A Tough Call
Elementary: Grades 3–4
Story
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A few pages on, I came to a bunch of stories about the White Sox's thrilling 1917 World Series win. By then, Comiskey had put together a power-packed team, so it was no surprise they won. Every page I turned proved that my team really was the best—and had been for practically a hundred years. I was floating on a high cloud!
Just before Mom called me down to dinner, Terence phoned me. "So?" he asked, too impatient to wait 'til the next day to get an answer, I figured.
I didn't say anything for a second, weighing the choices. It bugged me more than a little to think of losing baseball games on purpose. But the payoff was pretty tempting. And anyway, next time around we could do major damage!
)
But still. The nerves in my jaw were twitching. Why was Terence putting pressure on me right in the middle of my awesome White Sox flashback?
"I already talked to Jake," Terence pushed. Jake was another kid on our team, a good hitter. "He's in."
I thought for a minute. Terence was my best friend. But if I said I didn't want to do it, he'd probably pester me forever. Or never stop calling me a loser or a chicken. "All right, all right," I replied, trying not to sound annoyed. "Fine. Let's do it then."
"Excellent!" Terence said, obviously relieved.
But before I even got a chance to tell him about my scrapbooks, he was saying goodbye. I sat for a minute trying not to think anything, one way or another, but it was impossible. What were we doing? Whatever it was, money and a fat time at the lake would make up for it, I told myself.
I was still thinking along these lines as I sat down at the dinner table. But my family's eager questioning about the scrapbooks stopped all that. I launched in right away about my new hero, Joe.
"Shoeless Joe was probably the greatest White Sox player who ever lived! They called his baseball glove 'the place where triples go to die'!"
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