TABLE OF CONTENTS 1 Guilty as Charged 1 2 We Get It We’re Monsters 11 3 I Sort of Joined the Team 18 4 There’s a Problem 25 5 But I Haven’t Done Anything This Time 33 6 Reply Hazy Try Again 38 7 Look Who Came Crawling Back 45 8 What Dirty Tricks 54 9 Finally Some Action 62 10 Who Slips on a Banana Peel 70 11 Who Needs All That Dribbling and Scoring 76 12 This Is Way Too Cool 85 13 You Win Some 91 14 It Was One Dance 101 15 Quit Biting 114
16 You’re Going Down Man 130 17 Nice Strategy Mack 137 18 What’s Shaking 148 19 He Did What 154 20 You Bring My Bed 161 21 What Changed 167 22 Bit of a Shaky Start There 173 23 Everybody Off 185 24 It’s Working 197 25 I Like It 209 26 Trust Your Gut 214 27 What Choice Do We Have 222 28 Who’s Pumped Up 232 29 Captains Gotta Finish the Game 244 Epilogue I Made a Deal 257
CHAPTER 1 GUILTY AS CHARGED Mackenzie Jones had seen this look on his friend’s face before It was the bottom of the ninth of the All-Camp Junior Baseball Tournament final and Andre Jennings stood in the batter’s box his jaw clenched eyes narrowed narrowed and nostrils flared The look usually indicated that something special was about to happen That is if the pitch would ever arrive Now I see why they have a pitch clock in the major leagues said Miles Holley shifting nervously next to Mack This is taking forever Andre’s bright white jersey read Camp Avalon across the front but the kids who went there never called it that As far as they were concerned they attended Camp Average the least competitive sports camp in the world The pitcher’s just trying to psych Andre out Mack replied to his friend It’s a classic Killington move Known for its baseball dominance Camp Killington
had won every All-Camp Tournament for more than thirty years until the previous summer when Andre Mack Miles and a bunch of their friends had pulled off a minor miracle and put an end to the streak But the Killington kids were so sure they’d win the rematch this year that they let Camp Average host the final on their senior-camp diamond for the second straight summer And now Andre was trying to prove them wrong He just needed a ball to cross the plate Okay pitcher the umpire said finally Let’s play ball The pitcher a skinny kid with a long ponytail and killer changeup nodded at the ump and grinned at Andre He wound up and delivered a low fastball BANG Andre smacked the ball high over the pitcher’s head Killington’s center fielder tracked it in the air and slowly moved back back back until he bumped into the wooden outfield fence with a thud A second later the ball landed well beyond it and the fans in the bleachers beyond first base jumped to their feet They stomped and cheered high-fiving in their orange camp T-shirts Nice one Andre shouted Winston Smith their junior camp director from the summer before As always he was dressed in a light gray hoodie red short shorts knee-high white socks and black old-school running shoes
