The Heart of the Team

Chapter 20

Since being home sleep had been coming to me a lot easier than at the hospital.

I had been enjoying the sweet darkness, when something heavy landed on my legs.

It took me way too long to recognize that someone was trying to wake me up.

Slowly I opened my eyes, wincing at the light that now filled my bedroom.

"What the hell?" I groaned, twisting around to see Quinn sitting on my legs.

"Get up! They sent me to come get you for the party."
"Party?"

She hung her head, "Damn it. I wasn't supposed to say that. Forget I said that, get up, get dressed."

"You know I would but you're sitting on my legs." I quipped, managing to sit up enough to shove her off.

"Sorry." She squeaked, quickly getting up and going over to my closet.

I pushed my  blanket off and stood up as Quinn started throwing clothes at me.

"Go put these on."

I barely had time to look at the clothes in my hands before she was shoving me off into the bathroom.

Quietly I shucked off my night gown and pulled on the sunflower patterned shorts that had been chucked at my head.
As I finished tucking in the striped shirt Quinn started banging on the door, "Are you done yet?"

"Almost, why?"

"We're uh, not late to that thing that we aren't going to." She sputtered.

"Give me another minute and a half." I said, quickly starting to work my hair out of my face.

Soon enough I was back out of the bathroom, being shoved down the hall, hastily putting on shoes and pretending not to see Quinn tucking my mit into her bag.

"Come on, hurry up."

"I'm going I'm going!" I said quickly, closing the door behind me and following her down the sidewalk.

"Okay, for according to  Ham and Squints 'legal reasons' I have to blind fold you now." She said pulling a scarf out of seemingly nowhere.

"Why? I just want to play baseball, i've been counting down the days!" I protested as she tied the scarf around my eyes.

"Trust me so has Benny." She muttered.

"What?"

"Nothing, come on."

Quinn started pulling me down the street, giving vague instructions so I wouldn't trip.

"No don't step there, step there!" She yelled.

"I can't see where I'm supposed to be stepping!" I yelled back.

"No wonder you guys are late." I heard Ham remark.

"This isn't my fault!" I exclaimed.

"You know what, I'm taking over for this, Q your gonna end up killin her."
"It's not my fault you were making her wear a blindfold!"

"Whatever, come on Lizabeth." Ham looped his arm through mine and we started walking again, this time I received more clear directions on where to not step.

"I still think I could've gotten her there myself!" Quinn half yelled from my other side.

"We all know that I would've gotten her up, dressed and there way before you."

"Yeah right." She scoffed.

They continued to bicker back and forth until we had nearly made it to wherever we were going, at which point Quinn ran off, presumably to join the others.

A few moments later I heard a bunch of voices yelling "Surprise!"

Then Quinn yelled "Ham you idiot! You were suppose to take off the blindfold!"

"Yeah Ham!" Benny chimed in.

Ham groaned and pulled the blindfold off.

I barely had time to realize we were outside the sandlot before Ham shoved me.

The world started to move too fast as I flailed, trying to catch myself and then suddenly stopped moving all at once as someone caught me.

I looked up to see Benny and laughed nervously, "Sorry."

"It's, uh, it's, fine." He stuttered.

I could hear Ham snickering as I pulled away from Benny's arms and looked around at how they'd tried to decorate the dugout for my coming back.

"You guys do realize how excessive and over the top this is right? I can just play baseball again."

"That is exactly why we're doing this!" DeNunez yelled.

We all ended up sitting around in the dugout after a few games as Alexander, Bertrum, Quinn and Ham went to get a pizza.

"Man, this is much better than sitting around in a hospital, or my own home." I remarked.

"Well almost anything is better than the hospital." Timmy laughed.

Tommy nodded, as I said, "I think the only good thing about that was the twins."

"What? It wasn't us causing a huge scene in the cafeteria?" DeNunez said in feigned shock.

"As if." I scoffed.