"Two out, two on in the bottom of the ninth in the World Series. Every kid dreams of a moment like this, and now Dodgers' superstar Benny "The Jet" Rodriguez has a chance to give the Dodgers their first title since 1959. Rodriguez, you know, is a life-long Dodgers fan, starting when he was growing up in the San Fernando Valley here in California. The runners have their leads. The pitcher is set. He begins his wind-up—"
"Benny! You'll be late for school!"
Damn it. I always gotta wake up before the best part. Now I gotta hustle and get to school. Thankfully there's only a week left before it's done and we can play some ball.
"Bye Ma," I shout as I leave my house. Forget breakfast.
Smalls is waiting for me outside his house. As I run up he's got a worried look on his face.
"Benny! We might be late for school!"
"Smalls, calm down. Don't worry man, you'll get all A's this year like last year... And the year before."
When we get to school Ham is eating a chocolate bar. He sees us, and says "You're killing me Smalls! Three days left of 9th grade and you're wearing a button down shirt!"
"Yeah yeah, put on a t-shirt man," says Yeah Yeah. Squints is about to add something but just then the bell rings and we gotta sit down. DeNunez comes in late, but no one rags on him 'cause we only got 3 days till baseball.
"Class! Settle down!" Ham hears the teacher a second too late. "Mr. Porter! You seem talkative, I guess you won't mind talking to our new student and showing her around, then?"
"Busted big time," I say to Squints. "You too Mr. Rodriguez."
"Shit." I mutter to Yeah-Yeah.
"Yeah yeah you're busted now."
"My goodness, would the entire Sandlot team like to show her around? Never mind, Jody can show her around." Jody is the teacher's pet and a big know-it-all. Ham in particular dislikes her.
Anyways, the class starts off. Mrs. Leachman is the only teacher in the school—"the entire state of California," as Ham puts it, that gives us work this close to summer. Ham, Bertram, and Yeah-Yeah are all groaning and doodling, not paying attention. Smalls on the other hand is eating it up. Apparently we're doing math today. Who cares man, only math I care about is now plus three equals baseball.
About halfway through the class, Ham's asleep or at least faking (probably the latter), Smalls is scribbling away on his paper and I'm counting the seconds toward baseball. Now that's hard math, I feel that's the only math work I need.
Just then, the door opens. Holy shit.