Chapter 1

"I’ll bet you any amount of money," Jimmy shouted.

"Jimmy, you never have any money. Your parents don’t trust you. They know what foster kids are like," Jason taunted.

"They do too trust me. They give me lots of money!"

"Let me see, then. Show me your money," Jason challenged.

The short muscular boys stood face to face, Jimmy with wiry brownish-red hair and freckles, and Jason with a pale dirty face and light hair so short it looked as if his head were shaved.

"Ah, you’ll never get the ball, and you’ll never get the money. What good are you?" Jason pushed Jimmy onto the ground and the surrounding guys all laughed. Jimmy just stared at the dirt. More than anything, he wanted to cry, but he wouldn’t. He knew that they’d only laugh harder if he did. His parents never did give him any money. Maybe the other boys were right. Maybe his parents didn’t trust him.

Parents. At that moment it occurred to him that he was actually thinking of Ann and Lou as his parents. It was a good feeling, and it almost made him not want to cry. From the day he had joined the Sutherland family, Ann and Lou had insisted that he call them mom and dad. He had called some of his other foster parents mom and dad, too, but none of the others had ever felt like a real mother or father to him. It was different with Ann and Lou.

The bell sounded, ending recess. Jimmy looked up to see that the boys were walking away and not paying attention to him anymore. They were laughing, as if one of them had thought of another way to torment some other kid.

"You’ll be sorry when I get that baseball!" Jimmy hissed as he got up off the ground.

None of the boys even heard him. They were busy pushing each other and laughing on their way back to 2C.

Jimmy settled down at his desk. Usually Jimmy loved school on Fridays. Today wasn’t such a good day, though. Recess had not been fun, and Andrew was gone for the rest of the day. Jimmy turned around and looked at the empty seat just behind him in the row to his left. His best friend, Andrew, had left school early for a dentist appointment. Jimmy usually played with Andrew at recess, but without Andrew, Jimmy had spent most of recess alone, that is until Jason Cook and his gang started giving him trouble.

"Settle down and be quiet. If you haven’t done so, please take out your silent reading books," Mrs. Penchard requested.

A blonde girl in the front of the class politely raised her hand.

"Yes, Hillary?" Mrs. Penchard said.

"I’m reading A Child Awakens, Mrs. Penchard. My brother is reading it in the 6th grade, and he’s four years older than me." Hillary lowered her hand and smiled.

"Very good, Hillary," Mrs. Penchard said automatically as her eyes darted around the class. She suddenly stopped looking about, and said sternly, "Jason, please be quiet, take a book from the shelf, and be seated."

Jason’s dirty hand grabbed a plain red book from the bookshelf. He smiled at his teacher and headed to his seat, stepping on Jimmy’s foot as he walked by. Jimmy drew his foot in under his desk but didn’t say a word. He just scowled as Jason walked back to his own seat by the longest possible route through the classroom.

"Class, begin reading," Mrs. Penchard said.

Every Friday afternoon was silent reading time, and Mrs. Penchard let the children read from their own books. Jimmy was glad that he had remembered to bring his book to school. Kids who forgot theirs had to pick a book from Mrs. Penchard’s bookcase. Those books were all old and not very good. The covers were plain and dirty, and the pages were usually yellow and had small print. Sometimes the pages even had scribbling on them. Jimmy could understand why kids scribbled there. Those books were just so boring.

Jimmy had a warm feeling as he took out his own book, Babe Ruth, a Boy’s Dream Comes True. It was a brand new paperback with a great cover. A shiny blue border surrounded two drawings of Babe Ruth, one picturing a boy with a baseball glove and one showing a man in a Yankee uniform. He opened the book. The pages were white and smelled good. Jimmy had just bought this book last weekend.

Every month, Ann and Lou took both Jimmy and Russ to The Reading Corner and let them each spend five dollars. Jimmy never used to care about reading, before Ann and Lou. The first time that they had taken him and Russ to the bookstore, Jimmy had refused even to look at the books. That had been his second week with the Sutherland family, and he was still mad at his new foster parents because they wouldn’t let him watch TV on weeknights. They weren’t going to get him to read! That was more than a year ago, and now the trip to The Reading Corner was one of his favorite things to do. Jimmy silently moved his lips as he slowly sounded out each word. Reading still wasn’t easy for him, but he could actually do it now! And it helped when the story was about Babe Ruth, and it had a lot of great pictures too.

Chapter 2

"Jimmy, you made a bet that you would get a baseball signed by Nomar Garciaparra?" Russ asked in disbelief.

"No, I didn’t make a bet," Jimmy answered his foster brother, as they both sat on swings, waiting for their mother to call them in for dinner.

"That’s not what I heard on the school bus today. Eddie Cook said that his brother Jason and his friends made a bet with you today at recess. "

"I didn’t make a bet," Jimmy insisted.

"Did you say that you were going to get that signed baseball?"

"Uh, I think I did," Jimmy confessed sheepishly.

"And did you mention a bet?"

"Uh, I think so," Jimmy muttered.

"How much did you bet?" Russ asked.

"I didn’t bet anything, Russ! I said I’d bet them, but they just laughed. We didn’t shake hands or anything."

"Why a baseball signed by Nomar Garciaparra?"

Jimmy didn’t really know. He had always loved baseballs. And he had always loved autographs. Maybe it was because the kids at school were always talking about how much baseball cards were worth, especially if they were actually signed by the player. But Jimmy knew that if he ever got a Nomar Garciaparra autograph, he would never sell it. His foster father, Lou, still kept an old book about animals that was signed by the author, Thornton Burgess. Lou had gotten it when he was a kid. Jimmy didn’t even know if Thornton Burgess was famous, but he did know how much that book and autograph meant to Lou. And Russ had the autograph of a real astronaut, Buzz Aldrin. Jimmy wanted his own special autograph too. Jimmy spent a lot of time practicing his own signature, pretending that he was a famous baseball player, and thinking about how much kids would love that autograph. He tried different ways of writing, sometimes making fancy loops, and other times writing a scribble that no one could read, just like real baseball players did. If he ever became famous, he’d give his autograph to every kid who wanted it.

He loved thinking about it. Maybe some day...

"Jimmy!" Russ said, interrupting his daydream. "Why a Garciaparra ball?" he asked again.

"I just want one, Russ. I want it more than anything. And each time I have to go to a new family, I could take it with me, and it wouldn’t be so bad."

"You better not get into a fight about that ball, that’s all. You got into big trouble after your last fight. Mom’s really serious about this. She said that you’d better control your temper, or else. And when she says, ‘or else,’ she means it."

Russ was three years older than Jimmy but looked a lot older. Russ had short, well groomed brown hair and was big for an eleven year-old.

"Russ?"

"Yeah?"

"Uh, Russ, are Mom and Dad going to send me to a new family?"

"I don’t think so. Why?" Russ asked.

"I think I heard Mom talking a few times on the phone to Ms. Sommersby, my social worker. And when she saw me around, she got quiet, like she didn’t want me to hear her. Every time I heard my old foster parents talking a lot to my social worker, it was because they were finding me a new home."

"I really don’t think that’ll happen, Jimmy. Mom and Dad really like you, and they’ve been wanting a brother or sister for me for a long time. No, you probably heard wrong."

"Maybe, but most of my other foster homes lasted about a year, and I’ve been with you for over a year. And I did see some mail that looked like it was from the state foster home people."

"I wouldn’t worry if I were you. And Jimmy, stop thinking about that signed ball, too. You are not going to get a ball signed by Nomar Garciaparra. He’s the best shortstop in the world."

Russ spoke like he knew for sure. He knew a lot about a lot of things. Usually, it made Jimmy happy. Russ was nice to him, and it was good to have a friend who could help him figure things out. He was the best foster brother that Jimmy had ever had. But sometimes Russ thought he knew too much, and that made Jimmy mad.

"I will too get my signed ball, Russ. You just wait and see."

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