Mike chose Donna Lou first and nobody minded. She'd been the best pitcher in town for as long as anybody could remember, and if the Little League had allowed girls, most of the guys on the team-or at least the guys who weren't afraid of Chuck Sperling's father-would have petitioned him to let her pitch so they could win a few games.

The team selection more or less shook down to the north end of town-Dale's end, the poor end-playing the south end, and while the dress code was the same, jeans and white t-shirts, the difference could be seen in mitts: Sperling and the others from the south end played with new, relatively huge, and rather stiff baseball gloves, while Mike and the others were fielding with hand-me-down mitts their fathers had used. The old mitts didn't really have pockets as such-they looked more like gloves than the tapered, pocketed leather wonders Sperling and Taylor wore-and it hurt to catch fastballs, but the boys didn't mind. It was part of the game, just like the bruises and scrapes that went with a day on the diamond. None of the boys ever played Softball except when Mrs. Doubbet or some other old crone insisted at school, and then they switched to the forbidden hardball as soon as the teacher wandered away.

But now teachers were the last thing on their mind as Mrs. Stewart came out with a hamper of baloney and peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches and a cooler of Kool-Aid; the guys called a brief seventh-inning stretch even though it was only the second inning, and then they went back to work. The sky stayed gray but the heat had returned, rising into the nineties and building to a solid wall of moist discomfort. The kids ignored it. They shouted and played, batted and fielded, jogged into the benches and back out to the field, argued about whose turn it was to rotate in or who had held what position too long, but generally got along better than most Little League teams. There was good-natured heckling-especially when Sperling insisted on pitching and gave up five runs in the fourth inning-and a lot of joking, but mostly the boys and two girls took their baseball seriously and played it with the Zen-poem perfection of wordless concentration.

It was the rich southside against the lower-middle-class northside-although none of the kids thought of it that way-and the northside kicked butt. Castanatti hit well and got four of his team's six runs in the first game, but Donna Lou shut down most of the other batters and Mike, Dale, and Gerry Day singer had a good day, scoring at least four runs each. At the end of their second nine-inning game, Mike's team had won 15-6 and 21-4. Then they shuffled players and started the third game.

It probably wouldn't have happened if Digger Taylor, McKown and a couple of the others hadn't ended up playing on Donna Lou's team this time around. It was three innings in, she had pitched twenty-one straight innings, and her arm was as strong as ever when she struck out Chuck Sperling for about the millionth time and Mike's team trotted in to the bench. Lawrence was the first one up, so the others leaned back against the wire of the backstop and stuck their legs out: ten clones in faded jeans and white t-shirts. Sandy had gotten tired of playing and had wandered off when Becky Cramer and a couple of her friends had come by: Donna Lou was the only girl left.

"It's a shame we can't tell the teams apart," said Digger Taylor.

Mike mopped muddy sweat from his brow with his t-shirt.

"Whaddya mean?"

Taylor shrugged. "I mean it's too bad we all gotta look alike. Both teams, I mean."

Kevin cleared his throat and spat in that rather prissy way he had. "You think we need uniforms or something?" The idea was silly. Even the town Little League team only had unnumbered t-shirts with the official logo printed on it, and the logo faded away after about a dozen washings.

"Naw," said Taylor. "I was just thinking shirts and skins."

"Hey, yeah," said Bob McKown, a kid who lived in a grungy tarpaper house near Daysinger's grungy tarpaper house, "I'm too hot anyway." He peeled off his t-shirt. "Hey, Larry!" he shouted to Lawrence. "We're skins now! Get outta your t-shirt or get out in the field!"

Lawrence glared at the older boy for calling him by the forbidden name, but he peeled out of his size-seven Fruit of the Loom and stepped up to bat. His skinny little spine poked against the pale flesh of his back like miniature stegosaurus scales.

"Yeah, hot!" hooted one of the Fussner twins and both of them tugged off their shirts. They had identical little potbellies.

McKown slapped his bare chest and turned to Kevin sitting next to him. "You gonna skin down or join the other side?"

Kevin shrugged and pulled off his shirt, folding it next to him on the bench. There were pale freckles on his sunken chest.

Daysinger was next, and he made a production out of sailing his shirt over the backstop. It struck on the top, twelve feet up, and the kids in the field roared. A ten-year-old named Michael Shoop-a troublemaker in school and a total klutz on the field-was sitting next in line and he wadded his gray shirt up and managed to land it next to Daysinger's on the top of the fence. It was the first good throw Dale had seen the kid make all day.

Mike O'Rourke was next. He looked slightly disgusted, but he pulled off his shirt. His skin was tanned, the muscles well-defined beneath the skin.

Dale Stewart was next. He'd already pulled off his wool cap and reached for the bottom of his shirt before he realized who was next. He paused for a second. Donna Lou was the last one on the bench. She wasn't looking at him; she didn't seem to be looking at anything. She was wearing dirty sneakers, faded jeans, and a white t-shirt. Even though the shirt was looser than most of the rest of theirs, Dale realized that he could see the curves through it. Donna Lou's body had developed over the winter-the previous summer her t-shirt had been as tight and flat as anyone else's on the team-and while they weren't exactly mountains yet, her breasts were suddenly noticeable.

Dale hesitated a second. He didn't exactly know why he was hesitating-Donna Lou's t-shirt was Donna Lou's problem, wasn't it?-but he also felt that something wasn't quite right. He'd played ball with Mike and Kevin and Harlen and Lawrence and her all these years, not with these other jerks on the bench and in the field now.

''Whatcha afraid of?'' Chuck Sperling called in from where he'd been demoted to first base. "Got something to hide, Stewart?"

"Yeah, come on!" called Digger Taylor from the far end of the bench. "We're skins, Stewart."

"Shut up," said Dale. But he could feel the blush hot on his cheeks and behind his ears. Partially to conceal it, he pulled off his shirt. The air was hot but his skin felt cold and clammy. He turned and looked at Donna Lou Perry.

She'd finally turned to look at the others. Lawrence had struck out and now stopped near the head of the bench. He was all ribs and powdered dust, his wrists and neck comically darker than his torso, as he paused with the bat on his shoulder and frowned at the sudden silence. No one got up to step into the on-deck circle. No one in the field made a noise. The bench was silent, all heads were turned toward Donna Lou. They sat there-Taylor, Kevin, Bill and Barry, McKown, Daysinger, Michael Shoop, Mike, and Dale-nine sets of jeans and sneakers and bare upper bodies.

"Come on," said Digger Taylor softly. There was something strange about his voice. "We're skins, Perry. Get it off."

Donna Lou stared at him.

"Yeah," said Daysinger. He nudged Bob McKown with his elbow. "Come on, Donna Lou. You with the team or not?"

A gust of wind came in from center field and lifted a streamer of dust past Castanatti on the pitcher's mound. He didn't move. No one in the field spoke.

"Come on," said Michael Shoop in that insect whine of his, "hurry up and get it off before they call delay of game."