Zip It!

by Kurtis Scaletta

  Dad peered up at the top of the balloon. “It looks like the deflation port is still sealed. Why isn’t it vented?”

  “The cord snapped,” somebody explained. “That’s why the pilot had to make a crash landing. He had to shut off the burner so the balloon wouldn’t burst.”

  “Hmm. Well, if we wait long enough, the balloon will eventually deflate. But if you’re in a hurry, I need to get to the deflation port or cut the envelope.” Dad made a little whistling noise. “She’s a beaut, so it would be a shame to cut ’er up.”

  The envelope? Dad sure sounded like he knew his stuff. While they were talking, I cracked open his toolbox. The red binder was wedged inside at an angle.

  “Young man,” said Dad.

  “Yeah?” I shut the lid on the box.

  “Hold my glasses.” He took them off—the fake nose came too—and handed them to me. The crew members looked at each other, but nobody said a word.

  Dad leaped up and grabbed handfuls of loose balloon fabric. I thought he was trying to pull it down. But he was climbing up! He scaled the balloon until he was able to get his fingers into a crease at the top.

  Suddenly, there was a loud ripping noise as Dad opened a flap lined with Velcro. The balloon let out a big sigh. Dad plunged, but he grabbed on to the side of the balloon before his feet hit the ground. He let go and dropped the last few inches.

  “That’ll do ’er.” Dad put his fake glasses back on.

  The crew spread the balloon and pressed out the air. Then they rolled it up and stuffed it in the basket. It took six people to carry the balloon basket off the field. The crowd clapped.

  “The game will resume in just a few minutes!” Victor Snapp announced.

  Dad and I headed back to the dugout.

  “You learned all of that balloon stuff from one book?” I asked him.

  “Some of it,” said Dad. “The rest I figured out by looking at it. And the climbing part I learned as a kid. We had a big pine tree out back. And your red binder is in the toolbox.”

  “I know. Thanks.” As soon as we were in the dugout, I took it out. “Which card did Rick tell you to get?” I asked him.

  “A fellow named Jim Bunning.”

  “Right.” I spotted the card on the first page.

  Bunning wore a Phillies cap and looked like he meant business.

  “Did he pitch a perfect game?” I asked Dad.

  “Don’t ask me,” said Dad. “The only Jim Bunning I know was a U.S. senator.”

  new Varmint pitcher was on the mound. He threw a few warm-up pitches before Tommy Harris came to the plate. Tommy got a base hit, but then Myung Young grounded into a double play. Mike Stammer lined out to third, and the inning was over.

  “Finally!” Lance stood up and stretched. “I hope my arm hasn’t cooled off too much.”

  “You’ll be fine,” said Zeke.

  “Hey, Lance! This is for luck.” I handed him the Jim Bunning baseball card.

  Lance nodded at it. “Perfect!” he said.

  He realized what he’d said and grinned. “That’s right—I said perfect. It’s a perfectly good word, after all.” Lance pocketed the card and headed for the mound. He winked at me, then turned back and shouted to the dugout. “I’m going to finish this perfect game,” he announced. “Then I’m going to have a perfect cup of coffee. Chad, start a new pot now because this won’t take long.”

  I went into the locker room and eyed the coffee machine. Clearly, I had to clean it first. I unscrewed the basket and dumped the damp coffee grounds in the trash.

  “Just look at that thing!”

  I turned around. My dad was peering into the coffeemaker. He undid the metal rod and held it up to the light. “Young man, get me my tools.”

  “Dad, you know my name,” I reminded him as I handed him the toolbox.

  “Maybe so,” he said. “Now go to the food stand and find me a big jug of vinegar.”

  “That sounds like a weird recipe,” I said, but off I went.

  When I got back, swinging half a gallon of white vinegar, Dad had the bottom of the coffee machine off. He whistled while he worked at something with a screwdriver.

  “You can go watch the game,” he said. “This will take a while.”

  I got back out in time to see Lance end the inning with a strikeout. He strode off the mound while the crowd went wild.

  “Did you see that, guys?” the pitcher shouted. “I still have a perfect game going!” He came into the dugout. “Eight innings. Zero hits, zero walks, and zero errors.”

  “Shh!” said Sammy. “Don’t jinx it.”

  “Jinx, schminx,” said Lance. “Didn’t you ever hear of Jim Bunning?”

  “I heard of him,” said Sammy. “What about him?”

  “He pitched a perfect game once—and he blabbed the entire time,” said Lance. “I had forgotten about that until Chad gave me this card. Bunning jinxed his own game and still got through it. Kind of makes me think the whole jinx thing is silly … Great choice, Chad! Perfect, even.”

  “Thanks. It was my uncle Rick’s idea.”

  I hadn’t known that about Jim Bunning, but Uncle Rick was like a walking baseball encyclopedia.

  “Bunning or not, I don’t like it,” Sammy muttered.

  “Here’s to staying perfect,” said Tommy, trading a high five with Lance. “It’s already the most perfect game I ever saw.”

  “Perfect or not,” said Teddy, “whatever happens, Lance, you were awesome.”

  “This is the best thing I’ve seen since Sammy stole that base,” said Wayne.

  “Rarest thing I’ve seen since I turned that unassisted triple play,” said Mike. Everybody looked at him. “Well, technically, that’s even rarer,” he reminded them.

  “Enough!” said Grumps. We all turned to look at him. He stood up, and I swear he was the reddest I’d ever seen him. I thought he was about to blow up, but he spoke softly and evenly. “You need three more outs,” he reminded Lance. “Until you get them, there’s nothing perfect about this game. I’ve seen ’em get away after eight innings more times than I can count. And I’ve seen ’em get away after twenty-six outs on three different occasions.” He squinted at Lance. “You don’t count your outs before the chickens hatch.”

  “I know, Mr. Humboldt.”

  “All right, then.” Grumps nodded, then turned to the team and shouted, “Is somebody going to go up there and bat, or do I have to do it myself?”

  “It’s my turn!” said Sammy. I handed him his bat. He went to the plate as fast as he could, which, because it was Sammy, wasn’t that fast.

  “How’s that coffee coming along?” Lance whispered.

  “It’ll take a while,” I told him. “I’m using the vinegar method.”

  “Never heard of it, but I can’t wait to try it,” Lance said. “Just so long as I can have a cup when I’m done serving up this perfect game.”

  • • •

  The Porcupines scored a couple more runs, but the crowd was just waiting for the top of the ninth. They started clapping when Lance went out to pitch.

  The clapping slowed down when he went into his windup and then let loose when the ball flew out of his hand. The Varmints’ first batter swung right away and grounded out, but the second batter took a long time. He took a couple of pitches, then fouled off a bunch. Lance was still cool, zipping pitch after pitch over the plate until he finally got strike three. The crowd cheered.

  Everybody stood up for the last batter. The Varmints sent in a pinch hitter, an old-timer who was even older than Wayne Zane. He had a droopy mustache and looked a bit like a hero from a Western movie. His face had no expression. He didn’t seem to know, or care, that he was the only one standing between Lance Pantaño and a perfect game.

  The batter took one pitch for a strike, and another for a ball. He hit the third pitch so hard that it flew like a missile down the third base line. For about one-tenth of a second it looked like the jinx had finally kicked in … but then Tommy Harris stu
ck out his glove and caught the ball.

  The crowd went wild! They stomped and cheered and hooted and waved their hats in the air. The Porcupines crowded around Lance to pat him on the back, and then they carried him off the field. He had to come back nine or ten times and wave his cap at the fans. The last time, he made the entire team go out with him, because it was their perfect game too. It belonged to all the Pines, every one of them.

  e could smell coffee brewing when we reached the locker room.

  “Just got it started,” said Dad. “I used the vinegar to clean the machine, fixed the pump, and tightened a few screws.”

  The coffee machine was purring.

  “Is this thing even on?” Wayne asked. He tapped the side of the machine. It trembled and gasped a little steam.

  “The light’s on,” said Sammy. “Leave it alone.”

  The coffee was done by the time Lance had showered and dressed.

  “I don’t know about adding that vinegar,” he said. He turned the tap, and coffee gurgled into his cup. He tasted it.

  “It’s a miracle what you did with this machine,” Lance said to my dad. “But the batboy makes better coffee.”

  Dylan got back from the other locker room, carrying a new balloon porcupine. This one really did look like a porcupine. Its quills angled back the right way instead of sticking out all over.

  “Spike made you another one?” I asked.

  “Yep,” he said. “I think it’s the best one yet.”

  “I didn’t even get a balloon animal today,” I said.

  “I waited in line for it. There were about a hundred kids in front of me. But I had to do something while the crowd cheered for ninety minutes straight.”

  “I’m the bigger Porcupines’ fan. Why did Spike keep giving me monkeys and giraffes and crocodiles instead of the Pines’ mascot?”

  “Chad,” said Dad.

  “Yeah?”

  “No, not you. Chad the country. All of those animals live in the African savanna, where the nation of Chad is.”

  “Ah, of course.”

  Abby was a great mascot, but she was also a good student. She remembered geography class better than I did. We studied many of the countries in Africa, but I forgot them all after we took the test.

  “Anyway,” said Dylan, “I really wanted a souvenir from today’s game. Something to remember it.”

  “Yep,” I said. “Nothing is better than a perfect game.”

  “Oh, the perfect game was OK,” he said. “But I saw a hot-air balloon crash onto the field during the seventh inning stretch. That’s what I was talking about.”

  “Hmm. Yeah, that was something.” I had to remind myself sometimes that Dylan just didn’t get baseball.

  “Just joshing you, man,” Dylan said. “I was talking about the perfect game. That was the coolest thing ever. And you know what’s neat? In every single game, the pitcher has a shot at a perfect game. Anything can happen, right? If we keep working for the Pines, we could even see another one!”

  “Sure,” I said. “That’s what’s fun about the game. Anything can happen.”

  “Except one thing,” added Dylan. “There’s no chance that anyone will ever be eaten by a bear. That’s another reason I like baseball.”

  Kurtis Scaletta’s previous books include Mudville, which Booklist called “a gift from the baseball gods” and named one of their 2009 Top 10 Sports Books for Youth. Kurtis lives in Minneapolis with his wife and son and some cats. He roots for the Minnesota Twins and the Saint Paul Saints. Find out more about him at www.kurtisscaletta.com.

  Eric Wight was an animator for Disney, Warner Bros., and Cartoon Network before creating the critically acclaimed Frankie Pickle graphic novel series. He lives in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, and is a diehard fan of the Philadelphia Phillies and the Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs. You can check out all the fun he is having at www.ericwight.com.

  Click here to learn more about Jinxed!

  Click here to learn more about Steal That Base!

  Click here to learn more about The 823rd Hit!