by Felice Arena
Andy tried his best to ignore Mr Presticott’s put-downs. He lifted the bat and looked back at Reggie, Judd and the rest of his sad teammates.
‘Put him out of his misery, Hunter,’ Mr Presticott cackled.
Right! That does it, thought Andy. Forget this. I need to shut this loudmouth teacher up.
Andy tightened his grip and fixed his stare on Hunter. Let’s see how I go without switching on. I’m half boy, half robot, I’m pretty sure I can hit one stupid baseball.
‘Bring it,’ he muttered under his breath.
Hunter clutched the ball tightly, wound up his pitch, and released the ball with all his might. It was a hardcore fastball, but Andy was ready for it. He swung and …
THOOOOOOOOOOMMMMP!!!
Andy’s bat made contact with the ball and it shot out into the sky. It soared so high and so far that after a few seconds everyone lost sight of it. Andy had knocked it completely out of the school grounds.
‘Hey, Mr Presticott, isn’t that a home run?’ Andy heard Judd shout.
‘WOOOOOO-HOOOOOOO!’ cheered his team, jumping to their feet. Reggie gleefully threw up his arms, Judd tilted down his shades and nodded his head, impressed, and Gabriella bit her bottom lip, half-smiling, as she walked to home base.
Andy grinned – for a moment he wasn’t worried about Dr Baffi and the Triple S. He wasn’t worried that any minute they might be viewing the CCTV footage and tracking him down, or that any day he might be kidnapped and used as a human lab rat. As Andy’s team cheered for him and he jogged from base to base all he could think about was how good it felt to put Mr Presticott and Hunter in their place.
Maybe it wasn’t so bad being Andy Roid after all.
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First published by Penguin Group (Australia), 2012
Text copyright © Red Wolf Entertainment Pty Ltd, 2012
Illustrations copyright © Chad McCown, 2012
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ISBN: 978-1-74253-499-2