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Alex,” he said. “Don’t worry about it. I told him to bunt.”
    Okay. Now I was
really
confused. Why in the world would a coach tell one of his players to hurl? Was this some strange baseball rule I hadn’t heard of? Were you allowed to throw up and run to first? Was he hoping to catch the other team off guard or something?
    Oh, geez, I hoped he wouldn’t tell me to bunt, too!
    I tugged on his shirt. “Listen, Coach,” I said, “I don’t think I could bunt even if I wanted to. I feel very good today. Plus I haven’t even eaten dinner yet.”
    The coach looked at me kind of strange and told me to sit down. I went back to the bench andwatched the kid at bat. When the ball came, he took his bat and held it sideways in front of him. I figured he was just trying to get it out of the way so he wouldn’t bunt on it. And since I was next at bat, I thought this was a very considerate thing to do.
    But, instead of getting sick, the kid took the bat and tapped the ball toward third base. Then he ran as fast as he could and made it to first in plenty of time.
    “Great!” yelled the coach. “Great bunt, Danny!”
    I nudged the kid next to me. “I didn’t see it. I didn’t see him bunt. Did he do it in the grass? Where is it?”
    “Where is what?” he asked.
    “You know,” I said. “The
bunt
. Where is the
bunt?”
    “Weren’t you watching?” he asked. “He bunted the ball down the third-base line and then ran to first.”
    Suddenly, I knew what a bunt really was. Man, did I ever feel like an idiot! Thank goodness no one ever knew what I had been talking about.
    Anyway, from that day on, I started working on my bunting. It just seemed like the perfect skill for a kid my size. And now, after four years of practice, I’m probably one of the best bunters in the entire Little League. It’s not the kind of thing that gets youany respect. But still, it’s something.
    Sometimes Brian helps me practice my bunting at recess. Last week, T.J. saw us and came strolling over again.
    “Bunting is for wimps,” he announced loudly.
    I ignored him.
    “Any kid with a half a muscle can hit the ball for real,” he said.
    Still, I ignored him.
    “Ooops … I forgot. You don’t have half a muscle, do you, Skinnybones?” he said.
    He grinned meanly. “Hey, I just thought of something. Only
runts
bunt! Get it? Get it, Alex? I made a poem!”
    That’s
when I decided to stop ignoring him.
    Brian tossed me another ball. I held the bat steady until the very last minute. Then I turned it sharply and directed the ball right into T.J.’s head.
    “Whoa! Sorry, T.J.!” I said. “Man, it seems that all I’ve been doing lately is accidentally hitting you with baseballs. Geez, it’s a good thing they keep hitting you in the skull. Otherwise, you could get hurt.”
    For the millionth time in my life, T.J. shoved me to the ground again and sat on top of me.
    He was smirking like crazy. “We’ll just see howgood you bunt on Saturday, funny guy,” he said.
    For a second I didn’t know what he was talking about. Then, all of a sudden, I remembered. Saturday was the day when our Little League teams were scheduled to play each other.
    Wonderful. And now I’d gone and made him mad.
    I closed my eyes.
Way to go, Alex. You’ve done it again
.

chapter eight
A FACEFUL OF FLAKES
    Usually, when I go to the Little League field for a game, I don’t know who we’re going to play until I get there. I just go to the game, lose, and go home. The way I look at it, losing is losing. Who cares who you lose
to?
    A lot of kids don’t feel that way, though. T.J. Stoner is one of them. T.J. always knows exactly which team he’s going up against. Then, a couple of days before the game, he goes around school announcing how badly the other team is going to get whipped. Nobody ever argues with him, either. ’Cause they all know it’s true.
    Anyway, that’s why I wasn’t surprised when T.J. went through the halls bragging about how Franklin’s