Free Baseball Great by Tim Green

father said. “You did it because if you make this team, you’re on your way. If you make it, everyone will be talking about you. Twelve-year-olds just can’t play with fourteen-year-olds, everyone knows that.”
    â€œYou didn’t!” Josh said.
    His father stared at him for a minute, then in a low,tight voice said, “I knew exactly what I was doing. I wanted to see if you’ve got what it takes, not just hitting and fielding, but mentally, see if you’re tough enough to make it. Part of that is facing facts. If you’re good enough, you’ll make the cut. If you’re not, then you go back to the drawing board and start over.”
    â€œBut I can’t go back to the drawing board, Dad,” Josh said, his voice still raised. “I quit the school team, and I can’t go back now. They made their cuts.”
    His father flicked his hand and said, “School team. That’s crap. Mount Olympus is going to have a U12 travel team put together in a week or so. We got Dickie Woodridge lined up as batting coach, and if it goes good with the Nike people, Rocky might even let me manage the whole thing, so you can play there.”
    Josh thought about Benji and Esch and the other kids he had looked forward to becoming friends with by playing together, being the team’s baseball great. Then he thought about the older kids he’d spent every afternoon with, the kids who made fun of him if they talked to him at all, the kids who didn’t even want him to be there. Josh’s vision blurred, and he turned away so his dad wouldn’t see his eyes. He wiped them on his sleeve as he left the room, mumbling his good-nights.
    The sleep he wanted so badly wouldn’t come. The sloped ceiling above the head of his bed never seemed so close, and his tiny room never seemed so small. Thedresser and fully stuffed bookshelf that stood shoulder to shoulder alongside his bed seemed to press in on him. Clothes bulged from the narrow closet, forcing its single door open to bump against the bed’s footboard. Sports posters hung crowded together on what little wall space he had, and the players seemed to pile out of them into the room and breathe up all the dusty air. Around and around his mind went, half of him hoping he’d make the Titans, the other half hoping he’d be cut and the whole thing could finally be over.

CHAPTER TWENTY
    AT LUNCH THE NEXT day, Josh got his milks lined up and looked around for Jaden. If anyone could cheer him up, it was her. Her knowledge of the game and about everything else made her praise of his baseball skills twice as meaningful as anyone else’s outside his dad’s. He didn’t see her, though, and he started in on his first sandwich, not wanting to get behind.
    When Benji arrived with a tray of pizza and carrot sticks, Josh asked, “You seen Jaden?”
    Benji set down his tray and said, “Who cares?”
    â€œCome on, Lido,” Josh said. “She helped you with math, right? You got something like an eighty-one on the quiz? You’re out of the woods now. You’re going to pass.”
    Benji puffed out his cheeks and blew air through asmall hole between his lips. “You think that’s ’cause of her ? I got brains just like the rest of you.”
    â€œMan, sometimes you really get to me, Lido,” Josh said.
    â€œSo, you’re got,” Lido said, picking up his tray and walking away.
    â€œWhere you going?” Josh asked.
    Benji turned and said, “To sit with some of my teammates —the ones who are still left, anyway. Some people around here appreciate me, dude.”
    Josh watched him go, gulped down the rest of a roast beef sandwich, and searched the lunchroom for Jaden. When he spotted her over by the stage underneath the flag, sitting and eating in the midst of a big group of brainy girls, he balanced his three remaining milks on his lunch bag and crossed the