Home Run Read online

  Everyone clapped politely, and the derby began.

  Josh sat in the dugout, watching and waiting. He couldn’t see his friends and father from where he sat, and he’d never felt more alone in his life. The warm air and sunshine seemed to choke him. He began to sweat. Three boys hit balls that came close enough to the bathtub to draw cheers from the crowd, but each one dropped just to the side or behind the tub. Dale from Iowa hit eleven home runs, but none of them even close to the tub. Josh began to think about Jaden’s words when they first talked about the derby at the end of the summer. She called it a scam, and Josh couldn’t help but wonder if that’s what it was.

  It took forever, but finally Josh’s turn came.

  He stepped up to the plate and could pick out Benji, Jaden, and his dad cheering from the seats behind the backstop. Josh took a deep breath and stepped into the box.

  He gave the official a nod. The official nodded back, pressed a button on the remote in his hands, and the machine starting pitching.

  CHAPTER EIGHTY

  JOSH BANGED THE FIRST pitch hard. It rose up and up, on a beeline for center field and the bathtub. It was too good to be true, that’s all Josh could think. Like a hole in one. As it dropped toward the tub, right at it, Josh blinked and knew he needed to get ready for his next pitch, but he couldn’t. This was it. This was his destiny.

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-ONE

  HIS HOMER WENT BEYOND the tub, just beyond it.

  The crowd groaned and so did Josh. The next pitch came at him. He barely got a piece of it. His rhythm was off. He tried to focus. His next eight hits fell short of the fence, scattered across the field like he was some marginal batter, not a home run champion. His ninth hit went over the left-field fence, proving he’d gotten his groove back. The crowd cheered for him and so did the other players in the dugout, rooting and hoping he’d get that house. The five-thousand-dollar scholarship was already out of reach. Dale still held the lead with eleven home runs, and there was no way Josh could catch him. Still, he could win that house.

  Josh’s next hit went straight to center field but landed short of the tub. The next three went over the fence, home runs, but off to either side before he hit three wild ones. He had three pitches left. Three. Three chances to rescue his mom and his little sister. He had to do it. He could do it. He would do it.

  He felt suddenly calm.

  Destiny.

  The word filled his mind and his body too.

  The pitch came. He banged it. Center field, over the fence. Just to the right.

  Two pitches left, but he was cool.

  Bang.

  Center field, but just to the left.

  There was a groove he had to hit between the two. The crowd went wild. The pitch came in.

  Crack!

  The ball flew up and away, dead bang in the middle of the field with just the right distance.

  Josh couldn’t even breathe. He dropped his bat and watched the ball fall straight for the big red tub in the middle of his dream.

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-TWO

  BANG!

  The ball struck the tub’s bottom.

  Clangbangthump!

  It rebounded off the side, the bottom, the other side . . . and out of the tub.

  The crowd went silent. Josh went numb. Bert Bell, the Qwik-E-Builders president, was coming toward him with a handheld microphone and a big grin. He clapped Josh on the back and spoke to the crowd. “Ladies and gentlemen, let’s give Josh LeBlanc a big big big Qwik-E-Builders round of applause. He was so close!”

  The applause was weak and dribbled into a disappointed murmur.

  Bert Bell cleared his throat. “Ladies and gentlemen, let’s now hear it for our 2016 Qwik-E-Builders Home Run Derby champion and the winner of a five-thousand-dollar college scholarship . . . Dale Schwamman from Iowa!”

  Josh didn’t hear the applause or feel the handshakes of the other kids. He didn’t taste the lunch they ate on their way to the airport, didn’t feel his father’s good-bye hug or even the turbulence that turned Benji green as they flew into Syracuse in the heart of a thunderstorm. Jaden sat next to him, equally distracted by her computer, which she attacked like a ninja.

  Josh was numb.

  His mother met him at the door, greeting him with a kiss and a big hug. “Oh, Josh. You were so close. I am so proud.”

  He let himself be kissed and hugged by Laurel before excusing himself. In his bedroom with the door shut, Josh lay down and stared at the ceiling. Through the walls, he could hear their next-door neighbors shouting at each other. There was a loud bang then quiet before Josh thought he could just make out the low hum of sobbing.

  And then everything that had happened in the last few weeks came crashing down on him. From his father’s move to Florida, to Benji thinking Jack was older than thirteen, to almost missing his twentieth home run because of Jaden’s story about the coach, and now this. It was all just too much. Josh turned and buried his face in the pillow and lost it completely.

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-THREE

  MONDAY HE WOKE EARLY. His mom sat at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee, reading the online version of the Syracuse paper on her computer.

  She glanced up at him. “You should take a look at this. That Jaden, I can’t believe she’s thirteen. She’s something.”

  “Yeah.” Josh took a box of cereal from the cupboard and poured the cereal into a bowl before dousing it with milk. “She is.”

  “Don’t you want to see it?” his mother asked.

  Josh shoveled in a mouthful of Raisin Bran and shook his head. “Not really.”

  “It’s about you.” His mom spun her computer around so he could see.

  Josh looked down at his bowl and poked at a raisin while he crunched. “There’s only so many nice ways you can candy coat a loser.”

  “The way she describes it, you’re no loser, Josh. She’s calling for an investigation of the whole contest. Jaden’s got a quote from the marketing guy at the company you wouldn’t believe. She’s got statistics on the number of kids who’ve tried and failed. You should see the comments coming in. This thing is red-hot. People are mad. There’s a guy whose brother is in Houston, where Qwik-E-Builders headquarters is, who’s talking about a boycott.”

  Josh sighed. “Jaden has to mind her own business. Looking into things almost got me thrown out of the tournament. It just causes trouble. And none of it is gonna do us much good, is it?”

  “I . . . I don’t know, Josh.”

  “It’s not, Mom. They’re a multimillion-dollar corporation, and I’m a nobody who came up short, and that’s putting it nicely.” Josh suddenly wasn’t hungry. He dumped his cereal in the sink, rinsed his bowl, and closed himself off in his room to get ready for school.

  When Josh shut his locker at the end of the day, Benji was standing there. “Dude, this is big and getting bigger. They’re calling that company Tricky Quickie Builders. My brother texted me. This thing is going viral, dude. Someone posted a video of your home run bouncing out of the tub. People are saying it’s impossible to have a ball hit that far stay in the tub. Some people are saying Mythbusters is gonna do a show on it.”

  “Yeah, I’ll believe that when I see it.” Josh slung his backpack over his shoulder and headed for the bus.

  Benji hustled to keep up. “Dude, you’re practically famous, and you’re moping around like you lost the World Series or something.”

  Tuesday was long, and Josh was in no mood for everyone’s sad eyes and sympathy. The claps on his back and the indignant remarks about Qwik-E-Builders did nothing to help his mood. He struggled to remain polite and avoided Jaden as much as he could because all everyone else wanted to talk about with her was her firebomb online story or column or whatever the heck it was.

  Even Benji couldn’t snap him out of his funk. When Jaden asked him on the bus why he was mad at her, his face softened for the first time in days. “I’m not, Jaden. I just want this to end. I know you didn’t mean anything by it, but that thing you wrote
and people who don’t even know me making a bunch of noise. It’s just . . . embarrassing is what it is.”

  “Well,” she said. “I’m sorry for that, Josh. But the derby was a scam. You and a lot of other kids were tricked. The marketing guy even said it would take a miracle to have a ball stay in the tub. I’m glad people are getting mad about it and demanding action. That’s why I want to be a reporter.”

  “Hey,” Josh said, brightening. “I bet with all this hoopla you’ll win that scholarship!”

  “Maybe,” Jaden said.

  “I think you will.”

  On Wednesday at school Jaden and Benji both acted weird to Josh, but they gave him his space and that was the thing he wanted most, so no big deal.

  When he got home, his mom gave him this funny look, and she had on some nice clothes.

  “You got a job interview?” he asked.

  “Yeah . . . well, not really.” She was busy in the kitchen, and Josh didn’t have time for double talk.

  He retreated to his room, sat down at his desk, and started in on his homework. Maybe a half hour went by before he heard a knock. “Laurel, I’ll play with you in a couple minutes. Let me finish these math problems. You get the board set up, and I’ll be out there.”

  “No, Josh. It’s me,” his mother said.

  “What, Mom?”

  “I need you to come out here.”

  Josh opened the door and saw that she had on her coat, with Laurel riding on her hip.

  “Come on.” She started toward the door. “Get your coat. I’ve got a surprise for you.”

  Josh was annoyed. “Mom, I’ve got math homework to do.”

  “Come on, Josh. Please.” She made her eyes so big he couldn’t refuse.

  “Where are we going?” His voice was sullen, but when he stepped out onto the front step with her, he saw the long, black limousine.

  “Mom? What is that?”

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-FOUR

  THE LONG CAR’S DOOR swung open. Benji’s and Jaden’s faces appeared, and his friends motioned for him to join them.

  “Come on, dude!” Benji hollered. “I bet you were late for your own birthday, I swear.”

  Josh looked at his mom. She started to laugh, a bubbly laugh he hadn’t heard in ages. “Go on, Josh. It’s something good.”

  Josh was confused. “I don’t want everyone trying to make me feel good, Mom. This is a waste of money. I hope nobody had to pay for this thing.”

  “Just get in, Grouchy Pants,” she said.

  They all got in, but they didn’t drive very far. Just off Eighth North Street they pulled down the short road where Josh had seen the lots for sale. He was even more confused when he saw a small crowd of people and several TV trucks sprouting antennae and satellite dishes. The car eased up into the middle of the crowd. Josh got out with his mom and his friends and stepped onto a red carpet.

  It was like another dream, but it was real. Everyone was there, his teammates and classmates and everybody’s parents too. There was a huge crane parked on the street, its arm reaching over the top of a raised platform atop which stood—among others—Coach Swanson, Coach Moose, Ty Rylander, and Bert Bell, the Qwik-E-Builders president. Bell grinned from ear to ear, and he held out a hand for Josh to shake as Josh mounted the steps leading to the red-carpeted platform. That’s when he saw his father near Ty Rylander and darted into his arms, accepting a hug.

  “Dad?”

  “You think I’d miss this?” His father squeezed him tight before setting him down.

  “Miss what? I’m not even sure what is happening!”

  The crowd broke out into a little cheer. Jaden, Benji, and Josh’s mom and sister stood beside him on the opposite side of his dad. He didn’t know what to say, but his heart was pounding like it needed to get out.

  “Josh,” Bert Bell said, turning from Josh to address the crowd and the cameras up front. “We looked at the rules for the Home Run Derby, and we decided to reevaluate our contest. As your very sharp-tongued friend pointed out—”

  Bert Bell paused to nod at Jaden, and everyone laughed.

  “We determined that we made a mistake, and that’s not what Qwik-E-Builders is all about. And when mistakes happen, good people fix them.” Bert Bell handed Josh a big pair of scissors before pointing to a lonesome door standing all by itself on the edge of the platform, a door with a big red ribbon across it. “So please cut this ceremonial ribbon and walk through the door that goes with the brand-new Qwik-E-Builders Streamline Ranch that we will be assembling over the next few days, right here, on this lot we’re purchasing for you and your family.”

  Josh had no idea what else he could do besides cut the ribbon, so he did.

  Everyone cheered.

  He hugged his mom and his friends all at once, crying, and thanking Jaden and Benji for helping make it all happen.

  “Any time,” Benji said, chuckling like a madman.

  In all the noise and excitement, Jaden turned to him, her yellow-green eyes sparkling with mischief.

  “What’s next for the heavy hitters?” she asked.

  BACK ADS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Photo by Laure Lillie

  As a kid, TIM GREEN loved sports and books. He dreamed of playing in the NFL and becoming a bestselling author. After graduating magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, and covaledictorian from Syracuse with a degree in English, he was selected in the first round of the 1986 NFL draft. During his eight-year career as a star defensive player with the Atlanta Falcons, he also earned his law degree with honors and published his first novel. Tim has worked as a commentator and host on NPR, FOX Sports, ABC, Court TV, Good Morning America, CNN, MSNBC, and more. The author of thirty-two books, Tim’s New York Times bestselling books for kids have sold more than a million copies.

  Tim lives in upstate New York with his wife, Illyssa, and their five children. To learn more about Tim and his books, visit www.timgreenbooks.com.

  Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.

  BOOKS BY TIM GREEN

  FOOTBALL GENIUS NOVELS

  Football Genius

  Football Hero

  Football Champ

  The Big Time

  Deep Zone

  Perfect Season

  BASEBALL GREAT NOVELS

  Baseball Great

  Rivals

  Best of the Best

  Home Run

  AND DON’T MISS

  Pinch Hit

  Force Out

  Unstoppable

  New Kid

  First Team

  Kid Owner

  CREDITS

  Cover art and design by Joel Tippie

  COPYRIGHT

  HOME RUN: A BASEBALL GREAT NOVEL. Copyright © 2016 by Tim Green. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  www.harpercollinschildrens.com

  * * *

  ISBN 978-0-06-231711-7

  EPub Edition © February 2016 ISBN 9780062317131

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  FIRST EDITION

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