Chapter 1
It was two months into the new school year, and I was just moving in. It was the beginning of my 10th grade year. I'm what my mother used to call, unique. To the rest of the world though, I'm a freak of nature.
I don't exactly behave like a normal girl. You see, in my time, girls only got to wear these 'cute' little dresses and when you got to be old enough, grown-up high- heels. Girls always wore their hair up in pretty ribbons and bows, and pretended to be grown-ups. I'm almost the exact opposite.
I wear baggy t-shirts, blue jeans, sneakers, and I bite people if they try to put a ribbon anywhere near my head. I would rather go get dirty than go put that disgusting smelling polish on my toes. My true home is the baseball field. My mother never approved of this kind of thing, but my father was ecstatic. It was as if I was the son he had always yearned for in a female body.
This may all seem like meaningless junk now, but it comes in real handy later, trust me.
I've always admired all the guys on the baseball field. I've always dreamed about playing with them, but I know that they'll never let me. I may dress like a boy, I may act like a boy, but the huge things that had appeared on my chest over the last few years were proof that I was definitely not a boy.
I was sitting in the stands, watching a few guys playing on the diamond. I sighed, one of them was really cute. I didn't know what his name was, and I didn't know if we were in the same grade, but I still had it bad. And I had heard rumors about him, good ones. One that really caught my attention was that he was nice to the new kids.
“Go Benny!” shouted one particularly pink girl in front of me. She had the perfect blonde hair, sparkling blue eyes, height, and just natural beauty to make any guys drool. She was bouncing up and down and cheering on the really cute boy.
I sighed. Even if that was his name, and even if that wasn't his girlfriend, I knew that he would never like me. Even so, I still got up and cheered when the boy made a fantastic dash toward home plate. As he crossed the plate, he looked up into the stands, and for a split second, our eyes met.
I caught my breath. He was smiling at me. Me? No one had ever smiled at me like that. I smiled back, even though I could feel that my entire face was bright pink.
Just then, as if the world was trying to ruin my perfect moment, the bell rang for everyone to go home. Everyone got up and started screaming, running for the front gate of the high school. I sighed one more time. I got up and started packing up my stuff, when suddenly I could feel someone staring at me.
Instead of being the cute boy like I had been hoping, it was the really pink girl, and an equally blue girl and the same in green. I knew the pink one (who was obviously the leader) from somewhere. What was her name again? Oh yeah.
“You, whatever your name is.” said Belle.
I clenched my fist, It was as if she refused to learn my name.
“Still Mimi. Hello Belle.” I said through clenched teeth.
“Whatever.” she popped her pink bubble gum. “I saw the way you were just looking at Benny.”
My eyes darted from the field, which was now empty, and Belle. “You mean the kid who hit that really good homer?”
“Yeah, whatever.” She lifted up my chin so I had to look her in the eye. “Stay away from him. Got it? He's mine.”
“I don't know what you're talking about,” I said pulling away from her dainty grip and bending down to get my back pack. Why were girls from California so paranoid?
Belle turned around with a flick of her golden head. She walked off with her cronies as if people were cheering for her. I watched as their tall, slim frames walked toward a blue pick-up truck that was parked just outside the gate. She practically floated to it and got in the front seat, the other girls shot me one last evil look and got in the back. As the pick-up sped off, I let out all my breath in one big whoosh.
“Hey,” I heard a boy's voice say behind me. I turned around to see Benny, the neighborhood baseball legend himself. I gasped again. He was just lounging around, leaning up against the fence. He was tall and muscular, with deeply tanned skin and an adorable crooked grin. He had the tell-tale black hair that most Hispanics had poking out from under an old beat up ball cap.
“Hi,” I said sheepishly. I suddenly took a great interest in my Nike sneakers.
“I'm Benny. You're that new kid ain't you?” Wow he was standing really close to me. I nodded. He chuckled. “Do you have a name?”
I looked up at him, and said. “Hey, my name's Mimi.”
