Page 21 of The Future Play

It would also get me in trouble.

“You’re easy to talk to, be comfortable with. I appreciate you letting me see a little behind your mask tonight too.”

“That’s how friendships form, right?”

“Right.”

She looks around the frosty night air. “Well, I should get going. Thank you for your help tonight. It means a lot.”

“Take care of yourself. And if I don’t see you before you go back to campus, have a safe trip.”

“Thanks.” With one last look, she walks around her car and pulls the driver’s side door open. “Have a good night, baseball boy.”

“Night, event queen.”

The last thing I hear is her laugh as she climbs into the car. I step back onto the sidewalk and watch until she pulls away from the curb and makes it to the red light at the end of the street.

Hopefully tonight was the start of a solid friendship, even if the tension between us is going to make being friends with her more difficult than any other friendship I’ve ever had.

5

VALUABLE

Jamie

“Oy,Commander, if we don’t do something now, this ship is going down!”

“Roger that. Defensive measures!” Calvin runs over to me and pulls the cardboard lever next to me. Then he looks up at me. “Do that silly voice again.”

“Oy, you better run down the floodgates and batten up your skivvies!”

Calvin doubles over laughing at my bastardized Scottish accent. Or is it Irish? Maybe Australian? I don’t know. Baseball is my thing, not acting.

He straightens up suddenly when the massive box we’re sitting in moves.

“We’re under attack.”

“Get behind me!”

I shove his little body behind mine, then stick my head out the cutout for the door, only to take a foam dart directly to the forehead.

“Gotcha,” Penny says, pretending to holster her plastic gun.

Before I can pretend to be dead, Calvin jumps on my shouldersand sticks his head out the top hatch, hitting Penny square in the chest with a dart.

“Ugh! I hate you.” Then she dramatically falls to the ground.

Cal looks down at little Mila, who looks back at him with big eyes.

“Mila, switch to our team.”

She shrugs and climbs over me into the box. “Okay, we have to set course for a new galaxy,” Cal says, despite the fact I’m his dead second-in-command hanging out of his ship. At least have the courtesy to put me out the airlock.

“No, we don’t.” And out of nowhere, Mila shoots Cal in the back with a dart. “Girls win.”

Penny jumps off the floor and dances around.

“No fair! You cheated!”

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