Mrs . Atkins didn't look as happy as Noah did . She looked at him sternly . "I was going to wait after dinner since we have a guest over . "
"Why? Did Noah get Jake in trouble?" Mr . Atkins frowned . "It would be better if Doug sees all sides of us . No reason to pretend to be perfect . "
Mr . Duncan glanced at me . "From what I heard so far, I already approve . Jake seems to be having fun and he even wants to play baseball again . "
"Well for starters, they broke a bat . " Mrs . Atkins stated . "A wooden bat . An expensive wooden bat that Mr . Williams wasn't going to rent out in the first place . Luckily he was nice about it and let me buy a new one at a discount for Jake . "
"How did you guys break a bat?" The twins asked at the same time, obviously in the same wavelength .
Advertisement
"Faulty equipment . " Noah rolled his eyes . "Jake is like a machine and can hit the ball with the same part of the bat repeatedly . " He moved his eyebrows up and down at Zeke . "He foul tipped 12 of 12 pitches in the 100mph cage . "
Zeke's eyebrows furrowed .
"Wait, honey . That's not such a big deal . Did something else happen?" Mr . Atkins asked .
"Noah had no money on him at all so they had called me in . Apparently Noah lost it all in a bet . " She replied . "He also was out of line when telling Mr . Williams what happened . Very rude and undisciplined . Grounding isn't a very viable solution, so I'm proposing no sweets for his lunches or after dinner for a while . "
"We were cheated!" Noah cried out . "We would have won if the bat didn't break . "
"Noah, what have I told you about gambling?" His dad asked . "You're too young . You shouldn't be wasting money away like that . No sweets for a month . "
"A whole month?!" Noah slouched in his chair .
"For being rude to an adult that's adequate punishment . " His mom agreed .
"So you were betting that Jake could beat someone in the cages?" Kyle asked .
"Yea . " Noah mumbled . "They first challenged him to pitch connections in the 100 mph cage which he won by foul tipping all of them . Then we did double or nothing but this time only hits count . His bat broke after eight hits, just one away from tying it . They grabbed my money and ran off . "
"A loser is still a loser . " Dave laughed out . "Did you know the guys? Were they older or younger?"
"They were some kids from a high school . The guy that went up against Jake was the cleanup hitter they said . " Noah smirked . "I hope we play against them in a real game soon . Such wimps . "
"It's a long season . " Kyle shrugged . "We might get to see them around . Then we can make fun of them for losing to a bunch of kids . "
Dave laughed . "That'd be great . Are we still doing that tournament before league play?"
"It's in two weeks on that Saturday . " Kyle nodded . "That's our best chance of running into teams we don't play normally . "
Dave looked at me, smiling . "We'll put Jake in the stands to see if he could spot them . Then we could psych them out if we run into them . "
"Jake wouldn't be in the stands . " Noah disagreed . "He would be in our lineup . I told you he bats really well . "
"Batting better than you is nothing impressive . " Dave snorted .
"He bats better than you and Kyle, combined . AND he can switch hit . " Noah looked at Zeke . "You have to at least let him try out for varsity . He can really hit . "
Zeke looked at his parents then back to Noah . "I'll give him a tryout tomorrow after school during practice . But just because he's good in the cages, doesn't mean he'll do well in real scenarios . "
Chapter end
Report
|
Donate
Oh o, this user has not set a donation button.
|