The Pigeon With the Tennis Elbow (2 page)

Saved you from a skunking!
Kevin thought.

That was the only point Rusty scored, though, and the game went to Kevin. He finished off nicely in the next two games, winning
the set, 6-2.

“Well, that's one set for you,” said Ginnie as Kevin plunked himself down beside her. “And you'll take the next one. You've
got to.”

“Oh, sure,” said Kevin dismally.

“There you go. That defeatist attitude again,” said Ginnie coldly. “Can't you be
positive
for a change?”

“O.K., O.K. I'm positive. All right?”

He didn't know why he did it, but at that moment he glanced over to the pole where the pigeon was resting and saw it jerking
its head first one way and then the other as it seemed to peer at him out of one eye and then out of the other.

What a pet he'd make,
Kevin thought. He had never had a pet, not a dog or a cat or a gerbil, or even a turtle. Neither his mother nor his father
cared for animals around the house. As for Ginnie, she was on the go so much she'd never have time to spend with an animal,
anyway.

Stare at me, will you?
Kevin thought.
I ought to knock you off that pole with a tennis ball, you feathered nut.

Kevin laughed to himself, and Ginnie nudged him. “What's funny?” she asked.

“What?” he said. “Oh — nothing.”

“Honest,” she said, “you
are
a dilly.”

“O.K.!” Ben Switzer yelled. “Ready for the second set!”

It was Rusty's serve. He took the first two games, then lost the next two. Kevin, feeling that Lady Luck was with him, won
three more in a row. Rusty rallied and copped the next two games. 4-5, Kevin's favor.

Kevin went to the bench and sat there until the last second when Ben Switzer yelled, “Come on, Kev! Let's go!” and got him
to his feet. Kevin saw that Ginnie had her fingers and ankles crossed, and her eyes closed.

Hope that silly stuff works,
he thought.

His heart pounded like a drum as the ball boy handed him the two required tennis balls. Ginnie was right, he thought. He
had
to win. If he lost this game, it would mean that he'd have to play at least two more. The way he felt he'd be worthless in
both, and Rusty would come out the winner.

“Ready?” he said.

“Ready,” Rusty replied.

Taking a deep breath, then expelling it, Kevin tossed up one of the balls, rose on his tiptoes and gave the fuzz-covered sphere
a belt that drove it across the net directly at Rusty. Rusty ducked, a smile coming over his face as he yelled, “Fault!” even
before the ball hit beyond the baseline.

Kevin made the next serve good. Rusty returned it, hitting the ball gently, carefully. The ball dropped softly over the net
and Kevin, running in fast, slammed the ball back into Rusty's forecourt with such force that Rusty couldn't get near it.
15-love.

After that Kevin could see that his getting the first point had taken the wind out of Rusty's sails. He won the game easily,
the set, 6–4, and the match.

“Congrats, brother!” Ginnie cried, running across the court and throwing her arms around him. “I
knew
you'd do it!”

“I suppose it was because you crossed your fingers and ankles,” said Kevin as he pushed her hands off him.

“And shut my eyes,” she added, her eyes sparkling. “Nice game, Rusty,” she said as Rusty came forward, hand extended to Kevin.

“Don't kid me, Gin,” he said. “I was lousy. Good game, Kev.”

“Thanks, Rusty.”

“Well …” Rusty sighed. “It was either you or I against Roger on Friday. I've never beat him yet. Have you?”

“A couple of times … last year,” Ginnie answered quickly for her brother. She began dragging him away as she chattered on,
smothering whatever it was Rusty was going to say. “Good luck in your next game, Rusty! You are improving a great deal! You
really are! That serve could be a real ace if you could develop it a little more!”

Kevin stared at her as he let her drag him off the court and to the street.

“Ginnie! When did I ever beat Roger?” he asked, jerking his sleeve loose from her hold.

“O.K., I lied,” she said, her voice an octave lower.

“Lied? I guess you did!”

“Oh, don't say it as if I had just robbed the New Laswell Bank,” she blurted. “I wasn't far wrong. You were close to beating
him
twice.
”

“But still — that's not winning!”

A chuckle that sounded like a horse laugh came from behind them, and Kevin looked around to see who it was. The closest people
were a foursome some thirty feet behind them. But they each seemed to be engrossed in their own business.

Kevin turned to his sister, frowning. “Did you hear somebody laugh?”

“Yes,” she said, looking over her shoulder. “It must have been one of those characters behind us. What's the difference?”

She started to talk about Friday's tennis match with Roger Murphy, but most of what she said filtered through Kevin's brain
like water through a net.

Then a flutter of wings sounded very close to his head, and he ducked. He looked up and saw a pigeon zooming upward in a wide
loop. Then it glided down and dove at him again.

“That crazy, idiot bird!” Kevin shouted, and in the next breath yelled, “Duck!”

The pigeon missed Kevin's head by inches.
Heh-heh-heh!
sounded a voice.

Kevin's mouth dropped open. “Ginnie! Did you hear that?” he cried, staring dumb-foundedly at the bird as it flew to a tree
and landed on one of its top branches.

“Hear what?” Ginnie asked.

“He laughed!” Kevin said, pointing at the pigeon. “That pigeon actually laughed!”

3

E
ARLY THE NEXT MORNING
Kevin and Ginnie were playing tennis on the town court. He was tired but had agreed to play with her after listening to her
pleading that he practice for the better part of fifteen minutes.

The episode of the pigeon had been practically forgotten. No pigeon was known to laugh, Ginnie had told him. He just
thought
it had laughed.

After having that sensible sounding knowledge drummed into his head he really believed that it must have been something else
he had heard the pigeon call. It couldn't have been laughter.

“You've got to develop your serve and your backhand,” she now told him. “Those are your weak points. And don't you think for
one minute that Roger Murphy doesn't know it!”

“What makes you think that I'll develop a champion serve and backhand by Friday?” he said, staring at her.

“Maybe not champion. But they'll be
better!
”

“O.K., O.K.,” he said, yielding to her. What else could a guy do? Listen to her gripe at him all day? Anyway, even though
she was younger than he, what she had observed about his serves and backhand strokes made sense.

She should know. She had started to play on a school team a whole year before he had even held a racket. It just wasn't in
him to play any kind of sport while he was in the elementary grades. Conscious of his thin, reedlike body, he could never
see himself as an athlete. Not until early last year, when Ginnie began to climb all over him about playing tennis, had he
finally decided to take up the sport.

They rallied the ball back and forth across the net. Finally Kevin said, “O.K. I'm warmed up.

He stopped the ball by bringing the racket up in a short sweeping arc and striking the ball near the top so that it dropped
almost straight down in front of him. Then he caught it as it bounced up.

“Hey, that was neat, man!” Ginnie cried. “When did you develop
that?
”

Kevin shrugged. “I do it a lot while I practice knocking the ball against the house. It's no big deal.”

“Well,
I
can't do it,” she said.

Kevin stepped back behind the baseline, waited for Ginnie to get ready, then started to serve when Ginnie yelled, “Throw it
up fairly high! Then bring your racket down on it as hard as you can!”

That's new?
Kevin thought.
That's what I always try to do.

He offered up the serve and drove the ball high over Ginnie's head. It landed way behind the line.

“You didn't come down with your racket!” Ginnie cried as she ran after it.

He tried again. This time the ball struck the top of the net, dropping on his side. “Two faults in a row,” he said gloomily.
“I'm doing just great, teacher.”

“You're trying too hard,” she told him.

His next serve was good. But out of the next five tries three were out of bounds. Disgusted with himself, he collapsed on
the court, then rolled over on his back. He didn't even try to catch the ball that Ginnie returned to him.

“Something wrong, Kev?” Ginnie asked.

“Yeah,” he said. “I'm sorry I ever let you talk me into playing this crazy game.”

“Crazy game?” She came toward him, her eyes flashing fireworks. “Just because you haven't got the guts to learn the game well
you call tennis a crazy game? Well, let me tell you something, Kevin Richard O'Toole. I think you're just
saying
that. You don't mean it, because you once told me that you love the game. But if that's the way you feel, that's the way
you will feel about anything else you'll ever do with your life!”

With that she spun on her heels, her short blue skirt swirling about her slim body, and stamped off the court toward home.
He followed her and when they got to their backyard, he heard her footsteps pounding up the porch steps, followed by a hard
banging of the screen door.

He didn't blink an eye, but he stared up at the huge white clouds that drifted across the blue sky like a herd of giant elephants.
What Ginnie had said hurt. But she was wrong, darn it. Dead wrong. He
would
amount to something when he grew up, no matter what career he chose.

A shadow flickered across his face. Then he saw a pigeon flying not too far above him. It swept around in a wide circle, then
came gliding down toward him, wings spread out wide and its legs down like the landing gear of an airplane.

Kevin stared at it. It was the same pigeon that had been at the tennis match! The same that had flown by him and Ginnie on
their way home! What was the feathered little cuss up to, anyway?

The pigeon landed, closed its wings about its plump body and started to walk toward Kevin, its tail jerking back and forth
with each step.

Kevin sat up, hardly believing what he saw. This bird really had nerve!
What is there about me that attracts me to him, anyway?
he thought.
Hey, bird, you're out of your cotton-pickin' mind. I'm no pigeon. Can't you tell?

“Don't run, or scream, or do anything crazy. All right?”

Kevin's eyes almost popped out of his head. The words seemed to come out of the pigeon. But that was, of course, absurd. To
find out who had spoken, he looked to one side, and then the other.
There was no one else around.

He looked back at the pigeon.

“Keep your cool, Kevie,” went on the pigeon. “And for Pete's sake don't faint. Promise?”

His heart beating like a drum, Kevin nodded. “I — I promise,” he whispered.

The pigeon came to within an arm's length of Kevin and stopped. “I'm your great-great uncle, Rickard O'Toole,” explained the
pigeon seriously. “But call me Charlie. I hate that ridiculous name Rickard.”

Kevin felt his skin crawl. “How — how can you be? You — you're a
pigeon.
”

Charlie laughed. “I've been given another life. You know, reincarnated, boy. And I'm darn lucky. I might have come back into
this world as a rat, you know. Or a skunk. A skunk! Ugh!” He chuckled then, his eyes brightening up with mischievous pleasure.
“Now that would have been something, wouldn't it? I'd have a ball, especially with that Murphy family.”

“Why that Murphy family?” asked Kevin, still not recovered from his first shock of meeting a talking pigeon.

“Why? You should ask,” said Charlie. “I know this is news to you, but you are not the only one who doesn't like a Murphy.”

“How do you know that?” said Kevin, staring at Charlie. “Anyway, it isn't that I don't
try
to like Roger. For some crazy reason he doesn't like
me.
”