Disclaimer: I do NOT own any people in the Sandlot. But I do own Rachel and her family...

Ch.3 – All is fair in love and baseball

Rachel's POV

Phillips wouldn't dare tell anyone that Benny punched him, he'd look like a wimp, not to mention a rat. The school day started with the normal "last day of school assembly". Benny got a perfect attendance award, though that's not surprising.

The guys and I filed out of the auditorium and went our separate ways. Benny and I had AP chemistry, which we were both scraping D's in. Benny's lab partner is a girl named Alicia and my lab partner is a guy named Kyle. We shared a table because the school was running low on money. I felt bad for Alicia and Kyle, they did all the work and me and Benny just fooled around the whole time. That's why were getting D's, Alicia and Kyle weren't exactly smart.

Benny flicked me a note across the table, I caught it in my hand and looked at him, and he was grinning. I opened it up and it read;

Phillips is going to kill me.

I smirked and scribbled back;

Not if I can help it.

Benny looked across the table at me, cocking an eyebrow. He looked extremely cute when he did that. He winked at me and the bell rang, I grabbed my books and pushed in my stool, waiting for Benny to do the same.

He walked me all the way to English class in silence, which was unusual for him, so I got concerned.

"You okay?" I asked, clutching my books closer to my chest and stepping in front of him so he couldn't walk past me.

"Yeah fine." Benny said, he attempted to walk past me but I stuck my foot out in front of him. He stopped and looked at me, "What?" he asked.

"If you're worried about Phillips, don't be. He's a little munchkin, you could beat the shit out of him with one punch. He drops like a rock Benny just don't worry about it." I said. Benny nodded and I moved my foot so we could resume walking. "I'll see you at lunch." I said, as he dropped me off in front of my English class.

"Alright." He said, already halfway gone in the other direction, the bell rang, we were both late to class. I held my breath and stepped into the room.
"Well, well Rachel, nice of you to join us." said Mr. Clements. "Please have a seat."

I blushed angrily and sat down in the back of the classroom, acknowledging Squints who sat at the table in front of me. I nodded at him as if to say, "I'm fine." And he nodded back.

I sat in English for a full hour, boring. I met the guys by my locker, where they always met. I stuffed all my books in there and looked at Benny, "Are we gonna go outside today?" I asked, as we began the walk to the cafeteria. I never ate lunch, I was busy watching the baseball games going on in the fields. I didn't play in those games because girls wore skirts to school and it wasn't exactly fun sliding in a skirt. Benny always played, along with the rest of the team.

I sat with the girls on the picnic tables, secretly watching the games. It was a half day, so school ended after lunch, for the rest of the summer. All the girls were talking about shoes and clothes and I watched the game. Benny began running for home until the third baseman threw it to the catcher, Benny was in a pickle. "Oh shit!" I yelled, jumping off the picnic table and running over to the field. By the time I got there, Benny ran against home plate, just as the bell rang for the end of the day. On the walk home, Ham was describing the game in full on detail and Benny was saying, "I know, we were there."

Ham was insisting on the fact that I wasn't there, but I said, "Ham, you know I'm watching every game, give it a rest alright."