Tim heard his bedroom door creak open. His sheet was over his head in an attempt to block out the late morning sunlight. As he heard footsteps enter, he pulled the sheet down to his nose, so that only his forehead and blue eyes were visible.

"How much would you pay me to eat a bug?" Tim asked.

His older brother Greg just stared at him. "Why are you so weird?"

"Because," Tim said as he flung the sheet away and stumbled out of bed. "Because yesterday I dug a hole in the backyard, right? And there were all these bugs. And some had like a thousand legs and a million eyes. And I thought I would eat them." He pulled his shirt over his head and threw it on the floor. "You know, for money." He spotted the acoustic guitar in Greg's hand. "What's that?"

Greg hefted it up and held it out for inspection. "Danny Wilson was throwing it away, and since you liked my records so much, I thought you might want to try playing." He handed it to Tim. "It needs new strings, but they probably do that at the music store."

"That's so cool," Tim said. He ran his hand down the wooden surface, admiring it. "Thank you so much." He placed it on his bed and looked up at Greg with wide, solemn eyes. "I will eat a bug for you for free."

Greg sighed. "Please don't eat any bugs, Timmy."

Tim picked a t-shirt off the floor, sniffed it, and put it on. "I gotta go to Matt's cause I lent him your Ramones record, okay? And baseball's starting soon, so we gotta practice." He took off his pajama bottoms, pulled on a pair of jeans, got his foot stuck in one of the legs, and fell over.

Greg reached down to help him up. "Be home for dinner and try not to kill yourself."

"I'm okay," Tim said. "Can I borrow your bike?"

"Sure."

Tim didn't have a bike of his own, but if Greg wasn't going out, he usually let Tim borrow his. It was a ten-minute bike ride to Matt's house, so by the time Tim got there his shirt was soaked with sweat, and his elbow was skinned from falling onto the sidewalk. He placed the bike carefully up against the side of the house and walked in the front door without knocking. Before he even got to Matt's bedroom door he heard "Blitzkrieg Bop".

He burst through the door and shouted, "Did it change your life?"

Matt, who'd been lying on his bed sideways, sat up and shouted back, "It changed my life!"

Tim let out a yelp, jumped on the bed, smacked his head against the wall, and fell down onto the bed.

Matt lifted the needle off the record and turned off the record player. "You okay?"

Tim sat up on the bed. "Yeah, I'm fine. So you love it?"

"Are you kidding?" Matt grinned. "It's the best thing I've ever heard."

"I have to give it back to Greg soon," Tim explained. "But I was thinking we could buy one, like to share. I have a plan to get money. How much would you pay me to eat a bug?"

Matt frowned. "I wouldn't pay you to eat a bug."

"What if it was a really cool bug?"

"No, but maybe some kids at school would." He stood up and stretched his arms up. "Like maybe the retarded kids. We should practice."

Tim stood up. "Yeah. I don't wanna sit on the bench all season again."

The top of Matt's dresser was covered with baseball trophies. He'd won MVP two years in a row, and always had the most home runs and RBIs. Tim, on the other hand, had only started five games the whole last season. He was bad at catching, bad at throwing, bad at hitting, and too easily distracted. In one game he had to be pulled out because he'd noticed a flock of birds flying overhead, tilted his head back to watch their progress, and fell backwards, hitting his head on a rock. He bled everywhere and Matt's mom had to drive him home.

The boys went into the backyard, where Matt had a beat-up bat and a dirty baseball. Tim grabbed both and tossed the ball to Matt. "You pitch!" The ball sailed several feet over Matt's head and into the neighbor's yard.

"Hold on a second," Matt said, and he jogged next door to retrieve the ball.

When he got back, Matt stared at Tim for a moment, tossing the ball between his hands.

"Throw it," Tim said.

"You do know you're left handed," Matt said.

Tim looked down at his hands. "Yeah, but I don't hit so good, so I thought I'd try the other way."

Matt shook his head. "It doesn't work like that."

Tim shrugged and reversed his stance. Matt threw him a pitch, but Tim didn't swing.

"Why didn't you swing?" Matt asked. "That was right in the strike zone."

"It was going too fast," Tim said. "Can you throw slower?" He retrieved the ball and threw it back. It landed about two feet in front of him.

Matt walked up to Tim and picked up the ball. "I think we should quit baseball."

Tim's eyes widened. "But you're the best player on the team."

"You're my best friend," Matt said. "I'm not gonna play if you don't play."

"Why wouldn't I play?"

"Because you suck."

Tim considered this for a moment. "Yeah, I guess I do."

Matt tossed the baseball into the bushes. "So what do you wanna do instead? Wanna listen to more Ramones?"

"We should go to my house," Tim suggested. "Greg gave me a guitar. We can learn to play like the Ramones."

"Okay," Matt said. "But if you suck at that too, I'm making you eat a bug."

"Okay," Tim said, and he followed Matt back into the house to get the record. Between the both of them, they could probably scrape together enough money for the new strings. And if he couldn't play, it didn't matter. Secretly he kind of wanted to eat a bug anyway.