The Hitting Zone

The next morning, all of the Atkins, plus me, were gathered around the kitchen table for breakfast. Mrs. Atkins had already loaded my plate like the first day she heard that I need to eat more. Even though she was upset with Zeke, she still catered to her sons, even a foster son like me. Noah was right, his mom wouldn't be anything like mine even when she's mad. "We'll go to school a bit earlier today." Mrs. Atkins declared. She looked around. "I'll be coming with you boys, in my own car to see if Zeke's plan is even plausible."The twins glanced at one another, but didn't say anything. "Thanks Mom." Zeke said out of nowhere, throwing us all off. He glanced up from his plate. "Thanks for trying."Mrs. Atkins seem to soften, losing the cold aura. "Zeke, we want the best for you. Going to college is a great experience and having a degree is a wonderful fallback plan if the pros don't work out.""I'm sincerely thinking about it, Mom." Zeke replied, keeping a neutral expression. "After visiting Stanford, I realized there's still some serious competition at that level.""A College World Series ring would be nice too." Noah piped up. "You've picked some schools that have been there a few times or even have a good chance to go back."Zeke's lips twitched, fighting off a smile. "Exactly. Not many schools have more appearances than Stanford in California, but USC and Cal State Fullerton do.""Why'd you include UCLA then?" Kyle said between bites of a bagel. "They aren't on the level with the other three.""They won a World Series in the past decade." Zeke answered. "It's only a few blocks away from USC so it doesn't hurt to check it out.""Wow. Visiting rival schools in the same week." Dave shook his head. "You have guts. I wouldn't be surprised if they rescind their scholarship offers.""Offers are nice, but they aren't necessary." Mr. Atkins spoke up. "I'm telling you boys now. As long as you want to go to college, you mom and I will help out. If that means getting a loan, we're in. Selling a few more houses a year won't be too hard on us. I won't say it again, stop worrying about money."The table got quiet again. "Okay, that's enough about baseball." Mrs. Atkins stood up with her empty plate. "You five need to hurry and finish breakfast so we can get going." She gave Zeke a pointed look. "If we go through with this trip, it won't just be about baseball. I expect you to sit in a class for each visit and to sit down with the academic advisor to talk about degree options."Zeke nodded. She turned to the kitchen and started to wash off the dish. Breakfast finished soon after the conversation died. Zeke still drove all of us to school with our backpacks and baseball bags filling up the gaps. Mrs. Atkins followed along in her own car. Unlike us though, she parked in the top parking lot, close to the main building. Which made sense since she didn't need to go to baseball practice after school. What would be the point of her walking up the big hill?Zeke and the twins took off, heading to the school while Noah and I stuck around the baseball field. "So early." Noah let out a sigh, looking around. "Mr. Miller won't be here for half an hour. Let's go sit in the bleachers and just wait here."I glanced up the hill. "It won't bother me to just walk to the school."Noah laughed. "Yea, but what's the difference from waiting up there and waiting down here?" He started to walk to the spectator bleachers. "Plus, I would hate for Mr. Miller to come and not see us. He would think that we're unreliable."I shrugged and followed Noah. We both sat down, and set down our bags. I glanced out to the field. "The field looks really big from here."Noah gave me a funny look. "Most say it looks smaller from the stands. But I guess you just have a big presence on the field."I shook my head. "No way.""Okay, maybe just in the batter's box." Noah smiled. "We should be back in the lineup for tomorrow's game.""You think so?""Of course!" Noah nodded confidently. "Coach won't bench us forever. He was just trying out the others in a game situation. And honestly it wasn't too impressive. You and I are way better than John and Daniel.""I don't know about that." I mumbled. "Hey! You haven't made an error yet! Don't get so down on yourself! Even professionals make errors so why can't we? Well, I know I won't." He laughed. Noah has always been confident in his fielding. He noticed that I was still a little depressed and nudged my shoulder with his. "If it really bugs you, we can work on fielding all week. We won't be having practice at all during midterms week, so we can just use all that free time, focusing on building your confidence.""Won't your Mom want us to study?""She won't be here, remember? And Dad will be easygoing about it. We're only freshmen so midterms won't be that hard."I know they won't be hard. Neither of us were having trouble in our classes so I'm pretty sure we'll pass after a little revision. "Does this mean you think they'll really go? The school will let Zeke skip midterms?"Noah grinned. "Of course. He's Zeke. The best baseball player in the county. He's already making this school famous. If he goes to some big school on scholarship, he'll bring our high school a lot of prestige. I'm almost one hundred percent positive that they'll work with him so he can go on this trip."Wow. "I didn't know high schools would care about things like that.""Sure they do. It's like if a smart student got into Harvard or Yale or any other Ivy League university. All high schools would claim these former students with pride. Kind of like, 'hey, we produced this amazing human, praise us too.'"I let out a laugh.",