Cody watched Prince Fielder saunter from the Milwaukee Brewers’ dugout to the on-deck circle, holding his thick bat by the barrel and gazing around nonchalantly. At the plate, the Brewers’ Ryan Braun was digging in against Baltimore Orioles right-hander Jeremy Guthrie. But Cody couldn’t take his eyes off his idol, the Prince of Power himself.

It was two days later, a warm Sunday afternoon, and Cody was watching his first game at Camden Yards, the downtown home of the Orioles. His dad called it “the Taj Mahal of ballparks.” By Googling it Cody discovered that the Taj Mahal was a famous building in India. After reading that it was considered one of the most beautiful structures in the world, Cody understood what his dad meant.

Yes, Camden Yards was eye-popping. The grass was a deep, shimmering green—the greenest grass he’d ever seen—mowed in long, perfect diagonal rows. The reddish infield dirt looked as smooth as the felt on a pool table. Cody couldn’t imagine a ground ball ever taking a bad hop. And the imposing B&O Warehouse, with its brick facade, loomed behind the right-field stands. If you were a lefty slugger standing in the batter’s box, he thought, it must look close enough to touch.

Cody had been to Miller Park in Milwaukee to see the Brewers play lots of times—it was only forty minutes from his old house. But Camden Yards was even nicer. That the Orioles were playing the Brewers in a rare interleague matchup made the day even more special.

“Sorry I couldn’t get better seats,” Steve Parker said, grinning.

“Yeah, you gotta work on that,” Cody said, sipping his lemonade.

“Is this really the best you could do, Steve?” his mom added.

The seats had been a running joke between the three of them all afternoon. Because the fact was, they were sitting in section 36, right behind home plate, courtesy of one of his dad’s fellow detectives, who had season tickets and knew Cody was a big Brewers fan.

Cody had never been this close to Prince Fielder before. What he loved about Prince more than anything was how he carried himself: at 260 pounds, he seemed totally at ease with his weight. On JockBio.com, Cody had read that as a kid, Fielder had even appeared in a McDonald’s triple cheeseburger commercial with his father, Cecil.

But Cody’s favorite story about Prince was this: When he played for the minor-league Nashville Sounds, the guy had to wear number 66. The jerseys were assigned according to size, and he couldn’t fit into anything smaller. The only bigger uniform the Sounds handed out that year was to their mascot, Ozzie the tiger, who wore number 68.

Watching Prince take lazy practice swings at the plate now, the bat ending up high over his right shoulder on his perfect follow-through, Cody found himself smiling. His favorite poster of Prince—the one that dominated one wall of his basement—featured the Brewers slugger in an almost identical pose after blasting another mammoth home run. Thinking of his basement made Cody realize he was growing a little less homesick for Milwaukee each day. He was getting used to his new house, with its cozy backyard and big basement, the basement he had basically turned into his own baseball shrine, complete with photos of all the teams he’d been on and posters of his favorite major leaguers. He had even set up an indoor batting cage down there—well, for Wiffle Ball, anyway—complete with netting and a pitcher’s mound made of old couch cushions.

If only things were better at school, Cody thought. Especially with one particular classmate…

Thinking of Dante, Cody felt the familiar hollow pit in his stomach. Now it looked as if Dante would never leave him alone—unless Cody hired Jessica as his full-time bodyguard. Sure, that would look good. Already the other kids were mocking him for letting a girl come to his rescue. Still, he was totally in awe of Jessica’s courage. The way she had confronted Dante and refused to back down, even when he gave her that creepy Dante stare—Cody had never seen anything like it. Not outside of a Hollywood movie, anyway.

On the bus ride home from school that day, Jessica had explained that she had taken karate lessons since she was four years old. She loved it, she said, almost as much as baseball and softball. She was close to getting her black belt.

“My dad says I kick like a mule,” she had told Cody.

Remind me never to tick off this girl, Cody thought. Better not foul her too hard in hoops.

Yeah, good ol’ Jessica had definitely saved him from a beat down. That fact made it even harder for him to tell his parents about what was going on between him and Dante. Admit he was scared and a girl came to his rescue? Oh, no. Way, way too embarrassing.

Just then they heard a loud CRACK! and a roar went up from the crowd. Cody looked up just in time to see Prince drop his bat and admire his latest titanic blast, the ball soaring in the direction of the warehouse and landing out by the concession stands.

“All right, Prince!” Cody yelled, jumping from his seat and drawing annoyed looks from the Orioles fans around him.

Well, excuse me, Cody thought, sitting back down. Didn’t realize it was against the law to cheer for your team.

The rest of the game was exciting, with the Orioles eventually pulling out a 2–1 win thanks to home runs by Luke Scott and Adam Jones. But the minute it was over, Cody found himself worrying about Dante again. He was still brooding when he and his parents stopped at a restaurant across the street from the stadium.

Cody ordered a cheeseburger and told the waiter to hold the fries, even though they were about his favorite food in the whole world. But when the burger arrived, Cody took two bites and pushed his plate away, announcing he wasn’t very hungry after all.

Steve Parker put down his fork and studied his son.

“Okay,” he said quietly. “Tell us about Dante jumping you the other day.”

Cody’s eyes widened.

He was so busted.