Boys in Control (Boy/Girl Battle)

Boys in Control (Boy/Girl Battle)

Play ball! That’s what the sixth-grade Buckman Badgers baseball team plans on doing. Eddie Malloy and Jake Hatford hope to lead their team to the championship game the last Saturday in May. But due to a mix-up, Mrs. Hatford has to run a yard sale for the Women’s Auxiliary of the Buckman Fire Department the very same day in their very own yard! Not wanting to miss out on the game, the family elects the only nonbaseball fan in the family, Wally, to stay home and help watch over the sale tables until they return. Wally’s ticked off. On top of that, Caroline Malloy has written and will perform a play for a school project and has roped Wally into costarring with her. Let Caroline think she’s so smart. Wally has his own reason for being in the play. It looks like the Hatfords could be totally humiliated after the girls stumble upon an embarrassing item from the boys’ past. Leave it to Wally’s secret plan to turn the tables on the girls’ scheme and prove who’s really in control! Boys rule! "A fast-paced read, and fans of the series will welcome it." Play ball! That's what the sixth-grade Buckman Badgers baseball team plans on doing. Eddie Malloy and Jake Hatford hope to lead their team to the championship game the last Saturday in May. But due to a mix-up, Mrs. Hatford has to run a yard sale for the Women's Auxiliary of the Buckman Fire Department the very same day in their very own yard! Not wanting to miss out on the game, the family elects the only nonbaseball fan in the family, Wally, to stay home and help watch over the sale tables until they return. Wally's ticked off. On top of that, Caroline Malloy has written and will perform a play for a school project and has roped Wally into costarring with her. Let Caroline think she's so smart. Wally has his own reason for being in the play. It looks like the Hatfords could be totally humiliated after the girls stumble upon an embarrassing item from the boys' past. Leave it to Wally's secret plan to turn the tables on the girls' scheme and prove who's really in control! Boys rule! "From the Hardcover edition. Phyllis Reynolds Naylor has written over 100 books, many of which take place in West Virginia. One Stuck Wally Hatford took two baseball cards from his dresser--Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez--and stuck them in a jacket pocket. Jake had given them to him a month before just because he had duplicates, but Wally was going to trade them at school for a magic trick--a box that took a quarter and turned it into a fifty-cent piece. When he got downstairs and hung his jacket over a chair, he found his mother moving about the kitchen and talking to herself in a state of great agitation. "I must have been clear out of my mind!" she said, lifting the teakettle off the stove and plunking it right back down again. "I don't know what in the world possessed me to say yes last year, when I had no idea what I'd be doing a year from then." When Mrs. Hatford talked like this, Wally and his older brothers knew to lie low. Even their father knew that as long as breakfast was on the table, it was better to sit down and butter a biscuit than to ask what she was talking about. But Peter, who was in second grade, hadn't learned that yet. He licked the grape jelly off his fingers and asked, "What did you say yes to?" Everyone else at the table gave him a silent shake of the head. When Mrs. Hatford started talking, it was sometimes hard to get her to stop, and the boys would be lucky to make it to school on time. But it was too late. "The Women's Auxiliary of the Buckman Fire Department's Treats and Treasures yard sale," she said, and immediately sank down in her chair at the end of the table and rested her chin in her hands. "Now, that's a mouthful," Mr. Hatford said, hiding a smile behind his mug as he finished the last of his coffee. "Did you promise to clean out our attic and look for things to give to the sale?" "I promised to run the sale!" Mrs. Hatford moaned. "At the firehouse?" "Right here in our yard! Right out there on the driveway! Right up on our front porch!" Mrs. Hatford cried. Now all the Hatfords were staring. "Well, Ellen, that shouldn't be so hard," said her husband. "I'm sure the boys will help, and I'll do what I can." "No, you won't, because the sale happens to be the last Saturday in May, and you know what that is!" Wally tried to think, and then he remembered. That would be the day of the final game in the district elementary school baseball championships. And Jake, his brother, was on the Buckman Badgers. "If the Badgers make it that far, you know we'll all want to be there rooting for Jake!" Mrs. Hatford said in distress. "I'm certainly going to be taking half days off from work each Saturday in May that he's playing." Now it was a family emergency! Wally saw Jake's eyes open wide. Even Josh, Jake's twin, looked startled that his mother might have to be anywhere else on that fateful day. Jake had wanted to play for the Buckman Badgers ever sin