The Sandlot // Benny Rodriguez

3.

The next day was Saturday, so I didn't have school. I woke up when I heard someone mowing the lawn. "Seriously," I groaned, rolling onto my back. "It's too early for this." I growled, pulling the blankets off of me and shuffling down the hallway to the front door. I yanked the front door open and walked onto the front steps. "Do you know how early it-" I started yelling, but stopped when I saw who it was. It wasn't Scotty like I expected, it was Benny. He turned to look at me, his eyes wide. He looked me up and down and I suddenly felt uncomfortable, because I was wearing nothing but a long shirt that went up to my mid-thigh. "Oh, sorry," I said, pulling the shirt down a little. "I thought you were Scotty."

He chuckled nervously. "Your dad paid me five dollars to mow your lawn." He said, stopping the lawn mower and turning to face me.

"He's not my dad."

"Oh," he said, awkwardly scratching the back of his neck. It became silent.

"Hey," I said. "Thank you for helping me yesterday. It means a lot."

"Oh! You're welcome. Lisa is-something else."

"I hate her. She hates me for no reason, I never said one word to her before in my life, I've never even met her and-" I stopped. "I'm sorry, I'm rambling." I barely even knew the guy and I was already telling him my life story.

"No, it's okay," he said with a chuckle. "I saw what happened yesterday."

I nodded slowly, feeling the awkwardness sneaking back in on us like a cloud on a sunny day. "Well, I'll let you get back to mowing my lawn?" I said, now noticing how weird that was. He waved to me, giving me a big smile.

"See you at school-" he stopped short. "I haven't caught your name."

"Emmy."

"See you at school, Emmy." I smiled and turned back around, going back into the house, closing the door behind me. Well, that was a little weird. I sighed, running a hand through my messy hair.

• • •

My mom had let me off the hook later that day after realizing that grounding me wasn't going to effect me at all, considering I didn't have any friends here. So later that day after lunch, Scotty and I went outside into the humid summer air. "I have an idea," he said. "Go get your glove and follow me."

"Scotty," I questioned. "Where are you taking me?"

"You'll see. Go get your glove!" He said while he stuck his plastic glove grandma gave him so long ago onto his right hand. I ran back inside, grabbed my glove, and followed Scotty to an unknown destination. After a few blocks, we came to a sandlot. You could tell it hadn't been used for any real games in a long time. It was run down and the advertisement signs were slowly peeling off. When Scotty finally stopped running, I stopped right beside him, my hands on my knees as I tried to catch my breath. I heard shouting and I turned to see who else was here with us. I spotted Benny swinging the bat, practicing for the real pitch and I watched him in awe. When the pitcher threw the ball, Benny hit the ball with a loud smack and it flew through the air. The next thing I knew, the ball was heading right for Scotty. All the boys had noticed us by now. "I got it!" he shouted, holding his glove out. I winced, knowing this wasn't going to end well. The ball hit his glove, but he fell and it bounced a few feet away, breaking his plastic glove in the process. All the boys except Benny started laughing and I could feel myself getting angry. Once the laughing died down, they were starting to get annoyed.

"Throw the ball back!"

"Yeah, yeah come on!"

Scotty scrambled to his feet and grabbed the ball. I watched him try to get into position to throw the ball.

"We are waiting!"

Scotty threw the ball and it went maybe three feet in front of him. The boys were now laughing so hard, most of them were on the ground, clutching their stomachs. My face heated up and I knew I was going to blow any second. Scotty got up and began running out of the sandlot. I ran to the ball, grabbed it and threw it as hard as I could at the pitcher. "You jerks!" I could barely see straight, I was so mad. The pitcher caught the ball and turned to look at me along with the rest of the guys, their mouths were wide open as they stared at me. I turned on my heels and ran after Scotty.

BENNY.

We were all stunned. A girl that could actually throw a ball. Never in my life or any of the guys lives ever seen a girl throw a ball like that.

"Wow," I whispered to myself.

"That new girl is something else," DeNunez said, shaking his head in awe.

"She's so hot," Timmy said.

"She's so hot," Tommy repeated.

"Okay," I said snapping out of it. "Lets get this game goin', we don't got all day." But even after I called the guys back, I couldn't help myself but think about Emmy. What was I doing? Benjamin Rodriguez did not think about girls. It was all about baseball. But this new girl was something. And I wanted to find out more about her. I knew exactly what I had to do.

EMMY.

I got home a few minutes after Scotty and he had already locked himself in his room. "Scotty," I sighed. "Open the door."

No answer.

I rolled my eyes. Once he locked himself in his room, it was safe to say he wouldn't come out until the next day, so I knew begging him to open the door wouldn't help any. I turned on the balls of my feet and went into my room, shutting the door behind me. Those baseball jerks. How dare they laugh at my little brother. That was for me to do only. And Benny, I thought he was better than that. He was obviously exactly like his stupid friends. I fell onto my bed ready for a nap. Maybe tomorrow would be better.