He suddenly turned around. “I guessed that might be your wish,” he said. “Who knows? Maybe it will come true.”
A smile crossed his lips. He started to chuckle.
Then he ducked inside.
“What’s so funny?” I called through the screen door.
Ernie didn’t answer.
I waited there for a minute. But he never returned.
“Weird,” I muttered to myself. I glanced around the mess of a yard. Might as well leave.
I peeked through the hole in the fence. Eve was long gone.
The shortest way home was down Fear Street, so I walked around to the front of Ernie’s house. And bumped right into a policeman. The officer clapped a hand on my shoulder. “Are you all right?” he asked me.
“I’m fine,” I answered, startled. “Is something wrong?”
Eve ran up behind him. “I called the police, Buddy.”
“You what? Why’d you do that?” I demanded. Eve was sort of a scaredy-cat. But calling the cops? That was ridiculous.
“I saw that weird old man grab you when you were under the porch,” Eve explained. “I thought you were in trouble.”
Another voice called behind me, “I checked it out. There’s no sign of anyone. The house is empty, just like it should be.”
I turned and saw another policeman walking down the front steps. He looked older than the first officer, maybe in his fifties.
“What do you mean?” I asked. “Some old guy lives there.”
“I don’t think so, son,” the first officer told me. “This house is abandoned.”
What? The place was shabby, but abandoned?
I turned and stared up at the old house.
Whoa!
Cream-colored paint hung down in long curls from warped old boards. The shutters dangled crookedly from rusty hinges. All the windows were boarded up. Ivy grew thickly over the whole thing.
“But—I don’t get it. I just met the guy who lives here,” I said.
“Not possible,” the older police officer told me. “No one has lived here since 1948!”
5
Two days later we played the Oneiga Blue Devils. By the fourth inning we were behind five to one. It was another runaway. As usual, I had the only run on the team.
“I’m telling you, that old man was a ghost!” Eve insisted.
She sat beside me in the dugout, munching sunflower seeds. She thought it made her look like a pro. I hated to break it to her. But she looked about as much like a pro as my cat, Foster.
“Come on, Buddy,” Eve continued. “Fear Street? An abandoned house? A disappearing old man? Hello? You figure it out.”
“Would you get off it?” I snapped. “That was two days ago. And besides, we’re playing a game here, remember? Maybe you should pay more attention to that.”
“Whoa. What’s your problem?” She spat out the shell of a sunflower seed.
I frowned. I shouldn’t have yelled at her like that. “Sorry,” I mumbled. “I just can’t stand losing—again.”
Inside, I knew that wasn’t the only reason I yelled. Really, I didn’t want to think about the whole Fear Street thing. I mean, what if Eve were right? What if that old guy was a ghost?
Not that I really believed in that stuff. But still. . .
It was a relief when I noticed that I was next at bat.
“Gotta go,” I said. “I’m on deck.” I trotted to the on-deck circle, grabbed a bat, and swung it around to loosen up.
My teammate Scott Adams stood at first. He made it there on an error. Glen Brody was up at the plate. Maybe we could actually get some runs this inning.
Seeing Scott and Glen reminded me again of Fear Street. Scott lived there. Glen went over to his house all the time. Nothing weird ever happened to them.
Or did it? I remembered Glen telling some wild story at school once. Something about a monster from Fear Lake—
I stopped thinking about it when Glen popped the ball up into short left field.
“Run!” I shouted.
The Oneiga shortstop ran back for the ball, but he collided with the left fielder. Scott was already rounding second base. Heading for third. Glen made it to first and then chugged toward second.
Safe!
Two runners in scoring position. All right! I told myself. Time to show these suckers a little something.
I felt pumped up as I approached the plate. My teammates cheered me on from the dugout. “Do it, Buddy!” “Go for it, Buddy!”
I stepped into the batter’s box, ready to send this sucker downtown. Over the fence. Never to be seen again.
I grinned at the pitcher and waggled my bat a few times over the plate. He wiped some sweat from his brow.
Getting nervous? I taunted the pitcher in my mind. You better be. I’m going to mail this ball to Mars!
The first pitch was way outside. I let it go and moved closer to the plate, crowding it.
“Try to give me an outside pitch now, chicken,” I muttered.
The pitcher wound up again. I tightened my grip on the bat.
Then, from the corner of my eye, I glimpsed a familiar face.
Ernie Ames. The old man from the house on Fear Street.
He stood at the fence. Watching me.
His eyes burned into mine. I felt as if I couldn’t tear my gaze away from him.
What did he want?
“Duck!” someone yelled.
My head whipped around. Oh, man!
The ball was speeding straight toward me!
Whack! The ball hit me and knocked me down. My head smacked into the ground.
Even though I was wearing a helmet, pain exploded in my head. I saw a huge flash of white light. Little stars danced in front of my eyes.
Then everything went black.
6
The next thing I heard was somebody calling my name.
“Buddy. Buddy, talk to me,” someone called.
I opened my eyes slowly. Man, did my head hurt!
My vision was blurry for a second. As it cleared, I made out faces peering down at me. Strangers.
“You okay, Buddy? That pitch hit you square in the head.”
The man speaking was tall. And he had dark hair he wore slicked back with some sort of shiny oil.
How does he know my name? I wondered. I’ve never seen him before.
“Oooh!” I groaned and sat up slowly. My head throbbed where the ball hit me. I felt a little dizzy.
“Thatta boy. Can you get up?”
Without waiting for an answer, the shiny-haired man grabbed my arms and hauled me to my feet. I stood, wobbling for a second.
“Feeling steadier? Good. Shake it off,” the man told me.
Shake it off? I thought. Is he crazy? I just got clobbered in the head with a fastball!
“I—uh—” I started to say.
“Hit by the pitch—take your base!” the umpire yelled.
“But I—”
“Come on, tough guy!” the man with the slicked-back hair interrupted. “You heard the ump. Go take your base.” He tucked his hand under my elbow and hustled me to first base. “Good, good,” he muttered, and trotted away.
Who was that guy anyway?
I stood at first base and squeezed my eyes shut, trying to get over my feeling of confusion.
“Batter up!” the umpire called.
I opened my eyes to see who was next at bat.
Whoa. Hold up, I thought. Who is that guy? He doesn’t play on my team! And what’s with his uniform?
The pants were baggy. The shirt was loose. The whole outfit looked like a sack. And instead of the red, white, and blue colors of my Shadyside Middle School uniform, it was white with black pinstripes.
Come to think of it, my own uniform felt strangely heavy and loose. I glanced down.
Black and white pinstripes! I was wearing pinstripes! How did that happen? Where was my uniform?
Before I could think, the batter hit a grounder toward the shortstop. I took off f
rom first base. The ball skipped past the shortstop and into the outfield.
I rounded second at full speed, really running now. I slid into the bag and barely beat the throw to third.
I stood and brushed myself off. A rough hand clapped me on the shoulder.
“Way to hustle, Gibson,” a deep voice said in my ear.
Gibson? Who was Gibson? I turned—and found myself staring at a man with a heavy red face.
He had to be the third-base coach—why else would he be standing there? But he wasn’t my third-base coach. In fact, I’d never seen this guy before either.
What was happening? Who were these people? Was I seeing things because of my knock on the head? Was I going nuts?
I started to get a really weird feeling. . . .
I licked my lips. “Sanders,” I corrected him. “My name is Sanders. Uh—who are you?”
The man laughed. “That’s our Buddy. Always kidding around.”
“Quit gabbing and get your head in the game,” the man with the shiny hair called from across the field. He had to be the head coach. But why didn’t I recognize him?
I peered at the next batter—another person I didn’t know. In fact, I couldn’t find a single familiar face on the whole field—or in either of the dugouts. Eve, Scott, Glen—they had all disappeared!
It was the same with the people in the bleachers. Total strangers, all of them. And they all wore funny clothes. For example, there wasn’t a woman there without a funny-looking hat on. And they all wore gloves. In the middle of the summer!
And where were my parents? They had been in the stands five minutes ago. But now I couldn’t spot them anywhere.
The pitcher zoomed a fastball down the center of the plate. The guy at bat took a huge cut at it. He crushed the ball, sending it sailing out of the park.
“Home run!” people screamed.
“What’s the matter with you, Gibson? Don’t just stand there. Run home,” the third-base coach urged.
I ran to home plate. Then I trotted to the dugout. As I passed the fence, I caught a glimpse of the parking lot.
Whoa. A huge maroon car with an odd, rounded shape sat next to a pickup truck. The car looked as if it came from one of those old gangster movies. The truck was straight out of the Beverly Hillbillies reruns I sometimes watch.
“Uh—are we sharing the park with a classic car show today?” I asked a freckle-faced kid in the dugout.
He stared at me as if I were crazy.
“What’s a classic car?” he asked.
I started to feel more than weird. I started to feel downright scared.
I could think of only one explanation for all this.
I was crazy. The knock on the head had made me go insane.
My temples throbbed. I sat on the bench and rubbed my head. My hair felt funny somehow. Stiff.
“Are you okay, Buddy? You don’t look so hot,” the freckle-faced kid told me.
I’m not okay! I wanted to shout. I’m going nuts!
But I was scared to say it out loud. What would they do to me if I were crazy? Take me off to a nuthouse?
“Head hurts,” I mumbled at last.
I glanced down to the end of the dugout. A dozen strange, small gloves lay in a pile on the ground. They looked like pot holders. Leather pot holders. Not baseball mitts.
Nearby was a stack of wooden bats.
Wooden bats? Our league always used aluminum bats. Didn’t we?
I was still trying to figure it all out, when the freckled kid poked me with a bat. “Get up, Buddy. Three outs.”
“What?” I glanced up. Players in pin-striped uniforms streamed past me to the pile of gloves. It was our turn in the field.
I must have looked uncertain, because the man with the slicked-back hair reached into the pile and pulled out a glove.
“Get out there, Gibson,” he barked. “We don’t have all day.”
I caught the glove and pulled it on as I ran for third. It looked small on my hand, but it felt like a perfect fit. Someone had written “Gibson” on it in blue ink.
That name again. I knew it from somewhere, but where?
Then, suddenly, I remembered the old man from yesterday. Ernie Ames. The guy Eve thought was a ghost.
Gibson was the kid Ernie told me about. Buddy Gibson. The kid in the photograph.
The photograph from 1948.
I stopped running and stood there with my mouth open.
Could it be? Was it even possible?
I suddenly began to have trouble breathing. There was something I had to check out. Right away.
I dashed off the field and into the parking lot. I ran to the big maroon car and peered into the sideview mirror.
A stranger stared back out at me.
A stranger who Had a blond crew cut instead of curly brown hair. Who had blue eyes, not brown. Who had a small scar over his right eyebrow. Who was about four inches taller than me.
A stranger who looked just like the kid in that 1948 photo.
The world seemed to swoop in a dizzy circle around me.
Now it was all starting to make sense—in a horrible way.
Now I understood why all the uniforms looked so goofy. Why the gloves were weird. Why everything seemed as if it had come from an antique shop.
And why everyone kept calling me Gibson.
Somehow, I was Gibson.
Somehow, I had gone back in time!
7
I stood there, stunned.
I had gone back in time!
Back—into someone else’s body!
How? How did it happen?
I was broken out of my daze by the coach with the slicked-back hair. He ran over to me and grabbed my arm. “What is the matter with you, Gibson? Are you nuts?” he demanded. “Get out on that field. Now!”
He hustled me back to the diamond. I stumbled toward third base.
Think, I told myself. I just have to think.
“Hey, what inning is it?” I asked the catcher as I passed home plate.
“The ninth.” He grinned. “Looks like another winner!”
I couldn’t concentrate on the game at all. My mind kept whirling, trying to figure out what had happened. And how.
I rubbed the side of my head through my cap. There was still a little pain.
Was that it? I wondered. Could my knock on the head have made me believe I went back in time? Could it have made me see Buddy Gibson’s face in the mirror instead of mine?
I nearly blew an easy play, when a line drive popped out of my tiny glove. But I scrambled to pick it up and managed to make the throw to first in time.
The left fielder hollered at me. “What’s the matter, Gibson? Can’t handle a little pepper?”
I glared back at him. He was tremendous—he looked closer to fourteen than twelve. He had reddish hair and a mean squint. I thought he might make a better linebacker than a fielder.
Normally, I would have answered him. But I kept my mouth shut. I didn’t want to talk to anyone until I was sure of what was going on.
“Play ball!” the umpire shouted.
As the inning went on, I studied the people around me. Under their ball caps, most of the guys wore buzz cuts.
Most of my teammates, back in real time, had longer hair.
And my shoes. They were heavy, clunky, spiked things, stiff as iron. Nothing like my Nikes.
I must have gone back in time. Everything seemed so real. The nerdy-looking uniforms. The gloves.
Even the name “Gibson” written on my glove. The “S” was a little lopsided by the glove’s seam. I couldn’t imagine things in so much detail—could I?
I thought about Ernie. I played back our conversation in my mind, trying to remember everything he said about Gibson. And about 1948.
He said they called this team the Doom Squad. Because everyone that played them was doomed to lose.
And because—
I caught my breath, remembering the old man’s words. “Now they’re buried in the
Fear Street Cemetery!”
They all died after the championship game!
I sucked in my breath. Holy cow! Was this the championship game?
I peered over my shoulder at the scoreboard in right field.
Shadyside, seven. Oneiga, two. We were up five runs in the ninth inning.
Ernie told me that in the championship game Shadyside was ahead by only two in the ninth.
Whew! It must be a different game. I was safe—for now.
But I had to get out of here before that game!
Then my mind flashed to another part of my conversation with Ernie. My wish. I told him I wanted to play on the best Shadyside team ever.
Was that it?
Was my wish coming true?
“Strike three. You’re out!” the umpire bellowed.
Three outs. The game was over. We won.
But it wasn’t a victory I could enjoy.
As we were jogging in, the big left fielder pumped a fist in the air. “That’s what you get when you play the Doom Squad, boys. A big ‘L’ in the score book. We are your doom!”
Doom. I shuddered at the word.
I really had to get out of here!
Then I thought of something. If I landed in the past because of a wish, maybe a wish would get me back to my own time!
I had to try. Outside the dugout, I tossed my glove down and shut my eyes tight. I balled my hands into fists.
I want to go home! I screamed in my mind. I want to go home!
“Okay, boys. Gather ’round,” a voice called.
I opened one eye. Then the other.
The first thing I saw was the coach with the slicked-back hair.
I groaned. It was still 1948.
Everyone on the team gathered around. I joined them.
The coach stood with his hands in his jacket pockets. A cigarette dangled from his lips. Gross.
“Okay, guys, good job today,” the coach said. “Keep playing like this, and we’re on our way to the trophy for sure. We’re just one game away. We’ll be the champions of 1948! Let’s hear it!”
“Yeah!” everybody cheered. Guys pounded me on the back.
I just stood there and tried to smile.
The players gathered their stuff. We crossed the parking lot to the bus. Everybody chattered away, laughing and happy.