevertheless, it was an enjoyable read that illustrated the topic well.