Chapter 6

"I am not," objected Muta, marching into his crease, his large belly pulled up into his chest in an attempt to become even more intimidatingly large.

"Yes you are, you were outside the crease when the ball hit bails off the stumps. That's out," said Toto, indicating with a gentle sweep of his wing the afore-mentioned bails that were both lying innocently on the cobbles beside the stumps they traditionally rested on top of, as well as the red ball that had caused the change.

"Yeah, but who threw it? Last time I looked, there wasn't anyone on the field," Muta persisted in his objection. "And if there were no fielders, it can't have been out."

Haru winced. Alright, so she had been aiming for the stumps, and she knew she had been good at cricket when she played with the other kids in the street before the war, but that had been more than ten years ago. She hadn't actually expected to get the rotund yet agile cat out.

Getting up – she had been kneeling on the ground as she painted – she walked up to the company, eyes on the ground as she wondered what she could possibly say.

"I threw it," she said, looking up from the ground, then from face to face. They were all staring at her now. "Sorry, I didn't mean to ruin the game… I just… I missed it, I suppose," added the brown-haired young woman apologetically.

Muta "hmph"ed, but relented. Saying "That's alright, you're allowed, but it means you're up to bat," handing over the cane-handled willow-bladed implement.

Haru accepted it and looked to the crease while Baron set the stumps and bails to rights once more.

"I don't have any padding, so you're either going to have to share, or bowl slow," Haru said. She hadn't moved.

Baron handed over his gloves and pads graciously. No one was surprised to find that his gear was just a little big for her – he was half a head taller than she was since she had shrunk – but it would do, and Haru limbered up as she headed for the other end.

"Now I just hope I don't break any windows," Haru muttered to herself as she waited for the ball. Last time she had played, windows had been left broken all over the street, some from her batting, some from others.

Baron bowled first, and came at her with a fast inswinger. Her response was to drive. She winced at the sound of shattering glass.

"That," she said, "is why I don't bat."

"You have a habit of breaking windows, Miss Haru?" Baron asked as Muta let himself into the whitewashed house to find the ball that had broken one of the upper-storey windows.

She nodded, a red glow about her cheeks and ears.

"Then perhaps we had better call it a day, you have your art waiting for you after all," the gentleman cat said as Muta reappeared in the glassless window, holding up the red ball in his paw.

"Chicky, if you can pull shots like that every time, you should play professionally," yelled the large white cat happily as he returned once more to the court. "Hey, what's going on? Why're you packing up Baron?"

"For the sake of the windows, and because Miss Haru wants to finish her painting, I thought we had better call it a day," answered the orange cat, pulling up the stumps from the bowler's end.

"Fair enough, but I'd like to send at least one delivery down her way before you do please," Muta said, indignant that he had been left out of the decision making process.

"Miss Haru?" Baron called out.

"I heard," she answered. She had been unstrapping the pads, but now she laced them back up. "It's fair enough, but just one ball please Mister Muta. It must be past time for lunch."

Muta pumped an arm up and down once, the sporting man's "yes!" of triumph. Receiving a nod from the young lady that she was ready, the fat cat came around the wicket and released a fast leg-spinner.

Haru cut it. The ball ricocheted off the frontage of one house and just barely missed another window before falling at last to the cobbles.

"Wa-HOO!" exclaimed Muta, bounding after the ball on all fours, like a happy puppy after a stick. "The girl can bat!"

"Yes she can," Haru said quietly, bending once more to remove the pads. "She just doesn't much." Removing the gloves and putting them, with the shin pads, under an arm, she proceeded to pocket the bails and pull up the stumps. She was just wondering how she was going to carry it all when another pair of hands took the pads from her.