A/N: Mostly my characters, have to put it here though, yadda yadda…(sorry, very busy these days ;)

Disclaimer: S.E. Hinton owns The Outsiders

My Exciting Life

Chapter 4

"Uncle Darry?"

Tap BAM. "Yeah?" Tap BAM.

I set the eraser of my pencil against my bottom lip. "What's an eight-letter word for a person guided by ideals rather than by what is practical? It begins with an 'i'."

Tap BAM. "Idiot."

I counted it out on my fingers. "That's only five letters."

Uncle Darry took the last nail out of his mouth. Tap BAM. "So give it a few extra t's at the end."

"Right. Good idea." I love doing the crossword puzzle with Uncle Darry. I leaned over and filled in the boxes with 'idiotttt'. I glanced up as he started in with another mouthful of nails. Tap BAM. He's got this great way of hammering, where he sets the nail with one little tap, then brings the hammer back and pounds the rest of the nail straight through, flat against the sheetrock, with one sharp strike.

"Don't you people know it's only," Robbie glanced at his bare wrist, "kind of early in the morning? Sunday morning, at that?" He raked a hand through his hair and scratched his chest.

"It's ten-thirty," Uncle Darry said.

"Yeah, well," Robbie started, looking indignant, "SOME of us around here work hard all week, moving heavy objects and getting sweaty and tired."

Uncle Darry gave him a hard stare.

"And when Sunday finally rolls around, the REST of us would like to get some sleep," Robbie finished.

"Hey, we're back!" Dad called out. He and Jon came back to the new addition a minute later carrying some bags marked with the hardware store's logo. "Couldn't find the washers, but we got the rest of the stuff. Sorry, didn't expect to be gone that long. You managing okay without me?"

Uncle Darry choked back a laugh and I think almost swallowed a nail doing it. Dad pretended to look insulted.

"I saw Vauniman," Jon told Robbie, pulling a piece of paper out of his back pocket. "He's in."

I went back to the crossword puzzle while they talked about their baseball team. Six-letter word for members of the horse family…

"So is that everybody?" Robbie asked.

Why can't you just say 'horse' when you want to talk about a horse? I wrote down 'horsee'.

"Yeah," Jon answered. "You snagged Peterson the other day at work, and Montero and Kenley -"

I snapped my head up. "Who?"

Jon looked at me like I was speaking a foreign language. "What?"

"Did you say Emilio is on your team?" I asked casually, ignoring my pounding heart.

"Oh. Yeah." Jon turned back to Robbie. "So with Vauniman added this morning, I think we've got a pretty strong team."

"I'll play with you," I offered.

My brothers both gave me an odd look. Even Dad glanced over to see what I was smoking. "Anyway," Robbie started, deciding to ignore me.

"Hey!" I protested. "Come on, you have to let me play!"

"Uh…I don't think so," Robbie said, picking up a pamphlet for deck stain and leafing through it. "No, nope, doesn't say anything at all here in the official manual about letting incompetent inept people who don't know a baseball from Venus play on our team."

I snatched the pamphlet out of his hand. "I'm your sister," I reminded him. "You have to let me play. Besides," I added, "it's not that I can't play, I just never really wanted to all that much." I mean, really, how hard could it be, right?

Uncle Darry kept hammering, but I thought I detected a snicker between hits. I ignored him.

"Okay," Robbie said, immediately winning a horrified look from Jon, but he held his hand up to indicate that he had everything under control, "answer a couple of questions then. Ready?"

I nodded impatiently.

"First, and I'll start with an easy one – how many points to you get when you run a touchdown?" He gave a smug grin.

My brain went into overdrive and didn't let my mouth catch up with things. "Uh…one! No, wait…" Robbie was smiling now, and Jon looked relieved. How many points…it had to be one, right? "Yeah, one." Uncle Darry was laughing now, and my brain finally slowed down and processed Robbie's question. "Hey, that's not fair! Touchdowns are in football!"

"So what's the big deal all of a sudden about being on a baseball team?" Dad asked. Hmmm…tell Dad that I'm having mental images of myself impressing a boy two years older than me by strutting around swinging a baseball bat and maybe twisting an ankle or something so he has to carry me off the field? I don't think so.

"I've never been on a team at school," I explained. "I just thought it would be fun to do something with my brothers since I don't get to see them all day, and my best friend is in California all summer." Jon and Robbie both work at a horse ranch. They both made snorting snickering suppressed-laughing noises, so I shot them a glare. "So can I play on their team?" I asked Dad, who was busy unwrapping little packets of…hardware.

Dad shrugged. "It's up to your brothers, honey. I'm not involved in this."

Needless to say, that was the end of the conversation. For the moment.

> > > > >

"So please, guys?"

Jon finally sighed. I had been badgering them all day, finally suggesting that they let me play one game if I proved that I could play baseball. "I don't see the harm," Jon suggested to Robbie, who put his hands over his face.

"I knew you would cave," Robbie groaned. "Alright. Alright, you can play, but only if all of the following conditions have been met: we have had at least six games before you play; you bat once and only once per game, but only if it will not put the team in a bad position; AND you first show us that you indeed have mastered the game of baseball. Or at least that you won't be running the ball into the end zone."

"Fine," I agreed. Six games. At two games a week, I had three weeks to prepare. Plenty of time, right? All I needed was somebody who would practice with me without trying to make me worse than I already was. Somebody who didn't have a stake in keeping me off of their stupid team. Somebody who knew about baseball.

> > > > > >

"Please?"

"No."

"Please?"

"Go away."

"Come on, please? Isn't there something I can do for you? Make your bed for a week? Do some of your chores?" I held my breath in anticipation while Jason turned the page of his magazine and leaned farther back into the couch pillow.

"No," he said again. I was about to rip out my hair.

"Jason," I tried again, "I really need your help here. Really. Please? Just for, like, an hour a day. Half-an-hour. Fifteen minutes!" I thought back to the night of the fireworks. "I can hook you up with Dawn," I offered. As if I even really knew Dawn, but I was desperate by that point.

Jason didn't move, but I could see a flicker of interest. "What makes you think I need your help to get hooked up with someone?" he asked. Jeez, why hadn't I thought of this angle an hour ago?

"Because Jackie told me that Dawn's parents don't want her dating older boys. But they know Jackie, so they can know me, and you're my brother. If I invite Dawn over here…" I trailed off to let him use his imagination, which incidentally kind of made me shudder, so I tried to not think about it.

I watched Jason turn another page, but I could see that he wasn't paying attention to his magazine any more. Dad says I'm good at reading people. "Okay," Jason said, "let's say I help you out. What's to say you'll hold up your end of the bargain?"

I had to think fast. "I'll have a sleepover in a week and a half. Saturday night. You won't have work that night, and Mom and Dad are going out with Soda and Melanie that night, remember?" It was working, I could see it was working. I smiled inwardly. To give outward signs that I thought I had won would be akin to disaster. Jason would never go along with it if I made it seem like I had pulled something over on him. "By that point I probably still won't be too good. You can even withhold some training until after then," I added.

Jason gave a short sigh. "Alright. I'll do it. But if you piss me off, we're done. Got it? And don't come waking me up. We'll start after I have lunch, and for no more than thirty minutes." Jason works on an overnight road crew. They work on the highway from eight at night until four in the morning, when there isn't as much traffic and it's dark and cooler out. He gets home and goes to bed by five, then sleeps until twelve or one.

I nodded. "Sounds good." Neither of us made like we were all that excited; Jason got up and strolled off to his room, and I sauntered into the kitchen. But I swear, between my excited squeals once I was in the kitchen, I swear I heard him whoop something out in his room above me. Who knows. Still, Jason, excited about anything? More likely, Dallas had brought in a dead mouse and left it on his pillow.