ARABELLA ⇢ BENNY RODRIGUEZ

twelve

Arabella was sat down, leaning against Benny's chest whilst he analysed the bat he was holding.

"Hey, I got it!" Scotty announced, breaking the silence. "Why don't we just go over and knock on the door and ask Mr Mertle if he can go get-"
"Are you out of your mind?!" Squints interjected. "Mr Mertle's the meanest old man that has ever lived."

Arabella scoffed. "You obviously have never met my grandad before."
Squints ignored her. "He's the one who made The Beast eat that kid! It's not an option, Smalls. Forget about it!" He said, pushing his glasses further up the bridge of his nose.

Scotty sighed. "Oh, okay, sorry. I will."
"Let's just look out the window." Squints suggested.
"Good idea!"
"Ugh," Arabella groaned. "this is comfy, I ain't movin'."
Benny laughed. "Does that mean I ain't movin' either?"
Arabella innocently shook her head. "Yes it does."

Arabella took the baseball bat out of Benny's hands and examined it herself. "What exactly are you looking for? You're staring at this as if you're looking for something." She laughed.
Benny shrugged. "I was gonna have some practise swings, but then you decided to use my chest as a pillow."

She turned her head to face him and pressed her lips together. "Ah, sorry about that, babe - that's a real shame."

The boys then jumped backwards and sat back down.
"He's darin' us!" Tommy gulped.
"We're on his territory now." Ham sighed.
"Anybody got any bright ideas?" Benny questioned.

After we'd all thought about it real hard, we had absolutely no idea what the hell we were gonna do. So, things started primitively.

Arabella was helping Squints at the top of their treehouse direct Ham on getting the ball. The rest of The Sandlot group were stood behind Ham, waiting for him to snatch the ball back.
"Further!" Squints whispered.

Ham did as he was told and stretched even further, until the stick was touching the baseball.

"Just a little bit further..." Arabella directed.
Ham nodded and moved the stick further, but The Beast's paw landed on the stick and snapping it in half.

The group cried out as The Beast destroyed the stick. Ham desperately tried to pull the stick away with the help of his friends, but what was left of the stick was simply half of what it was before.

"Great, what's next?!" Arabella threw her hands up in the air.

***

"Further." Arabella told Ham.
This time, they'd got a metal stick and attached a frying pan to the end of it.
"A little to the right!"
"A little bit further!" Squints added as him and Arabella watched from the top of the treehouse.

"Almost!" Arabella said with gritted teeth. She began to relax once Ham had got a strong hold on the baseball. "Hey, you got it!"

Ham began to pull the piece of equipment back, but The Beast appeared once again, and destroyed their handy work.

A piece of it was thrown over the fence. Arabella watched as smoke was coming out of the piece with wide eyes.
It landed on the grass not too far away from the boys and they stared it, completely speechless.

"I think we've seriously underestimated The Beast." Tommy stated as the group crowded around their piece of broken equipment.
"Obviously we're dealing with the superior intelligence." Squints said as he pushed his glasses up.

After a long time of thinking, the group created a special machine to retrieve Scotty and Arabella's dad's beloved baseball.

"Power connected!" Scotty called out to Ham, Benny, Arabella, Kenny, Tommy and Yeah-Yeah, who were all stood at the top of the treehouse with an extra long metal stick with the head of Arabella's and Scotty's mom's vacuum head. They all slowly began to lower it into Mr Mertle's backyard and hovered it over the signed baseball.

The message to 'initiate retrieval suction number 1, 2 and 3 were sent out and the group were struggling to hold onto the object - it was shaking so much Arabella was beginning to get worried they'd drop it.

Squints looked up at them and grinned. "You got it! Pull it up!"

"Alright!" Tommy exclaimed as Ham, Benny, Arabella, Kenny and Yeah-Yeah all began to slowly pull it up.

Before they knew it, The Beast had sunk it's teeth into the metal and the baseball was dropped. The group cried out as part of the metal fell off into the backyard.

"What's going on, Squints?" Ham yelled over the noise of the machine's beginning to break.
"The pipe; it's pinched shut!"
"Oh my God... turn it off!" Arabella began to panic.
"Yeah, turn it off!" Benny agreed.

"Watch out, it's smoking!" Scotty warned.
"Guys, the machine's are gonna blow! I don't know about you but I'm getting the heck outta here!" Bertram yelled.

"Run!" Benny shouted, grabbing Arabella's hand and pulling her to pole. "You leave that way and take Yeah-Yeah and Kenny with you!"
Arabella madly laughed. "What? Aren't you coming?!"
He frantically nodded. "I need to help Bertram and Scotty out first!"
"Oh my God, you're insane-!"
"Just go!" He yelled, before running off.

Once Arabella, Kenny and Yeah-Yeah were out, they ran over to Squints, who was yelling at his friends to get out of there as quickly as possible.

Timmy and Scotty soon reached the group in time. Arabella's heart was racing as she waited for Benny to appear.

Ham was climbing down the ladder as he shouted: "It's gonna blow!"
Just then, Bertram jumped over the bars on the outside of the treehouse, doing a flip in mid-air before landing painfully on his back, soon to be followed by Benny.

She watched in shock as her boyfriend hit the ground, and she ran up to him to help him up.
"Okay, that was actually insane!" She yelled at him.
Benny looked up and saw that Ham was about to fall on them. His eyes widened and he grabbed her hand, pulling her out of the way.
Benny helped Ham up, then the three of them ran to join the group.

Ham, Benny and Arabella took a final leap, landing on there stomachs and turning around just in time to see the treehouse blow up. Benny made sure he held his arm out in front of Arabella.

The area then went silent - the only sound you could hear was the pants of some of the group members along with slow footsteps.
Arabella and Benny got up and saw a figure emerge from the smoke.

The rest of the group joined Benny and Arabella as they stared at Tommy, covered in dust. He shook his head and large amount of dust left his hair and Arabella had to stop herself from laughing.

Tommy turned back to the treehouse and sighed. "We've been going about this all wrong. I blame myself." He then turned back to his friends. "We need total surprise - an airborne attack - The Beast will never expect it."

The group shared facial expressions before all nodding in agreement.
"Right," Arabella sighed. "third time lucky."