The next day, we were at it for a couple hours until Ham was up at bat. Imitating the Babe again. No wonder DeNunez decided to throw a high ball. Ham still went for it, and nearly fell over from the momentum of his swing. "Whoa!" I couldn't help commenting on that, "You nearly lost your head!" I said before I threw the ball back.
"You call that pitching? This is baseball, not tennis! Give me something I can hit."
He proved he could hit DeNunez's heater all right. Clean over the evil fence. We try to avoid it when we possibly can. But every time we lose a ball, we never see it again, and one of us needs to beg our parents for the money to buy another ball. "Ham, you idiot! Now we can't play no more." I shout at him as he continues to run the bases. It looked more like he was traveling through a gauntlet of angry baseball gloves as everyone pelted him continuously.
I didn't care. He did deserve it, and I was disappointed that we still had a good portion of the day to kill, and no ball to play with. I was knocked out of my moping when squints started shouting, "Noooooooo!" I look up, and I see Scotty trying to climb the fence. I didn't think, I just ran, the others doing the same. My long legs allow me to get there first, and I grab at Scotty's waist and try to pull him down from the fence. It's awkward, but I practically threw him over my shoulder in order to get him away from there. My heart was racing, and I thought I was going to have a heart attack. My mind started to plague me with images of what could have happened, if he went over there.
"Holy crap, you could have been killed!" Squints said.
"Yeah, yeah, truly. What are you doing?"
Scotty tried to defend himself. "You guys were leaving, so I just thought I'd hop the fence…"
"If you were thinking, you wouldn't have thought that."
I told him as I caught my breath. "You can't go back there, Smalls."
"Then how do we get the ball back?" He asked, helpless.
"We don't." The others start to tell him to forget about it.
I continue, "Game's over, man. We'll just get another ball tomorrow. We'll never see it again." We all turn to head back.
"Why not?" Scotty asked.
We all answered, as though it was the most natural thing, "The Beast…"
"What is that?" He asked, clearly confused.
I knew there was no way but to show him what we were talking about. I come closer to him, "Smalls, listen to me." I tell him as I gesture to the fence, "Go to that fence… real slow, and be quiet.."
I know I was scaring him as he stammered, "But… I-I think…"
"No, no, no. No, no." I say to get him to stop talking. "Just go and peek through that hole."
"But I… but I saw something. What's back there?"
"It's okay. Just go." I gently push him. It wasn't really ok, but he had to see. "Just go."
I watched with trepidation as he crept up to the fence. I waited with baited breath until he jumped back and moved towards us. "Something got the ball. W-what was that thing?"
We knew that was going to be a long story, and since we couldn't play anymore today, we all looked at each other and we were all in agreement. "Camp out."
We all go back home and grab our stuff in order to spend the night in our club/tree house. Night came quickly, and Smalls was the last one there. I started to set up my sleeping bag near the back, and I couldn't help but giggle as Scotty didn't understand what Ham was talking about by a S'more. We really need to take this kid camping for real.
We all settle in, and listen to Squints regal the tale of The Beast. I don't really know how much of this is true, but that… thing gave me the creeps. It has ever since I came here, and Squints' story didn't help matters. I was too afraid to even question it. But I didn't let on to just how scared I was.
Scotty tried to see if we were pulling his leg, but I could tell that he believed the story just as much as we all did. And he was just as scared as we were. It wasn't long after that we decided to hunker down for the night. Scotty and I were in the back, and I decided to keep my eye on him. I had nightmares the first time I heard that story, and I hoped he wouldn't tonight.
I stayed awake, listening to the crickets, and waiting for sleep to finally claim me. It must have been around 2:00 in the morning when I heard Scotty whimpering. He was twitching in his bag, and I knew he was having a nightmare. I decided to shake him awake. "Hey!" I whispered. His eyes opened, and I waited until he was looking at me. "Bad dream?" I asked.
"…Yeah… sorry…" He whispered back.
"Don't worry about it, man."
"Why the heck do you guys have a tree house right next it?"
Good question. "It's been here ever since the sandlot was put in. No one uses it except for us." I could tell he had other questions, but he just looked away. "Try to get some sleep, man. Nothing's gonna happen to you. We're all here for you." I tell him as I rub his arm in a comforting motion. He seemed to relax somewhat, and settled back down. I decided to shift a little closer to him, for his comfort, as well as my own. It must have worked, because we both fell asleep soon afterwards.
The next morning, there was a heat wave, and we were all ready and waiting for Squints and Yeah-Yeah to arrive with the new ball. It probably was an hour later when I saw them finally running up. "Where you guys been? We've been waiting here forever already." I couldn't help but roll my eyes as Yeah-Yeah was teasing Squints about his not so secret crush on Wendy.
It was then that Ham came up to me. "This pop isn't working, Benny. I'm baking like a toasted cheeser! It's so hot here!" He already had a thick sheen of sweat, and I was barely breaking into one. Maybe I'm just built to handle the heat better, but isn't part of training to be the best supposed to test your limits in all weather conditions?
But the others quickly took Ham's side. "It's 150 degrees out there. You can't play baseball."
"You have to call it for the day."
"You gotta listen to him, Benny."
I was upset. We finally got a new ball, and they didn't even want to try. "Vote then. Anybody who wants to be…" I thought of the worst things I could think of in my frustrated fazed mind, "a 'can't hack it' pantywaist… who… wears their mama's bra, raise your hand." To my astonishment, they didn't even skip a beat as they all raised their hands. Even Scotty did, but at least he hesitated. I gave in, "Fine, fine, fine!" Needless to say I was disappointed. "Be like that. So what are we gonna do?"
That's when Yeah-Yeah let out a lecherous laugh, and the rest didn't take long to catch his drift. "Scam pool honeys!" They all shouted. I rolled my eyes. Scotty looked a little lost. They all got up, and started running to their respective homes to grab their stuff. I took my time, and Scotty was not far behind.
"You all right, Benny?" He asked.
"Fine. Just… fine." I was a little snappish, and I felt bad that Scotty was the one to get the brunt of my bad mood.
After a bit of silence, "I'm sorry we couldn't play today." He said.
I look over at him, and I could see how the weather was affecting him too. It was then that my mood deflated a bit. As much as I love baseball, I knew that I was the only one who was that serious about it. Scotty was the one trying to keep up with everyone. I could tell he still felt like an outsider. Which was probably why he sided with the rest of the guys. "Well, at least the pool is good for resistance training."
"Um, what were the others talking about?"
"Oh, that's their catch phrase for wanting to scope out the chicks at the pool." I guessed there was something wrong with me. Growing up, I never really thought about girls. I've always just thought about baseball. I always assumed it was because I was more disciplined. But really, I just could care less about girls.
"Oh…" He said. I couldn't tell if he was down with the idea, or not. Either way, the others were probably done getting ready by now, and we're the ones who lived the furthest away.
"Come on, I'll race you home!" I say cheerily to him. He was in hot pursuit, and we both made it in record time. We split up to grab our swim gear, and headed out to meet the others.
My spirits had lifted somewhat by then and like the others, I couldn't wait to jump in the pool. We all filed in like a swarm, throwing our towels to the side, and jumping in. We usually used the pool to have splashing contests, wrestling matches, and see how many times we can dunk each other.
Scotty wasn't shy about trying to wrestle, and I already knew I could lift him myself, so I took every opportunity to throw him into the water whenever he jumped on me. The others were pelting us with water, and others tried to dunk me, but I still reign as the strongest. Scotty tried to surprise me whenever I seemed distracted, and I couldn't help but notice how I was the only one he was scuffling with.
I decided to brush it off as we all ended up looking at Wendy on her lifeguard post. As I watched her put on her sunscreen, I couldn't help but say, "Aw, man." At her obvious display. She was doing it on purpose. As obvious as a neon sign.
"She don't know what she's doing." Timmy and Tommy both said.
"Yeah she does." I was borderline disgusted. "She knows exactly what she is doing."
I was running on automatic as I watched Squints make the most stupidest move trying to get a piece of Wendy Peffercorn. An act that ended up getting us all banned from the pool. I admire his balls, but I'm not so sure it was worth a lifetime ban.
