“It should all be burned?” Ronan suggested.
I ignored him. “I’m going to say that the entire place needs extensive work. The wiring, the plumbing, the roof. The flooring, the paint, the grounds.”
“You should also say something about the equipment,” the other guy said. “We need new pads, helmets, and uniforms. Also, I need a new phone. It’s old and I cracked the screen when I dropped it.”
I ignored that as well. I thought I might have heard a squeak and I was getting nervous about us all staying in one place for so long. “Can you walk me out?” I asked Ed, and he nodded.
I wasn’t exactly sure of the path we’d used before, but we seemed to be taking a different way out now. We ended up going through a door that led to what he’d wanted to show me, the Junior Woodsmen field. It was easy to see how those players had gotten so dirty today, because the whole thing seemed to be mostly mud rather than grass. There were metal bleachers on one side and metal benches on the other.
“No lights,” Ronan announced behind us. “No heaters for us and we play during the winter. The snow-clearing equipment is Ed’s shovel. Want me to go on?”
“I think I get it,” I said. It sucked here and if I were them, I would have been desperate to get out. Why would they have stayed?
“The only reason anyone is paying attention to these problems is that a girl started a petition saying that our facility is in bad shape,” Ed explained. “It made its way up to somebody in the Woodsmen front office and they didn’t like the negative attention.”
“Any attention is good attention,” Ronan said. “That’s my personal motto.”
“You must be fun at parties,” I told him. “Does anybody ever get out of here?”
“There’s my car,” he said, pointing. “I’m going to be getting out of here within the next five minutes.”
“I mean, does anyone ever move up and make the Woodsmen team or get a spot at another high-level club?”
“The current Juniors quarterback will. I think so,” Ed answered. “He’s great. There have been a handful of others, too.”
“Then why don’t they do something about this?” I asked. I knew how well the Woodsmen got paid, from the coaches on down. “At Woodsmen Stadium, they’re always talking about all the charitable projects the team is involved in. This would be a giant one.”
“It’s not charity,” Ronan scoffed. “The Woodsmen own our team. It would be like buying yourself a new pair of shoes and then bragging about how generous you were.”
And what was wrong with new shoes? I looked at my feet and the fairly new pair that I wore. I hoped I hadn’t stepped in any rodent scat.
“The former Junior Woodsmen have other things on their minds. How often do you think about your elementary school?” Ed asked us. “They move on—”
“Moveup,” Ronan corrected.
“They moveonand then they forget,” Ed continued. “They don’t come back to visit.”
“It’s ok, Eddie. You still have me,” the other guy said. They both smiled.
I cleared my throat. “How do I get to the front parking lot from here?” It wasn’t five o’clock yet but I was more than ready to go.
It turned out that there were two ways to return to my car, and Ed explained them. One was to walk around the giant building through the mud. The other was to walk through the giant building and the mud in there, as well as the rats.
But no, there was a third. “I can drive you,” Ronan said. “My car’s back here.” He pointed again at the dirt lot. The front, where I had left my car, was where the real Woodsmen were allowed to park. It was paved and there was a guard booth to protect it.
I eyed him. “If you can drive that route, then I can also walk it,” I said.
“It’s three miles around on the roads,” Ed explained, like he was apologizing. “You’ll be fine with him or I can escort you. Happy to. The lights are probably still working in the building.”
And that was how I found myself going with Ronan. “Ronan Wilder,” he introduced himself as we walked to his car. He looked down at me expectantly.
“Cate McNaughton,” I answered. “Cate with a C.”
“That’s cute. Cute also starts with a C.”
I shook my head and we stopped beside what looked like a cross between an SUV and a truck. It was also a cross between being painted brown and large areas of raw metal where it wasn’t. Ipulled on the door handle on my side but it didn’t open. “Can you unlock this?”
“Sure.” Instead of hitting a button on his key fob or even reaching across the interior of the car, he walked around to join me on the passenger side. Then he nudged me out of the way with his hip and yanked hard on the handle that hadn’t moved despite my efforts. The door opened with a creak that was worse than the table we’d been standing on.
