"Riele! Your little friends are at the door!" I heard my older brother Ryan shout from downstairs.
Immediatley, I jumped up grabbing my glove and bolting out of my room that I shared with my little sister, "I'm coming!"
On the stairs, I skipped past my mother who was carrying a bunch of clean towels, "Riele! Watch where you're going and slow down!" she scolded.
"Sorry, mom!" I yelled back jumping down the last couple of steps. Starting another sprint I suddenly got lifted up into the air.
"Hey!" I complained to whoever was stopping me from seeing my friends and heading to the sandlot.
My dad's laugh sounded through the house, "Watch it, Sport. Careful or you're gonna hurt someone."
"Sorry, dad." I replied, walking towards the door where my friends were awaiting me, "I'm at the sandlot!"
"Be back before dark, honey!" my mom's voice called after us.
Dad turned around and smirked mischievously, "And no kissing!"
While my face was heating up in embarrassment, he looked past me to my friends, "Looking at you, McClellan." Yeah-Yeah swallowed the lump in his throat and nodded at my dad.
"Yeah, and don't fall and embarrass yourself!" another brother of mine, Parker, teased before I closed the door.
Then I turned towards my friends, "Hey, guys."
"Hey, Rie!" a chorus of voices sounded.
I found my usual spot between Squints and Yeah-Yeah. The latter smiled at me, "Hey."
My face lit up in excitement at seeing him, "Hi, Yeah-Yeah."
Some of the boys were exchaning looks behind us which went unnoticed by both Yeah-Yeah and me. Benny had seen enough of our crushing and walked down my driveway.
"Let's go, guys!" Benny started running towards the sandlot. The rest of us followed immediately, Yeah-Yeah reaching for my hand and pulling me along.
The sandlot was our field, our stadium, our own little baseball kingdom. It was the greatest place on earth and we all knew it.
We were nine players, just enough to make up a team and we had been friends our whole lives. Most of us, at least.
Yeah-Yeah, Squints, Benny, Tommy, Timmy and I had been living in this neigborhood our whole lives. Bertram, Ham and Kenny had all moved here when we were in primary or middle school.
This summer marked the end of middle school for all of us, except Tommy - who was a year or two younger than the rest. I was about to turn fourteen and was therefore the third youngest out of all of us.
Benny, Tommy, Kenny and Bertram were all a year older, so they had just finished their freshman year.
My two best friends Squints and Yeah-Yeah had been my friends since we were born. My dad had taught all three of us how to play baseball. He was a pro back in the day.
"Hey, Rie. Snap out of it." Squints snapped his fingers in front of my face.
Yeah-Yeah added to that, "Yeah yeah, you're blanking."
I pushed Squints hand away, sticking my tounge out at them, "Shut up, I'm not."
"Yeah yeah, you are. You always are." Yeah-Yeah shot back.
I ran after him, trying to hit him and Squints followed close behind, trying to tackle me to help Yeah-Yeah out.
An hour later, we were in the middle of our game.
"Bertram." Benny pointed at him, swinging the bat.
Bertram caught the ball, throwing it to Tommy who impatiently called, "Come on, Bertram!"
Our games never really ended. The only thing that ended a game was the sun going down. We didn't keep score, we never really stopped. We just played and kept on playing.
"Yeah-Yeah! Come on!" Benny yelled again, directing the ball towards Yeah-Yeah this time.
Yeah-Yeah threw it to me and I passed the ball on to Bertram. As soon as he threw it back to Tommy, Tommy returned it to Benny.
"Squints!" Benny called.
Squints ran forward, catching the ball, "I got it!"
"Nice catch." Ham praised.
Benny nodded approvingly, "Yeah."
As Kenny was getting ready to pitch we all cheered him on, "Come on!"
We started teasing Benny to distract him, "Come on, Benny, hit a homer!"
"Yeah, come on!" I yelled.
"Hey, batter, batter, batter!" Yeah-Yeah sung.
But Benny only focussed on the ball, hitting it far back to left center where I was standing, "Whoa!"
The ball flew past me and I started running. When I noticed a boy standing in the right spot, I stopped.
"Watch out!" Ham called and the boy turned around.
He was wearing pretty nerdy clothes and some kind of fishing hat or something.
"Come on, catch it!" I called out to the boy.
He looked directly at the ball and raised his glove in the last second, covering his face with the other arm. When the ball hit his glove, he fell down, screaming.
While the boys were laughing, I ran up to him, "Hey, are you okay?" I helped him up.
"Yeah, I'm okay. Thanks." he replied. Then he dusted his clothes off.
I did a quick once over of him before returning to meet his eyes, "You're new here, aren't you?"
He nodded, "Just moved here a few weeks ago. I'm Scott."
"Hey, I'm-" I started, but was interrupted by yelling.
"Hey, love birds! We need the ball back!" Kenny smirked at me, knowing he had hit a nerve.
I glared at him playfully, "Shut up, I'm not-" I started again but was interrupted.
"Okay, I'll get it!" Scott yelled.
I looked after him, hearing him talk to himself, "Get it. Don't be a goofus. Don't be a goofus! Don't be a goofus!" I grinned.
Scott went to the ball and got it out of some dried up weeds. He heard the beast growling and quickly ran back with the ball.
I grinned at his reaction, letting a small laugh escape me. Then I met eyes with Yeah-Yeah who studied me and Scott. I just shrugged at him, returning to my spot.
"We are waiting!" Squints yelled at Scott.
"Throw the ball back!" Tommy yelled.
He was supported by Ham, "Come on!"
"Throw it!" Yeah-Yeah yelled a little too angry. He obviously didn't like Scott for some reason.
They started shouting even more while Scott tried to find a good stance to throw. I just shook my head at him, grinning. The kid had no clue.
I met eyes with Benny, noticing that he knew it too.
"Come on, toss me the ball!" Kenny yelled.
When Scott threw, the ball landed maybe three feet in front of him. This caused the boys to break out in laughter again, "Oh my god! Did you see that hand?"
They dropped down laughing and Squints and Yeah-Yeah rolled into me, causing me to fall down as well.
"Hey!" I hit both of them on the arm before they pulled me in and started rolling around with me. "Get off of me!"
Squints pretended to think, "Uhm, no." So they continued rolling around.
When I looked back up, I noticed Scott was gone. I felt really bad for him, we were so mean.
"He's gone." I pointed out to my best friends.
Squints just shrugged, clearly not interested in the boy, "Why do you care?" He gave Yeah-Yeah a side eye which I noticed.
"Yeah yeah, do you like him or something?" Yeah-Yeah asked, looking at me.
I shook my head, "No, but we were really mean to him. Maybe he doesn't have any friends and we just made fun of him."
"So what? He can't even throw a ball." Squints explained.
"Yeah yeah, as soon as school starts up again, everyone is gonna make fun of him anyway." Yeah-Yeah added.
I hit them both, "Doesn't mean we have to."
"We're just preparing him for high school." Yeah-Yeah shrugged.
Squints pushed his glasses up, "It's gonna happen anyway. Might as well get used to it."
"Morons." I replied. I didn't like it when they acted all tough.
Squints and Yeah-Yeah shared a look, "What'd she say?"
"I think she called us morons." Yeah-Yeah stated.
"I think she wants to get tickled to death!" Squints called out and the two of them threw themselves on me.