Mom I said my breath heaving out and making a whooshing sound like a fastball past your ear I don’t think I am a girl M And not long after that almost everything changed I decided my new full name would be Caspar My dad got a new job flying planes for an American company We moved from our house in Toronto all the way to Washington State a place with lots of rain and hardly any snow I left my own baseball team the Leslieville Lightning I left my favorite major league team the Toronto Blue Jays My dad let me see one last game at Rogers Centre and I cried when the players came out and even for ACE the Blue Jays mascot with his number 00 That was what happened to me when we moved My dial was set back to 00 We went thousands of miles away where nobody knew us And only my mom my dad my dog and I knew I had ever been called Cassandra 6 JENNY MANZER
The Tryout There were things I missed about home I missed my best friend Matt I missed some of the boys on my house-league team the Lightning but not all of them Definitely not all of them I missed the ballpark where I’d played since I was four starting with T-ball I moved on to baseball when I was five joining a group of seven-year-olds I’d worked my way up to play on the Red Devils an all-star team They named a hot dog The Devil Dog at my local ballpark after the Red Devils because we were that good I was the only girl on the team but everyone was cool with it because of my arm That girl’s got some arm they always said The hot dog was epic There was nothing better than eating one after winning a game So there were good memories 7
as well as the bad We moved to our new house in Redburn at the end of June just after school ended making a clean break my mom said Mom I said There’s nothing to doooo She was busy unwrapping dishes all that stuff we didn’t use a lot like the fancy bowls and plates my parents got as wedding presents You can help me unpack That’s boring Yes it is Caz she agreed frowning My dad was working At least he just did short little hops not overnight flights He’d be home for dinner She seemed to be getting used to my new name Back home we’d gone to see a therapist named Miss Linda We’d talked all about comfort zones and next steps I had always preferred to wear Adidas pants and hoodies and board shorts and so I’d offi cially packed away the sundresses and barrettes for good Mom had helped me stuff everything into a giant garbage bag and then we’d dropped it off at the Salvation Army Sometimes people have to do brave things Summers were cooler in Washington State than at home in Ontario I was also still getting used to the green money I worried that one day I would acciden tally give someone twenty bucks for a bag of chips 8 JENNY MANZER
The weather was cool and it was spitting rain The tv newscasters were calling it Junuary I looked up the forecasts on the Internet and at home it was nothing but sunbursts But I didn’t really want to go back not after what had happened I trudged downstairs to our rec room My dad had promised he’d get us a Ping-Pong table for the new house and a foosball table too I could invite my friends over he said If I ever made any friends I turned on the tv to watch a dvd of the Blue Jays in the playoffs and plunked myself onto the couch pulling my cap down on my head and folding my arms over my chest What was the point of anything without baseball Caspar no my mom called from the kitchen No what I asked She was probably going to tell me to get outside We’d been in Redburn for five days I’d stayed inside almost the whole time like some strange person on one of those reality tv shows No more tv Out she said Take J R for a walk Go find the park It’s close and it’s got a ball diamond I can’t believe you haven’t checked it out yet J R eyed me He looked kind of sad himself the way golden retrievers can He was no longer a puppy even though he acted like it The initials were 9 MY LIFE AS A DIAMOND
