by David Teague
And Oscar had always remembered the way her eyes lit up at the thought. The hope, as she gazed around at the beauty and the bustle, that she might be part of it all. His mother felt about singing the way he felt about baseball.
But then his dad had left them only a few days later to chase a dream. He’d explained it all to Oscar: The dream wasn’t more important than his family, he’d said. It was just different. He wanted to start his own company. It would be big, located in several countries, stretching worldwide. Which was why he had to leave Oscar and his mom to achieve it. And although the last part didn’t really make sense to Oscar, he tried his best to understand.
This had happened a year ago, and ever since, Oscar’s mother had grown quiet and started working as a cashier at the gas station during the day and a waitress in a café in the evening. There had been nothing more to celebrate, and Oscar was still waiting for her to take Mr. Rossini up on his offer and apply to work at his fabulous restaurant, but he’d started to lose hope.
“The Wildcats lead the championship series,” his mom said admiringly, breaking Oscar out of his reverie. “Wow. Just wow. Of course we have to go to Rossini’s!” She parked her wheezing Corolla in front of the restaurant’s plate glass window, which was sheeted with rainwater, adorned with three-foot-high, fire-engine-red letters edged in gold, shining in the midst of East Mt. Etna’s gloom: Rossini’s.
“Only—the thing about Rossini’s—right now—” she began, and fell silent.
Oscar heard the catch in her voice, and he saw her eyes dart toward the BBT Bank ATM in the wall next door to the restaurant.
Spaghetti marinara at Rossini’s cost fourteen dollars. Two orders cost twenty-eight. Oscar and his mom didn’t have much money.
His mom’s eyes traveled toward the dashboard of the Corolla. “See if there are any quarters in the ashtray,” she instructed.
“Maybe we can just get a pizza,” said Oscar, nonchalantly digging for coins. “To go.” Rossini’s had takeout. A large cheese pie cost $9.99. Breadsticks cost $1.59. “We can call it in right now. And enjoy it at home.” Not too many coins to be found. A few pennies and a nickel or two. A couple of quarters mired in some ancient gum. Two dollars and twelve cents, total.
“No!” said his mother. “This is your big night! This is what you’ve been waiting for!”
Actually, though, the more Oscar thought about it, the more he had to admit that this wasn’t his big night. Because his real, live, bona fide big night featured a true home run. Not one he’d “hit” with time frozen. Not one he was afraid to tell his mother about. He felt the watch ticking in his pocket.
Actually, this wasn’t the night he’d been waiting for at all.
“Mom,” Oscar said, “I’m not that hungry. Maybe we could just order breadsticks to go. In fact, that’s kind of how I’d prefer to celebrate, if you don’t mind.” He could see Steve Brinkley and his mom and dad inside the restaurant, on the far side of the rain-streaked glass, installed in a corner booth, asking their waiter for spectacular things.
“If you really want to,” said his mom, doing her best to hide her relief. “I guess that’s all right.”
“I really want to,” said Oscar.
“I’ll order from here and you can run inside when they’re ready,” said his mom, digging her phone out of her purse.
Oscar got soaked sprinting inside to pick up the breadsticks. And the paper bag got soaked when he ran back out to the car. So did the breadsticks. He set them on the dashboard to dry.
Oddly, at the very moment his mother pulled out of the parking lot, the rain stopped. Completely. As if somebody in the stratosphere had turned off a spigot. Nineteen seconds later, give or take, the moon and stars reappeared.
Oscar and his mother rolled down the windows of the Corolla and belted “We Are the Champions” at the top of their lungs. Oscar’s contribution sounded more like howling, truth be told. But his mom sang, really sang, and people at stoplights cocked their ears to listen. At least one good thing had come from stopping time: his mother was singing again, and Oscar couldn’t help feeling good about that.
Later that night, Oscar stood in his backyard watching the moon dangle above the trees. He thought about the amazing fact that it didn’t appear to move at all, while at the same time it blazed around Earth at a speed of 2,288 miles per hour. Dr. Soul leaped onto the porch railing beside him and contemplated the night, too.
Oscar picked up his old splintery practice bat and imagined a baseball diamond stretching out before him in the darkness of his yard, reaching from his back porch to the edge of Tuscarora Woods. He put ghost runners on the bases, the kind you use to hold your place while you take your next turn at bat. And he put make-believe opponents in the field. They wore the uniform of the old-timey Boston Braves, which was weird, because they were in his imagination and up until that moment, Oscar hadn’t known what a Boston Braves uniform even looked like. The players shimmered eerily, like specters. Oscar shuddered. It was getting a little spooky out there.
“I thought things would be different, Dr. Soul,” said Oscar, shaking off his shivers. “I thought when I finally hit a home run and won the big game, life would change. I thought I would finally know what it feels like to be a baseball hero. But I blew it. I’m still just Oscar Indigo.”
With his bat, Oscar swatted an imaginary home run. Almost. Because one of the ghostly outfielders, who seemed slightly more real than the rest, managed to leap up and snatch it out of the air before it cleared the fence. A surprise feat!
Dr. Soul said nothing in reply to Oscar’s lament, of course, but as he gazed at Oscar, absentmindedly licking his rear paw and rubbing his ear with it, Oscar knew what he was thinking: How would you know hitting a home run didn’t change anything? You didn’t hit one.
“You’ve got a point,” Oscar murmured.
And the look Dr. Soul gave in reply was: Besides, I wouldn’t be so sure nothing has changed. He turned his attention toward the talented outfielder, who glanced over his shoulder and disappeared into the woods.
The moon still seemed to hang motionless in the sky (although of course it must have moved). Inside, Oscar’s mother crooned softly to herself. No happy songs this time, nothing about champions. She sang a tune she’d made up herself, one that had no words but was more beautiful because of that, like a whippoorwill singing its lonely song in the empty night.
Later, inside the quiet house, Dr. Soul leaped onto Oscar’s bed, stalked across the covers, curled up on Oscar’s chest, set himself on “purr,” and fell asleep.
Oscar clutched the watch in his fist beneath his pillow—because something told him it’d be a good idea to know exactly where it was at all times—and he promised himself he’d take it back to Eleanor Ethel Ellington first thing in the morning and ask her politely never to give him anything like it ever again.
Bottomless Menace
The next morning dawned cool and clear, awash in light, and in it, an angel sang.
A breeze whispered through Oscar’s window screen. Squirrels skittered along backyard branches. The sun floated in the sky like a tangerine bubble. One white cloud drifted near the horizon, slowly molding itself into different shapes but never quite taking the form of anything Oscar recognized.
And all across East Mt. Etna, citizens awoke to a new day, a day of pride and promise, because for the first time in history, the East Mt. Etna Wildcats had stomped the sawdust out of the West Mt. Etna Yankees.
Dr. Soul was nowhere to be seen. Oscar figured he must’ve gotten up early. He did that sometimes.
Once Oscar awoke all the way, the angel’s voice turned out to be his mother’s, emanating from the kitchen along with the aroma of pancakes.
He slipped out of bed and padded toward the hall, glancing out his window on the way. He froze. In the bright morning light, there seemed to be a baseball player standing in Oscar’s backyard at the shady edge of Tuscarora Woods. A bit ghostly, a bit shimmery. Oscar recognized him. He was the o
ne who’d stolen Oscar’s imaginary home run the night before. He still sported the uniform of the long-gone Boston Braves. Oscar stared. The Brave stared back. Then he stepped into the shadows and vanished.
And Oscar blinked and told himself this ghostly ballplayer must’ve been left over from a dream that hadn’t quite ended before he woke up.
In the kitchen, Oscar’s mom clattered so many utensils together at once, it sounded like a Kindermusik jam session. “What’s going on?” Oscar asked. “Why are we having pancakes? How come you’re so vivacious?”
“You! You hit a home run!” said his mom. “You’re a bona fide bottomless menace!”
“Deep threat, Mom,” said Oscar. “Not bottomless menace. When you’re a dangerous home-run hitter, people call you a ‘deep threat.’ But I appreciate the pancakes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about it last night?” asked his mother.
“Well. I told you about the part where the Wildcats won,” mumbled Oscar. “That’s what really matters.”
“If you say so,” replied his mom. “Have a look at this.” She cued a video and slid her phone across the table.
Oscar took the phone. Ninth Inning Hero, read the tagline beneath a still of his own face. In the image, he teetered precariously over home plate and peered hopefully into the future. “You’re going viral, Oscar!” exclaimed his mother. “Isn’t it great?”
“Somebody filmed it on their phone,” croaked Oscar. “Wow. That is great.”
It was awful.
People across town, across the county, state, country, and world were at that very moment watching what he’d done the night before.
For the love of Henry Aaron.
His mom started the video.
“A boy, a dream, a moment in history, a very long shot.”
The voice sounded familiar.
“An injured star, a last-minute substitution, a bench warmer’s dream come true.”
The voice sounded very familiar.
“Undaunted by a lifetime of obscurity, frustration, and failure, Oscar Indigo, of East Mt. Etna, Pennsylvania, overcame years of disappointment tonight.”
“That was a little harsh,” muttered Oscar. Had he really been that bad?
“Despite a fundamental lack of the basic skills of baseball, Oscar Indigo finally found success at 9:13 p.m. yesterday . . .”
As the narrator spoke, Oscar’s at-bat played on video. Taser blew two pitches by him. He didn’t seem to have a chance. And then came the final pitch. Right over the plate. The video seemed to stutter and skip. Suddenly, the ball was dropping over the fence. And the crowd went wild.
“. . . when he sent the hopes and dreams of his teammates sailing upward into the blackest of nights.”
Suzy Armando’s face appeared on the screen, smiling at her audience, to close the sequence.
“Wait,” muttered Oscar. “That can’t be right! Suzy Armando of CSPN? I only imagined she was there last night. What’s going on?”
“Maybe somebody sent her the video of your home run, and she liked it enough to do a story on it,” said Oscar’s mom.
“Maybe,” said Oscar. He really hoped this explained it. Because otherwise, things had just gotten really, really weird.
Outside, a flock of towhees swarmed from a bush.
“Hey. I’m applying to Rossini’s,” said his mom. “Your heroics inspired me! I downloaded the application. I’m filling it out tonight after work. I think ‘Summertime’ will be my audition tune.”
“Fantastic, Mom,” said Oscar distractedly. “I’m glad I inspired you.”
“You sure did! A home run!” Oscar’s mother made her way to the table with three pancakes on a stainless-steel spatula, and he moved his plate so she could reach it, but at that moment, she tried to slide the pancakes off the spatula where the plate had been, so he scooted the plate back; but by then she’d aimed at the spot where he’d moved the plate before he moved it back, and their intentions were good, but their timing was bad, and Oscar’s pancakes plopped onto the floor.
“What a disaster,” observed his mom cheerfully. “Better clean it up! Oh, my goodness!” she cried, glancing out the window. “Here comes the bus! I have to catch it. The Corolla’s battery is dead. I need to buy a new one when I get paid this afternoon. See you tonight!” And with that, she banged out the door.
“Bye, Mom,” replied Oscar quietly.
Oscar watched his mom through the window, sprinting to beat the bus to its stop. And then out of nowhere the floor of the kitchen seemed to turn fluid, and its surface seemed to roll away from him in waves. He blinked. He felt dizzy. The roar of the bus outside didn’t match the sight of it pulling away from the stop, and inside, the fluttering shadows on the floor didn’t match the drifting curtains in the windows. When he stacked his glass and his silverware on his plate to carry it all to the dishwasher, he picked the pile up before it was balanced, and everything slid in different directions. He made a grab for the glass, but he felt like he’d fallen into a YouTube video that hadn’t loaded right, where every movement had gone herky-jerky. The glass fell one direction, the silverware another, and it all ended up on the floor, some of it in shards.
The flock of towhees whirred past the window again, this time headed in the other direction. Except for one, which fluttered backward across the yard, only disappearing into the woods after approximately nineteen seconds of reverse flying.
“That,” said Oscar to himself, “cannot be good.”
As soon as he’d cleaned up the mess, Oscar fished the watch from his pajama pocket and contemplated its face, huge and pearlescent, with the solid-gold hour and minute hands, the bright-red sweep hand, and bold black numbers painted around the dial.
He flipped it over and studied the swirling patterns adorning the back, and saw words he hadn’t seen before:
“The time has come,” the Walrus said,
“To talk of many things:
“Of shoes—and ships—and sealing-wax—
Of cabbages—and kings—
And why the sea is boiling hot—
And whether pigs have wings.”
Curiouser and curiouser, Oscar thought, and put the watch in his pocket. He stood up. He knew the time had come to walk next door and ask Miss Ellington what the heck was up with this watch. But before he could take a single step, a pounding erupted at his front door. His heart beat in his throat. Those men. The ones in the black car! They must have found him! They’d come for him!
Frantically, Oscar opened his mother’s bread box and slid the watch inside a hamburger bun, but not before another phrase leaped out at him from its back: Time is out of joint.
That seemed like a warning.
The pounding on the door continued.
Carefully, Oscar crept down his hallway and peeked through the tiny peephole.
And spied . . . Lourdes Mangubat?
“Oscar!” she yelled. “Are you in there?” Oscar was shocked. This was more than she’d said to him in the entire time he’d known her.
Mr. Llimb and Mr. Skerritt
Oscar opened the door cautiously. Lourdes stood on his porch staring at him. She balanced on one foot. A rusty old bike leaned against the railing.
Oscar stared back at her. In the silence, the bees in the bee bush next to the porch buzzed maniacally, like they always did, working hard to make life better for everything and everybody: honey, pollination, and just plain sweetness was their contribution.
“My toe—” began Lourdes, interrupting the buzz in Oscar’s ears.
“I know,” said Oscar.
“I came to tell you—” said Lourdes.
“I’m sorry!” interrupted Oscar. “I’m sorry I spilled OscarAde and made you smash your toe. Does your toe still hurt? I guess you’re standing on one foot because your toe still hurts. I feel terrible. Horrible. Awful.”
“Actually, I came to tell you it’s not so bad,” said Lourdes quickly, probably because she wanted to interrupt him before he could
start babbling again.
“Wow! That’s great news!” Oscar changed gears fast. “Because boy, did I feel atrocious when I did it.”
“But you saved the day anyway,” said Lourdes. “You hit a home run. Nobody believed you could. Except you. That was kind of awesome.”
“Oh. Awesome. Sure. It’s awesome when anybody hits a home run. I mean, it was awesome when I did it because I’ve never even gotten a hit before, but it’s also awesome when you do it, because you always get a hit, so it’s awesome in a different way—”
Oscar knew he was babbling, and had just said the word awesome about a million times, many of them in reference to himself, which most people would not consider cool, but he couldn’t stop. It was times like these he wished somebody would please explain to him what was happening in his life. Oddly, a voice in his head began to do just that.
Lourdes Mangubat is a mysterious girl, Suzy. Up till now, nobody has heard her talk this much.
What? Oscar glanced into the front shrubbery. Where had Vern come from? Vern only appeared in his imagination at Wildcats games! Never at his own home. Before he could get his mind around the appearance of Vern, Suzy piped up.
Let’s hope Oscar can draw the right conclusion about Lourdes, Vern.
Suzy, if we gather together the observations of many young persons in the greater Mt. Etna area, basic facts emerge: Lourdes Mangubat moved here at the beginning of last school year.
And she appears to make straight As in school, Vern, according to sources who peek over her shoulder when the teacher hands tests back.
Some of her teammates think she could be the first female pitcher in Major League Baseball, Suzy. I guess you could say she’s pretty good for a—
Don’t even say it, Vern.
Sorry, Suzy.
Actually, Oscar didn’t find their commentary all that helpful.
“Your homer was so great,” said Lourdes, interrupting his thoughts. “I hardly even minded the smashed toe.”
Oscar checked to see if she was joking. It was impossible to tell. Her face remained perfectly serious.