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Spencer was getting nervous; he began picking imaginary lint off his pants, a sure sign that he was nervous.
    Hal Burser pointed to Botts and said, “Botts wants to know why we have to have a lady manager. Like why can’t we have a man?”
    “If Botts wants to know, let Botts ask,” Mother said.
    Botts asked. “Why do we have to have a lady manager?” His voice kind of trailed off at the end of the question.
    Mother said, “The question has been asked and seconded, ‘Why do we have to have a lady manager?’ There is only one possible explanation.” She paused, took a deep breath, and with her hands straight down at her sides, said, “The reason why you have a lady manager is because chlorophyll is a catalyst that enables a plant to use the energy of the sun to convert carbon dioxide and water into sugar and oxygen.”
    Long, long pause. No snorts. Nothing. We all waited, but Mother said nothing more. She just folded her arms across her chest and tapped her foot and smiled at the whole dugout, her audience. We were all puzzled.
    Finally, Hersch said, “But, Mrs. Setzer, that about chlorophyll is just a fact of life.”
    Mother didn’t give his sentence a chance to cool off before she pressed in hers. “And so is your having a lady manager! It’s just a fact of life, and you have to face it. You have to face facts.” Then she took her arms from her chest and raised them outward. She shrugged her shoulders and smiled at the boys. “Now that we have that over with, can we play ball?”
    Spencer laughed first. I was second. We gave everyone the cue that it was all right to laugh, and they did. When the laughter died down, naturally died down, I started it again by making out that I had an uncontrollable urge that I tried to stifle behind my hand. Finally, the second laughter died, too. It wasn’t as long or as hard as the first. I wasn’t tempted to start it again because I caught a certain look from Spencer.
    Sidney Polsky raised his hand and said, “Mrs. Setzer, would you mind repeating that so that I can tell my mother?”
    Mother responded, “All right, you guys, now when someone, anyone, asks you why you have a lady manager, you tell them. Now repeat after me: The reason why you have a lady manager is because chlorophyll is a catalyst.…”
    And we all repeated after Mother; that was our first lesson in baseball that season. As the kids left the dugout for the playing field, they chanted it to themselves. After the last of the team was on the field I saw Mother look up to where the light fixture should have been but there was only sky, and I heard her mutter, “That was a good idea about the chlorophyll. Left over from the herb garden, but good.” She kissed the tips of one set of fingers and then the other and held themupward for the breeze to send those kisses to the Deity who had moved with her to the ball park.
    After those introductions, we began calisthenics; every time I leaned down to touch my toes, I felt rivers of pain leap up in my head. And when we ran around the bases to loosen up, the vibrations set my whole head to quaking each time I put my foot down. After doing awful two times at bat, I retired. Spencer was pitching batting practice, and he could have fed them to me a bit softer. He being my brother and all. Besides, he knew about the braces. As I walked to the bench, I said to myself, “Think of Sandy Koufax.” And then I answered myself, “Sandy Koufax had a much more dramatic ailment than just crooked teeth. Great pains make great heroes, but toothaches just make lousy batting averages.” So I sat out and watched.
    The twins were terrific. They were like two pros among us. Simon and Sylvester looked as if they were looking in a mirror when they faced each other. Completely identical except that one was right-handed and the other was a lefty. They parted their hair on opposite sides, too. There’s a word for twins like that; they’re called mirror-image twins. They were both