head over heels | benny rodriguez, the sandlot

| chapter thirty six |

The walk to his place was fairly lackluster to start, with nothing but a few passing cars and an occasional squirrel to entertain me.

Yet I had this awful feeling that something was off.

Though the walk was short, there were these sounds of pattering footsteps, twigs snapping, and snickering voices flooding my ears. Am I losing my mind?

Though my heart was speeding up by the second, I managed to catch whatever was following me by quickly spinning around.

"Huh?"

To my surprise, rather than a dozen men in ski masks, I was greeted by three kids shrunk below me, wearing all black and holding lights.

"Shit Squints, I just knew you'd blow our cover with your stupid laugh!" Ham fumed, punching the boy in the shoulder.

"Was not!" The little boy in glasses replied, looking at the companion to his right in approval as he gripped a red flashlight.

"Yeah yeah, he's right Ham, your heavy ass footsteps definitely blew our cover!" Yeah yeah snickered, shoving the boy in return.

I shook my head. "What are you weirdos doing following me? Isn't it past your bedtime?"

The kids gasped in anguish, "For your information Giselle, we don't have a bedtime. Also, we weren't following you. Just... uh..."

"Observing!" Ham chimed in.

Realizing how extremely late I was, I knew I had to speed up the process. "Spit it out boys, or he gets it," I spoke while holding a tight grip on Squint's ear as he winced in discomfort.

"OKAY OKAY!" He croaked, "Look we just- I just- we were investigating."

"Investigating what, you creeps?"

"Oh Elle, stop playin' stupid," Yeah Yeah rolled his eyes "We all know there's something suspicious about you and Benny."

Kill me now.

"Wh-What?!" I gasped, pretending as if I had absolutely no idea of the topic.

"Yeah yeah, saw you walkin' home from his house in the middle of the night a couplea' days ago. We're always watchin' Elle. Always watchin'."

"Ugh, yuck!" I said through my teeth, "Nothing is going on, besides, it's none of your guy's business anyways. Now scram!"

Yet, before continuing on my walk, Ham held out a pudgy finger, "One more question."

"Yeah?"

"Might one ask where you're headed at 9:25 PM on a Wednesday night?"

I froze for a moment, a million replies swirling through my skull until I finally answered. "My friend Diane's house. Now I'm very late and would greatly appreciate it if you would stop following me. Night!"

"WE'RE ALWAYS WATCHING!"

And off I ran, spontaneously turning a random corner and hiding behind a rusty mailbox for a few minutes to ensure their departure, before continuing my walk - well now sprint - to Benny's house.

-

"Pst! Benny! Open up!" I softly muttered while banging aggressively on his window. It immediately opened, revealing a clean-looking boy in the opening.

He was effortlessly standing there, wearing a white wifebeater and pair of plaid pajama pants with his boxers peeking out the top. Hot.

"I have a front door. And you're thirty minutes late." The boy grumbled, clearly irritated by my awful timing.