CHAPTER 3 - SCOTT SMALLS AND THE BAD THROW

THE WARM AIR WHIRLED AROUND the valley sending kids of happiness excited for summer to begin in just two weeks.

At the end of a cul-de-sac a young Scotty Smalls was unpacking some of the last boxes, while trying not to break anything he brings one of the boxes labeled 'Dishes' into the kitchen of his new house.

He quickly and carefully placed the boxes down and went outside to gather more boxes out of the moving truck.

After around 30 minutes of unpacking he heard noises coming down from the street, the curious boy looked up and saw nine kids that were around his age walking back from school, books, mitts, and a bat in one of the boys hand.

As they were walking up the cul-de-sac Scotty could see the figures more clearly, there was a girl who seemed to be around the older boys age and had a nice blue dress on with PF flyers and a pale white headband.

"Bye lovebirds!" Ham teased his friends as he walked into his house books in hand.                     Benny rolled his eyes as Ada laughed loudly.

Scotty could see that both of their hands were interlocked, as the girls hand was swinging the arms that their hands were interlocked with a big smile on her freckly face.

The boy was walking staring at the girl with a small smile wondering how he had her in his life
The boy made himself look away as they walked to their houses.

Ada stopped at the start of the sidewalk seeing a boy no older than 11 staring at them, soon Benny could see she wasn't walking anymore.

Questioning it he looked up to where she was and saw a boy behind a few boxes.

Scotty waved to the two who was looking back at him not breaking any eye contact.

She waved back as the boy returned a nod instead of a wave and pulled the girl toward with him to the front of her house.

Waving bye to his best friend happy seeing she made it home safe.

Poor Scotty, watched as he made his way into the house of his own.

sadly sighing he closed the back door to the moving truck, and brought in the second to last box that was filled with his stepdads baseball items

"Mom I'm going out!" Scotty told his mother right before he left the house.

He brought his plastic glove that his grandma had gotten him just over a year ago.

As the young boy ran out of his house he made his way to what nine kids called 'the sandlot'

The boy heard them talk about it at school and on the walk home, and he wanted to be apart of it.

Or at least try to make some friends on the way.

He hurried out of his house with plastic glove in hand and followed the eight boys to it.

He ran past a store called 'Vincent's drug store' and saw the girl that was with the other boys yesterday walking home.

With a bright smile on her face, she bought a blue raspberry lollipop, water bottles, and chips.

Scotty slowed his pace and stared at her while she paid for the items.

As soon as she turned around his eyes slightly widened, as he ran off he was hoping she didn't see him staring at her and continued to try to find his way to the sandlot.

After some wrong turns and many scratches on the boys legs he finally made it to the sandlot.

Or what he called 'the baseball kingdom'.

He couldn't help but stand in awe as they played.

But the boys attention was turned to the same girl he saw at the small store earlier carrying the things she bought.

She made her way to the dugout and placed everything down, then as she went to sit down she pulled out a book she brought.

The girl did know how to play the game, very well, but Adeline needed many breaks that only Benny knew of and respected.

As the game was continued Benny was practicing his hitting skills even though they were already perfect.

"Yeah Yeah get two!" Benny yelled to his other best friend at third base.

The boy hit it to his best friend who quickly picked it up and threw it to Bertram who was at second who threw it to Timmy who was at first base and threw it back to the catcher ham who caught it easily.

"Nice"

Benny picked up the ball from the hand of his red headed friend and threw it up in the air and hit it to his other friend who caught it.

It went like that for a couple minutes before the boy accidentally hit the ball a bit too far.

"Watch out!" Hamilton Porter yelled to the boy who was distracted by the fence not noticing the ball coming his way.

The boys attention was once again pulled away from the fence and saw the ball coming his way, he tried his best to catch it but failed miserably and fell on his butt.

Everyone was laughing but the boy with the bat and the girl reading the book.

Her eyes slightly rolled from the younger boys immaturity, it was a bit funny but not to laugh like drunk monkeys.

The pale boy quickly got up and dusted off his pants, looking up saw that everyone's attention was on him he really wanted to make some friends so he hurried a reply.

"Don't worry~ uh I'll get it!" He stammered quickly grabbing the ball.

After around what seemed like 20 years he got into a weird position as tried to throw the ball but it only ended up less than 3 feet from him.

Laughter erupted even louder from the sandlot, the boy covered his face with his hat.

"My life is over" he kept repeating as he ran out of the lot on the verge of tears.

The girl felt sympathy for the boy, but was also angered at the boys.

The Latino could see her facial expression and walked over to the dugout where the girl sat to comfort her.

Shaking his head slightly he jogged to the dugout and sat next to the freckled face girl, rubbing her back slightly and giving her a warm smile and she returned it.

"I can't believe they could've been so mean to that boy, do you know how much courage it could've taken him to come out here?" The girl asked the young man sitting next to her with his hand still on her lower back.

She closed her book and brought her gaze to the male who was already staring at her.

The man shook his head slightly looking down at the dirt.

He knew the boys could be rude and immature, but wouldn't have thought they could've done something like this.

"Well the boys are very immature, they probably didn't realize how much they could've hurt him?" The boy questioned about the other seven boys who were still laughing, turning his gaze back to the girl she was wearing a 'are you kidding me?' face on.

"It probably took him a lot of courage to come out here and it was very wrong of the boys to laugh at him not knowing how to properly throw a ball" the boy sighed answering correctly.

Ada smiled at him and nodded her head turning her gaze to the boys who were finally calming down and went to pick up the ball to continue playing.

Benny then stood up and took the girls hand in his and brought her to home plate to have a 'chat' with the boys.

As Hamilton Porter was taking off his mask he saw his friends hand in the pale girls and gave him a knowing smirk looking back down at the hand that were intertwined.

He could tell the boy had feelings for the girl, but didn't ever want to admit it.

As the boy was flushing red like crazy the female yelled out to all the boys to come where they were standing.

After giving them a full lecture on being nicer, and how much courage that it took the boy to come out there to try and play with them.

The boys gave the girl responses by groaning, mocking her, and just rolling their eyes.

The Rodriguez boy was obviously angry that the boys were mocking the nice girl, and wanted to scream at them for doing so but kept calm.

Everyone went back to their positions as the kind girl went over to the dugout to pick off where she last read her book.

UHM- totally did not just take forever to update and copy n paste chapter