Read The Girls Take Over for Free Online Page B

Eddie if she's playing on your team,” said Josh.
    “Don't remind me,” said Jake. “All I'm going to think about from now till school's out is baseball.”
    “I could be your ball boy!” said Peter hopefully. “Every time you miss a ball, I could pick it up for you!”
    “That's the catcher's job, Peter,” said Jake.
    “Well, I could be your water boy, then. Every time you come off the field, I could give you a drink of water.”
    Jake gave him a little smile. “All I need is for you guys to be there on the bleachers cheering every time the Buckman Badgers make a run. You can even cheer for Eddie. What I don't want is to get in some kind oftrouble and get kicked off the team. That's why I'm not getting near the Malloys if I can help it.”
    What Jake was talking about, of course, was the story that had appeared in the newspaper that morning about the dramatic rescue of Caroline Malloy. How the brave Hatford boys and the courageous Malloy sisters had linked arms and caught the youngest Malloy girl as she came down the river on the far side of Island Avenue. There was no photo, but all the kids had their names in the paper, as though they were heroes.
    Their parents didn't quite see it that way, however.
    “The darn most foolish harebrained stunt I ever saw!” Mr. Hatford had fumed to his sons. “How you kids manage to make a bottle race a major event is beyond me.”
    The girls had been grounded for a week, with the exception of school and baseball practice. Coach Malloy had ruefully declared—jokingly, of course— that he was going to lock his daughters in the attic to keep them out of trouble.
    Wally crawled up in the bleachers beside Josh and Peter while Jake joined the other team members on the field.
    Sports weren't exactly Wally's thing. If Jake's team won a game, that was fine with Wally. If they lost, that was fine too. Sitting on cold bleachers watching baseball practice, not even a real game, was way, way down on the list of things Wally liked to do, but if he didn't come to practice, he wouldn't be part of the dinner-table discussion at night, for Mr. Hatford enjoyedsports very much and liked to hear how practice had gone. If Wally wasn't part of the conversation at all, it was as though he weren't even there. And being the middle child in the family, he did not want to be ignored any more than he already was.
    “Look who's here,” Josh said, elbowing Wally. There, way down at the end of the bleachers, sat Caroline and Beth, who had come to watch Eddie practice. The coach liked to have a cheering section during practice, he'd told his team. He said it got players used to the hooting and hollering that went on during a real game. In fact, the coach seemed to do enough hooting and hollering all on his own, Wally thought.
    “Okay, players, look here!” Coach Malloy called out, holding up a glove. “When you catch a ball, catch it right here in the upper palm—not in the web of your glove.”
    Wally leaned back until his head rested on the riser behind him. The clouds were swirling across the sky, but the air was mild, as though spring had finally made it over the mountains. He was trying to figure out how far apart one cloud was from another. He imagined himself a giant, stepping from cloud to cloud, looking down on the earth below.
    Josh elbowed him again. “Come on, Wally, pay attention,” he said. “We're supposed to be cheering the team.”
    Wally sighed and slowly pulled himself up to a sitting position again. Far down the bleachers he couldsee that Caroline, too, had sprawled out on her back and was watching the clouds. Who invented the ball, anyway? Wally wondered. Football, basketball, baseball, softball, volleyball, kickball, dodge ball, tennis, golf, Ping-Pong … He always read what a great invention the wheel had been, but what about the ball? Who got the credit for that?
    “Wally, are you watching or what?” Josh said.
    “I'm watching! I'm watching!” Wally said with fake