It was the after the party, Alex popped up from her bed. She realized that today she had to do something with just her three cousins like they did when they were younger. She remembered promising Peter this.
Alex got dressed and ran down the attic stairs and headed to the boys' room. She swung the door open and jumped on top of Greg who was asleep in his bed.
"Greg!" Alex yelled as she jumped on her older cousin.
"Oof!" was the sound Greg made as Alex jumped hard on his stomach. He was confused until he realized Alex was on top of him. "Alex," Greg said, "what are you doing?"
"Guess what today is, Greg!"
"Sunday?"
"Well, yeah. But today's the day we cousins are gonna hang out. Just Greg, Peter, Bobby, and me. I promised Peter that we would yesterday, but I didn't really know you guys were going to spontaneously throw me a party."
"Oh yeah," Greg said grinning, "yeah, sure. What are we gonna do today Al?"
"Well," Alex began, jumping off Greg to wake up her other two cousins, "whatever you're up to." Alex walked over and shook Bobby and Peter.
"What's the big idea?" Bobby asked.
"Alex no!" Peter wined, "it's break, we're supposed to sleep in!"
"Well fine, I just thought maybe you, Greg, Bobby, and I could do something today. Like we use to but-"
"Oh! I say we should go to the circus!" said Bobby.
"We could," Alex said, "I was thinking we could go to today's Giants game." She pulled out four baseball tickets from her jacket pocket.
Peter jumped out of his bed to go see if the tickets were real, or another of Alex's jokes. "How'd you afford these?"
"Oh you know I was saving up for them," Alex replied, handing a ticket to each of her cousins. "An early Christmas present."
"Thanks!" Bobby said when he received the ticket.
"Yeah, this is really cool of you Al," said Greg, "With you disliking the Giants so much."
"Well, let's just say I'll be rooting for the Indians."
"So when is it?" Peter asked.
"I would hurry and get dressed, it's in only," Alex looked at her watch, "Oh, about two hours."
The boys looked at each other and scurried around the room for clothes.
"And don't worry about breakfast, I'll treat you boys to a round of hotdogs," Alex called, walking out their bedroom door.
Alex walked into the kitchen were Carol and Mike sat, and Alice preparing breakfast.
"Did you give them the tickets?" Mike asked.
"Yeah they loved it." Alex replied, "they're getting ready for it now."
"But when did you get the tickets?" Carol asked.
"Awhile ago," Alex replied, "I was gonna take them anyway. Even though I was going to do something else with them yesterday, like a weekend cousin bond thing."
"That's so sweet of you." Carol said.
"Hey they're my cousins, they might as well be my brothers. And I would love to spend the day with them. Going to baseball games, eating hotdogs, like all of us use to do. Remember Uncle Mike?"
Mike took a sip of coffee. "Yeah, I remember. Your father was so determined to catch a foul ball."
"Yeah, he finally gave up on that after failing so many times," Alex chuckled.
The three boys walked down into the kitchen dressed. All wearing t-shirts, jeans, and a Giants cap.
"Ready?" asked Peter.
"It'll take about an hour and a half to get there." Stated Greg.
"Yeah," said Alex, "lets hit the road." The boys grabbed their jackets and walked out to the car.
When they took their seats in the Giants stadium, they were only ten minutes late and the Giants had already scored a point.
"Won't be surprised if the Indians lose," Alex said taking a seat in between Greg and Peter, "They're in bit of a slump right now, but one can only hope."
"You really do hate the Giants don't you, Alex?" Greg asked.
"Hate's such a strong word, more like, dislike with a strong burning passion."
The first and second base were loaded, the Indians pitch another sloppy pitch. Ball three. The next pitch the batter hit a homer. That's another three points for San Francisco.
"Aw, jeez," Alex said with a pity laugh, "It's only the top of the first inning."
"Good thing you didn't make any bets," said Peter.
The next batter was up, pitcher tossing another pitch. He hit the ball across the field, to Alex's relief they caught it. That's the Giants' second out. The first one is when the Indians barely tagged a runner out at home plate.
"Alright, alright," Alex said in a satisfied tone. "Man, I love baseball games. I would go to them all the time in New York, with my two best friends Ian and Jessica."
"Were they the ones you talked about in your letters?" asked Peter.
"Yeah, Ian is so funny, and we'd make bets how bad the Mets would lose against whatever team," Alex took a sip of her soda she bought, "I usually won, I got about forty-five bucks all together from him."
"They sound like really neat people," remarked Peter.
"You guys should come by New York someday. The big apple is outta sight."
"We will someday Al," said Greg, "I promise you, our dad said in the next year or two."
"That would be awesome!" Alex said.
"Remember that one game, when your dad tried catching a ball and when he reached his arm up and elbowed our dad in the nose?" asked Peter.
"Oh yeah, poor Uncle Mike. He got a bloody nose," replied Alex.
"Yeah, Uncle Mark can't could never catch." Stated Greg.
"Still can't," added Alex, "not even if you pitch it straight to his hands."
"I don't remember that," said Bobby.
"You were only three," said Greg, "in fact, it was your first baseball game."
After the game, they all went to get some lunch and drove home.
"That was really nice Al," Greg said getting as everyone got out of the car, "I can't remember when just the four of us did this."
"Yeah," Alex agreed, "we should do this more often."
When they walked into the kitchen Marcia and Jan were arguing over something and Peter rolled his eyes. "And we're back."
"You guys wanna do something next Thursday?" asked Alex.
"Sure," the boys rang together.
"Hi everybody!" Carol said cheerfully walking into the kitchen, Mike fallowing behind on crutches.
"How was the game?" Mike asked.
"The Giants smoked the Indians 16 to 4!" Bobby called, emphases on smoked rub in it in Alex's face.
"Wow," Mike said trying to sound surprised, but he knew that the Indians really sucked.
"Yeah, they Giants hit two grand slams all in the seventh inning," said Peter.
"When they all ready had seven point lead," added Greg.
Carol nodded, pretending to be interested, or at least, pretended to know what a grad slam was. "Well, it sounded you three had fun."
"We sure did," Greg said, answering for the other three.
"Next time you should come with us Uncle Mike," said Alex.
"Yeah sure," said Mike, "when my leg heals."