Sandlot duo-Benny Rodriguez-the Sandlot

8

I was in my room, getting ready to go to the Sandlot, when Benny came through my window.
“Benny I’ll be done in a few minutes.”
“There’s someone outside.” He said. I looked through the window that was on the front of my house and saw a camo green station wagon parked on the road.
A kid with dark hair was getting a bike from the roof of the car. He turned and I realized who it was.
“Daniel!” I yelled. His head shot up and he smiled when he saw me. I pulled Benny’s arm and dragged him downstairs. When I got outside I jumped in his arms.
“It’s good to see you Diane.” He said. He’s the only other person that calls me that.
When we released, he looked at Benny. “This must be Benny,” he shook Benny’s hand “I’m Daniel. LaRusso. Diane’s cousin.” Benny returned a smile.
“Benny Rodriguez.”
“Do what’re you doing here?” I asked.
“Didn’t aunt Mara tell you?” I shook my head. “I’m moving in!”
“That’s awesome!” I can’t believe he was moving in with us.
“Diana! How good to see you!” Lucile, Daniel’s mom said, hugging me.
“Good to see you too, aunt Lucy.”
“Oh, and you must be Benny!” she said and hugged Benny too. I just laughed at this.
“Well, we got to unpack, I’ll see you later Diana.” “See ya Lucy.” She went inside.
“Anyway, we were gonna go to the Sandlot. Wanna come?”
“Nah, I don’t-“
“Come on Danny, it’ll be fun.” I interrupted.
“Sure, I’ll come.” I grabbed my bat quickly and we started walking to the Sandlot.
“So where’re you from?” Benny asked him.
“New Jersey. Came here cause my mom got a job.” He answered.
We talked about some other stuff and then arrived at the Sandlot. The others where just playing catch when they saw us.
“Where am have you guys been?” Ham yelled.
“And who’s that?” Smalls asked, nodding his head to Daniel.
“Guys, this is Daniel LaRusso, my cousin. Daniel this is Timmy and Tommy Timmons, Mike ‘Squints’ Palledorous, Allan McLannen, we call him Yeah-yeah, Bertram Grover Weeks, Kenny DeNunez, Scott Smalls and Hamilton Porter, we call him Ham.”
They spat when their name was called out. It’s like a tradition when we meet new people now, I guess.
“Do you play baseball?” Squints asked.
“No, but I know karate, and soccer.” Daniel replied.
“So you can kick ass.” Daniel just nodded.
“Cool.” Kenny said quietly.
We played baseball, and Daniel turned out to be pretty good at it.
When evening came, me and Daniel went back home. We were watching tv in the attic.
“You got something going on with Benny?” Oh god, not this again.
“Yes, I do.” I replied.
“He seems like a nice guy. Pretty attractive too.”
“Whoa, Daniel, don’t go stealing him from me.” I joked.
“Don’t worry, once we get to school, all the girls will be chasing me.”
Days went by and Daniel became good friends with all of us. Whenever we went to the diner, or the mall, the girls from our school would check him out. It was now the day before last day of summer.
Our moods were down and we were not looking forward to September 1st. I would go to 10th grade and so would Benny, Kenny, Bertram and Daniel. Ham went to 9th, and the others were still in middle school.
We were sitting or laying in the dugout, not even excited to play. Benny was the only one that wasn’t like that.
“Cheer up guys, we’ll have plenty of time to play during school.”
“Yeah but it’s during school.” I complained.
“Come on babe, you can bat.” I shot my head up.
Now the boys were all paying attention.
“Uhh, what?!” Ham shouted.
“What’d you say Benny?” Bertram said, it sounded like a threat.
“Umm…” he stuttered.
“He said ‘babe’.” Kenny pointed out.
“Real good DeNunez, real good.” I said, leaning my head back.
“Did you know about this?” Ham pulled me up by my collar and I pushed him away.
“Of course I did,” I flattened my shirt. “Benny can’t date himself.”
Now the boys’ mouths were open in shock. They were looking back and forth from me to Benny.
“I knew it!” Squints yelled.
“Man, I was waiting for this.” Kenny said.
Daniel started laughing and we all looked at him. Oh right, he already knew.
“Shut up Daniel.” I said.
“It was just funny.” He defended.
“You knew?” Bertram asked. He nodded.
“Why didn’t you tell us Russ?” Ham asked. They called him Russ instead of Daniel or Danny.
“Didn’t think about it. Besides it was way more fun seeing this.”
“Okay well perfect timing, now we can camp out ne last time before school starts.” Benny said. He was right, we only camped out when something happened, and I guess this is something.

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This is definitely something