Free Baseball Great by Tim Green Page A

cafeteria.
    â€œHey,” Josh said, nudging Jaden with his hip. “Can you ask someone to make room?”
    Jaden looked up at him with a deadpan face.
    â€œNo,” she said in her southern drawl, “I don’t think that’s nice.”
    Josh snorted at the joke and said, “C’mon, Jaden. Stop it. It’s me, not Benji. He’s mad because I stuck up for you. He’s not even sitting with me.”
    Without looking up at him, Jaden said, “I got to believe that anyone who cares about this school isn’t going to be lining up to sit with you .”
    â€œHey, easy,” Josh said, touching her shoulder. “C’mon, Jaden. It’s not funny anymore.”
    Jaden shrugged his hand off her shoulder and turned. “I know it’s not funny. No one’s laughing but you.”
    â€œWhat are you talking about?” Josh asked.
    Jaden looked around at her wide-eyed classmates and said, “Fine, you don’t care if other people know?”
    â€œKnow what? I don’t care.”
    â€œIt was bad enough when your father took you off our baseball team for some pack of muscle-bound all-stars,” she said in her drawl, clutching a pretzel so tight it broke into pieces. “I tried to be fair. I tried to be understanding, but I realize now that I did it because of how I feel—how I felt —about you. I compromised my journalistic integrity, and I should have known better. Well, fool me once, shame on you. You won’t do it twice.”
    â€œTwice, how?” Josh asked, his jaw falling.
    â€œOh, you’re going to pretend you don’t know?” Jaden said. “Okay, Josh. I believe you. Duh. I’m stupid. You didn’t know your dad recruited Kerry Eschelman for the U12 Titans. Sure, I believe you.”
    Josh stood for a minute, staring at Jaden, then looking around at the other girls’ faces and the faces of the kids at the nearby tables staring at him.
    â€œI didn’t,” he said quietly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
    â€œRight,” Jaden said. “I wouldn’t want to know eitherif me and my dad were killing the entire baseball season for the whole school.”
    â€œMy dad never said anything about Kerry,” Josh said, still softly.
    â€œYou didn’t know he was putting together a U12 travel team?” Jaden asked accusingly. “And he called Kerry’s dad, like, twenty times?”
    â€œI…” Josh said, not wanting to lie. “I knew about the team, but not Kerry.”
    â€œHe’s only the best seventh-grade pitcher around,” Jaden said, slapping the crumbs of her pretzel down on the table in front of her and jumping up so she could stick her face in his. “Only a moron wouldn’t think they’d go after him. Are you a moron, Josh, or just a liar?”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
    JOSH COULDN’T SPEAK. HE clamped his mouth shut, glaring at Jaden, humiliated in front of half the school.
    â€œYou’re some friend,” he said in a mutter. “Benji was right all along. Girls are nothing but trouble.”
    â€œMoron it is,” Jaden said, the word coming out “MOE-ron,” and she turned away and sat back down.
    Josh walked away, his ears burning. As he approached the doorway out, his stomach did a backward roll. He dumped the remainder of his lunch, bag and all, into the big trash can.
    â€œHey,” someone behind him said.
    Josh turned and frowned when he saw Benji standing there with his tray of garbage.
    â€œHey,” Josh said.
    â€œYour mom give you any of those cookies shemakes?” Benji asked.
    â€œI guess so,” Josh said. “Why?”
    Benji nodded and dug into the trash can, coming up with Josh’s half-empty lunch bag. He fished inside and removed a small Baggie containing three oatmeal-raisin cookies. He took one out and jammed the whole thing into his mouth.
    â€œNo sense wasting