CHAPTER TWO
The Girl Who Didn't Laugh

          AT THE START OF SUMMER, baseball was the Sandlot's top priority, especially for Benny, which meant Jordan had to tag along religiously like him. When school happens, most of the team can't play a lot because of the school work — it would be a miracle for them to play 3 times in a month — but with the summer season coming around, those worries are over.

Pearl calls for her, "Jordan, Benny's here."

"Shit," She mutters to herself, as she just finished tying her shoe.
She had subconsciously stopped her alarm entirely, completely forgetting that the Sandlot was waiting for them.

Before she could make it out of her room, she heard a voice beside her.
"You sure you want Benny to see you in that?"

The girl looks over to see Angela at her doorway, judging her outfit. Jordan was wearing was completely fine: a loose plain t-shirt, bootcut jeans, some converse, with a bandana tied to her wrist.

Jordan gave a confused expression. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"Look, if you want him to actually find you attractive, you gotta level up your wardrobe."

"I'm dressed so I can play comfortably. There's no way I'm gonna wear a dress to a field."

The older teen raised her eyebrows from surprise but simply left her sister be. "Well, just to let you know, boys dig a girl in a skirt," Angela informs, making her way back to her room, "but not too short, that's just tacky."

Jordan had a blank expression on, thinking about what Angie had said, yet was pulled back to reality by the shouts of her step-mom.

The Watts girl then was frantic as she quickly grabbed her glove to run out of her room. She bolts to the front door, where Benny was waiting for her, standing on her porch.

"No running in the house!" Pearl scolds, making the girl stop and speed walk to the door, with annoyance on her face.

"I thought you'd never come out," Benny says jokingly, as the Watts opens and closes her front door.

"Not everyone's an early bird like you, Benjamin. Let me guess, you woke up at 5 am, this time?"

The boy rolls his eyes from her calling him by his full name; he never liked being called by his full name. Out of everyone from the Sandlot, she would be the only one who say it, rather than his known nickname.

The two race to the Sandlot, as they laugh when they accidentally bump into people who are in the way or try to one-up each other by being in the lead. They make it to the field, where a few Sandlot boys were there, playing catch, waiting for them.

"Wow, Benny's late to the Sandlot?"
"Yeah yeah, that's the first."

"Hey, blame Shorty over here." Benny points to the Watts, with a breathless chuckle.

"What? It's summer. I should be sleeping in, right now, damn it," She defends herself.

"So, is anyone taking the left field?" Yeah-Yeah asked the two.

Benny looked to left field, where a tall ratchet green, tacky fence was at. Jordan didn't even bother looking, she only pretended as if the yard, that house, never existed. She hid her nervousness with her hands. Her arms crossed and held them tight, which included her tight expression.

She didn't show how her throat hitched in or how she felt like all eyes were staring right at her. There was one thing Jordan feared and that was whatever was behind that fence.

Benny noticed the girl's uneasiness — what none of the boys didn't know — and quickly answered, "Jordan and I will bat."

❖  • ❖ •  ❖  • ❖

  I followed them to the sandlot once after school. I'd never seen any place like it. It was like their own little baseball kingdom or something.
It was the greatest place I'd ever seen anyway.

❖ •  ❖  • ❖ •  ❖

     THE team started a cycle that they all do. Benny would get the ball to bat it at anyone on the field at random, and they would catch it, throwing the ball back to the catcher, which was Ham, who gave it to Benny and the cycle just continued, sometimes Jordan would take the bat and start swinging a few times.

❖ •  ❖  • ❖ •  ❖

BUT they were good, real good.

And all I had was a plastic toy mitt that my grandmother gave to me for my birthday when I was six.

But when I finally got up enough guts to go out there and try and make friends, I found out they never kept score, they never chose sides, and they never even really stopped playing the game.
It just went on forever.

Every day they picked up right where they left off the day before. It was like an endless dream game.

Surely, there were nine of them, but Jordan refused to play one specific position and only stuck to batter and pitcher, the others didn't want the position because of Jordan, so there was still one position open.
So even though I didn't know how to play, I figured I could be their ninth man, for that position, I could just stand in the outfield and take up space.

❖ •  ❖  • ❖ •  ❖

     "SQUINTS!" Jordan shouts before she hits the ball to the boy, taking Benny's place for a second.

❖ •  ❖  • ❖ •  ❖

     OF course, if I'd have known what was gonna happen when I got there... I probably never would've gone.

❖ •  ❖  • ❖ •  ❖

     "I got it!" Squints claimed as he caught the ball.

"Nice catch," Ham comments.
"Yeah," Benny agrees.

It was finally time to play ball, but there was a choice on who would be batter first. Jordan and Benny played rock, paper, scissors for the place, and she won.

Just to start off the game, everyone cheers for her to hit it far out on the field.

"Come on, Shorty!"
"Hey, batter, batter, batter!"
"Hit a homer!"
"Come on!"

DeNunez, their pitcher, throws the pitch and Jordan hits it, hard. It zips past everyone, all to left field, where an innocent boy wasn't paying attention to the game, at all.

"Watch out!" Both Ham and Jordan shout.

The small unknown boy looks up and tries to catch it, for it is right to him, yet he falls as the ball hits his glove that was way too close to his head.

Everyone from the Sandlot, except for Benny and Jordan, laughed their asses off that the poor attempt.

Jordan took a step closer, out of the base, in concern for the kid, rather than seeing it as amusement. Did the ball hit his eye? Did she cause a black eye? Benny slowly makes his way toward the girl, yet still has his eyes glued to the kid.

The anonymous boy gets up and waves that he was okay, making the Watts sigh in relief.

"You think he's actually fine?" Jordan asked, rhetorically.

"Physical, sure," Benny answers honestly, Jordan couldn't blame him on that account.

The rest of the team shouts for the kid to hurry up and throw the ball back.
Abruptly, the kid scrambles to get the ball from a dead shrub and runs out, away from it, and looks at the ratchet fence.

"We are waiting!" Squints shout to the boy.

Benny and Jordan look at the kid, both in awkwardness about who this kid is. Jordan narrowed her eyes at the kid, looking at the boy, and thought hard to herself, because she knew she had seen him from somewhere.

The unknown boy goes to a throwing position and, with all his might, throws the ball, but it only lands about 2 feet away from him.

Then the Sandlot was echoed in laughter, pure hilarious nature.
Benny sighs heavily as Jordan winces at the kid's tried to attempt. The team laughed their asses off, so hard that they had fallen to the ground.
The small kid ran away from pure embarrassment because of the sandlot's team.

Jordan felt pity for the boy.
She felt that her teammates' laughing was rude and just unnecessary.
Sure, a little snicker, but not complete laughter. Though, her empathy always got the better of her.

It would be different if she was friends with the boy, because who wouldn't laugh in a joking matter to their friend, but she wasn't, right now. No matter how much she wanted to laugh, she just wouldn't; it was common courtesy.

The girl wanted to run after him to see if anything was wrong with him, yet knew the kid was too far gone for her the catch up.

"Shut the hell up, will you!" The raven-haired girl shouts at the boy, as they try and catch their breaths.

Benny kissed his teeth. "There's no point in getting mad now."

Jordan huffs, "Boys are so stupid."

❖ •  ❖  • ❖ •  ❖

     IF it wasn't for Jordan and Benny, I never would've made a single friend that summer, 'cause all the rest of those guys thought I was a lost cause.

Even before we all became friends, Benny, Jordan, and I were connected, connected for the last moment later that summer when I get us all into the biggest pickle any of us had ever seen.

❖ •  ❖  • ❖ •  ❖

     "THAT poor kid, man," Jordan sighs to herself.

"You're still thinking about him?" Benny asked, as he lightly threw the baseball in the air and caught it.

The two were in Benny's room after they had finished with the Sandlot. Benny was lying on his bed, with his back to the headboard, as Jordan had her head in his lap.

"I feel bad, you know. He probably had an off day or something."
"You really are hurting for this kid."

She sits up and faces Benny, directly. "I'm serious, this kid was just embarrassed by our friends. You know what kinda trauma that shit would do to you?"

"Look, he'll be fine. In a few days, it wouldn't matter anymore," Benny tried to reason.

Jordan only sighs again and falls backward on the bed, away from her best friend.
She just knew that kid was their new neighbor, she had remembered him just a few minutes ago, them both waving a fair 'hi' to him just the other day.

Benny looked at the girl and smiled, in admiration.

She was always the one to be the kindest person out there in life. Her still thinking about that poor kid and basically defending him, despite them never even having a single conversation proved his statement.

It was one of the things he loved her for.

"Hey," Rodriguez says, pulling the girl up to look at him, "The boys will be at the drugstore messing around and whatever, so... this will give us time to find and invite this kid to come over and play with us."

Jordan's eyes practically sparked when hearing this.
"You really mean that, Ben?"

"Look, I may not show it, but I feel for the kid. He should have a second chance."

The girl smiles and tackles the boy with a hug. Benny blushes at this and hugs her back automatically.
Jordan pulls away and cups Benny's face softly. "You're the best, you know that?"

"Well, I try."

Jordan sucks her teeth, chuckling, "I hope you know, I would've made you come with me to find him, even if you didn't offer."
"Hey, I figured."

He did. He would've done anything for her, whether he liked it or not. It was no secret that he liked her; he had for a while.

What was not to like about Jordan?
She was beautiful, caring, kind, a badass in baseball, and can beat the shit out of you if she had the chance.

The only question Benny had was that: Did Jordan Watts like him back?

❖ •  ❖  • ❖ •  ❖

     THAT next morning, Benny and  Jordan found the kid, fast.
How could they not? The kid was literally the new neighbor across from them. He was sitting on his front porch, looking down in the dumps.

They were lucky he was their new neighbor and was outside, from what happened yesterday, Benny honestly thought he wouldn't be outside for a week.

The two walked hand-in-hand to the kid, who had a black eye on his left eye and a broken mitt in his hand. Jordan couldn't help but feel her chest grow heavy in guilt, to think that if she did that.

"Hey," Both of them greeted.

"Listen hon, we're gonna go play some ball. We kinda need an extra guy. Wanna join?" Jordan asked the kid.

Up close, the kid was a small, scrawny, blondie. He wore a dark polo shirt and some khaki shorts, with a weird, messed-up cap on his head.

"No. Thanks."

"Why not? Don't you like baseball?"
"Oh, yeah, but, uh..."

"But what?" Benny asked the kid.

The kid gets up and shows them the toy mitt. "But my glove, it's busted. Uh, see, no, I can't go. Thanks, though."

"It's okay," Benny says, grabbing something from his back pocket. "I got an extra one."

Rodriguez throws it to the kid, who catches it. So now, there wasn't really any excuse for him to not play.

"Come on. Let's go," Jordan encourages, with her smile.

The boy opens his front door and shouts, "Mom, I'm gonna go play some ball! I'll be back in a little while."

"Let's go," Benny tells them.

The three kids then run off to the local drugstore, where the rest of the Sandlot was. As they got closer, they walked the rest of the way.

"Hey, um, di-did I do that to you?" She asked the boy with the black eye, gesturing to it.

"This? Oh, no, no. It happened way after that."

Relieved of the truth, she spoke, "Anyway, sorry for our manners. I'm Jordan Watts, but people call me Shorty. Whatever works for you."

"Benny. Benny Rodriguez." The Hispanic boy next to her held up his hand.

The unknown new kid smiles, "Scotty, Scotty Smalls."