Corey Maduro drifted to his left, tapped his glove with his fist, and waited for the high, lazy fly ball to descend from the sky.

“I got it!” he yelled, windmilling his arms big-league style.

This was a part of the game he loved: tracking a ball off the crack of the bat, determining its speed and trajectory, calculating the angle to take to make the catch. Not that you had to be a geometry whiz to track this one. This one was coming right at him.

Suddenly he heard footsteps. Someone was churning through the outfield grass in his direction. And closing in fast.

This can’t be good, he thought, reaching up for the ball, now a foot over his head.

At that moment, a figure darted in front of him. He saw the flash of another glove, then heard the sound of the ball landing in it with a soft whump!

Annoyed, he looked down. It was Katelyn Morris, the Orioles right fielder.

Gee, Corey thought, what a surprise.

Katelyn whipped the ball out of her glove in a smooth motion, took a crow hop, and fired it into Justin Pryor, the second baseman. She blew on the tip of her right index finger, like it was a smoking gun, and pretended to jam it into an imaginary holster.

After shaking the long, blond hair under her cap, she turned to Corey and smiled sweetly. “See that throw?” she said. “Does this kid have an arm on her or what? I mean, that was just a rocket right there. You gotta admit that.”

Corey gritted his teeth. Be cool, he told himself.

“Uh, normally when a player yells ‘I got it,’ that’s the signal for everyone else to back off,” he said. “Especially if the player yelling is the center fielder. Who is, technically, the boss of the outfield.”

“Oh, did you call for it?” Katelyn asked innocently. “Guess I didn’t hear. You got such a late break on the ball, I thought you needed help.”

“A late break?!” Corey could feel his face getting hot. “I didn’t have to move five feet!”

“Well, you seemed sort of paralyzed,” Katelyn said. “You had that dumb look on your face. Like you didn’t know what to do.”

Corey stared at her with his mouth open.

“Did you ever see that commercial,” she continued, “where the kid knocks over the big TV when his parents aren’t home? And it cracks and sparks? And he freaks out and runs in circles around the house? You looked kind of like that kid.”

Corey was about to reply when a loud voice cut the air: “Guys!”

It was Coach Mike Labriogla. He stood at home plate with a bat on his shoulder and a ball in his hand, glaring at his two outfielders.

“I’m sure you two are having a fascinating conversation,” he continued. “And I’m sure there’s an excellent reason why two of my players failed to communicate on a simple fly ball and nearly steamrolled each other. But maybe you could wrap it up so we can get back to practice.”

Katelyn looked at Corey and shook her head. “Nice work, nerd,” she hissed under her breath. “Now you got Coach mad.”

“I got Coach mad?” Corey said. “I’m not the one who—”

But Katelyn wasn’t listening. She turned and trotted back to right field.

As Coach began hitting ground balls to the infield, Corey tried to regain his concentration. But it wasn’t easy. This latest brush with Hurricane Katelyn had left him as dazed and confused as all the other times.

For weeks now, she had seemed on a mission to make him look bad. Corey was a solid fielder, but on the rare occasions when he misplayed a ball in a game, Katelyn would throw her hands in the air and shoot him dirty looks from right field.

When he didn’t get a hit—unfortunately, that was happening more and more, lately—she made a big show of shaking her head and muttering, “Gotta do better than that” as he trudged back to the dugout.

Oh, Katelyn was trying to show him up, all right. The only thing he couldn’t figure out was why.

It wasn’t as if he’d been mean to her or anything. Unlike some of the other Orioles, who didn’t like a girl playing on their team and didn’t try to hide it, Corey had welcomed Katelyn from the very first practice.

He knew she was a good player, for one thing. She covered a lot of ground in the outfield—okay, maybe too much at times—and had a strong, accurate throwing arm. And she was a solid hitter. Best of all, she seemed to love the game as much as he did. All that was good enough for Corey.

If you could play the game and loved baseball, he wanted you on his team. It was that simple. But Katelyn didn’t seem quite as thrilled to have Corey as a teammate.

In the beginning, Corey was sure Coach would see what Katelyn was up to and tell her to knock it off. He waited for Coach to remind her that the Orioles were a team and teammates support each other; they don’t criticize each other when someone makes a mistake. But Coach never had that little talk with Katelyn.

Now Corey was beginning to think that, somehow, Coach was clueless about what Katelyn was doing. Coach didn’t seem oblivious about anything else. But there wasn’t any other explanation at this point.

When it was time to hit, Corey jogged in to the dugout, pulled his bat from his equipment bag, and took a few warm-up swings. His best friend, shortstop Sammy Noah, sidled up to him.

“I see your good buddy Katelyn is up to her old tricks,” he said. “That was ridiculous, dude. You had that ball all the way.”

Corey smiled weakly. “Oh, she loves me,” he said. “You can tell.”

“Is that what it is?” Sammy said. “She has a funny way of showing it.”

“Look on the bright side,” Corey said. “At least she didn’t spit sunflower seeds on my spikes this time.”

“Or knock the ball out of your glove, like that other time,” Sammy said.

“Or trip me on the bases, like she almost did when we played the Yankees,” Corey said.

“Or make faces, like when you popped up that bunt against the Red Sox,” Sammy said.

“See?” Corey said. “She’s into me!”

“How could I have missed it?” Sammy said.

The two laughed and bumped fists. They had been best buds for years and shared the same off-kilter sense of humor. Sammy was one of the Orioles who had welcomed Katelyn initially, too. But after he’d seen how she was treating Corey, his dislike for her started growing daily.

Corey stepped into the batter’s box and went through his usual routine. He dug in with his back foot, tapped the far corner of the plate to make sure he could reach an outside pitch, and settled in with his left foot. He made sure his weight was evenly balanced. But he still felt uncomfortable at the plate, as he had for a couple of weeks now.

Just then Coach stepped off the pitching rubber and announced, “Soon as batting practice is over, let’s talk about the big tournament coming up.”

The tournament.

Ugh. Corey felt his stomach tighten again.

The big Grand Slam Tournament was all the Orioles had talked about for weeks. They’d be traveling to a gleaming new youth-baseball complex in the town of Sea Isle, North Carolina. A colorful brochure had been sent home with each player, and the Orioles had been busily checking out the Grand Slam Web site since the beginning of the season.

What a place it was: there were no fewer than seven spectacular-looking fields, each set in a replica of a famous big-league ballpark, such as Camden Yards in Baltimore, Fenway Park in Boston, Wrigley Field in Chicago, and Yankee Stadium in New York.

There were lights for night games, tons of batting cages and practice fields—everything a baseball-loving kid could wish for.

They’d be staying in a big hotel just a long fly ball from the Atlantic Ocean, with an amusement park and Gusher World, the biggest water park in the country, almost right next door.

No wonder the Orioles were so excited. Corey had tried to pretend he was excited, too. But the truth was, he’d been dreading this trip for a while now.

Reason number one: He was in a hitting slump, maybe the worst of his Babe Ruth League career. And the thought of stringing together another dismal week of 0-for-4s at the plate wasn’t exactly appealing—even in the picture-postcard setting of Sea Isle.

Reason number two: Having to put up with Katelyn right now was hard enough. Having to put up with her on the road 24/7 would be a nightmare.

And reason number three was—

“LET’S GO, ORIOLES!” a voice boomed, interrupting his reverie. “C’MON, COREY! GET THIS TEAM GOING! SHOW SOME LIFE! YOU GUYS LOOK LIKE A BUNCH OF DEADHEADS OUT THERE!”

The Orioles glanced at the bleachers, where a big man with thick glasses clambered up to the top step.

Corey sighed and looked down.

Reason number three had just arrived.