by David Teague
“Fly, you stinking baseball!” bellowed Mr. Llimb.
“Or else!” added Mr. Skerritt.
And then the ball halted in flight. Directly above the centerfield fence, so it was impossible to tell whether it would sail over or drop into the glove of the Yankee outfielder standing beneath it.
Nothing moved. No birds flew, no tree branches swayed in any breeze, and celestial objects halted in their orbits. Nobody stirred. Not even Oscar.
He stood frozen, by apprehension, dread, fear. It felt like the end of the universe.
He did his best to move. But he couldn’t. And then he felt it. The watch. In his pocket where he’d left it for safekeeping until he had a chance to return it to T. Buffington Smiley. There it was. Ticking.
One second passed. It took all his strength, but Oscar managed to pull the watch out of his pocket.
Another second passed by. The ballpark faded around him.
He found himself floating in nothingness again, just like when he’d traveled to E. E. Smiley’s do-over game with Lourdes.
The seconds ticked by. The ones he’d stolen. But they ticked by without Oscar. He stood frozen. Panic rose in his throat, as if he were paying the universe back with his own fear.
And then, slowly, the baseball diamond reappeared. Bases, infield grass, a pitcher’s mound. But it wasn’t Oscar’s field or his game. He floated gently above the 1935 game. The Mt. Etna Mountaineers were still playing the Braves; time must have slowed down for them, too. Still, they were almost at the end of their exhibition contest. Slowly, Oscar floated into the air above the infield, where he could see everything.
E. E. Smiley stood at the plate. Full count. The bases were loaded. Her team, according to the scoreboard, was down 4–1. The Boston Braves pitcher wound up. He delivered.
The pitch streaked toward the plate. E. E. Smiley, Eleanor Ethel Ellington’s younger self, swung for all she was worth. Oscar heard the crack of her bat. The ball rose through the air. It cleared the fence.
The crowd went wild. Her teammates, all young and talented, just like they’d been in the picture on her table, rushed to congratulate her. She’d done it. She’d really done it. She’d stayed in the game and she’d won it. And now she knew. She was good, really good.
Her smile of relief told Oscar she’d found peace. Now she could move on.
E. E. Smiley glanced up and winked at Oscar as he floated in the air above her. Oscar winked back.
And Oscar knew, just like that, he’d done it, too. Stayed in the game, won it fair and square. He and Miss Ellington had proved to themselves and everyone they could do it, and they had.
And slowly, everything around Oscar began to fade and Oscar began to unfreeze. And then, from the dim stillness, his world reappeared around him. As if nothing had ever happened, Oscar once more found himself at the plate in his own game. His whole journey had taken only—nineteen seconds. He had done it. The universe had its nineteen seconds back. Miss Ellington had hit her homer, and now Oscar and the whole stadium held its breath to see if his hit would clear the fence.
In left field, it kept dropping and dropping and . . . it cleared the ivy-choked fence! He’d given the universe its homer back.
The vines immediately quit writhing and shrank back into a nice green crown along the top.
Oscar threw his arms above his head. He jumped two feet in the air. The crowd went wild.
Taser stood staring at the spot where the ball had disappeared, his hands on his hips.
Then he turned, faced Oscar, and shot him a thumbs-up. Because, come on. Anybody would have to admit: that was a righteous shot.
“You did it!” cried Lourdes, dusting off her knees and standing at home.
Oscar would tell Lourdes about E. E. Smiley’s triumph later. She would get a kick out of it. But for now, he savored the sound of his friends and family cheering. The world was coming to life again. The strange orange evening light from the double suns that had glared night after night had become the fragile blue of dusk. The second sun had gone. No more tentacles or pterodactyls, either. Mr. Llimb and Mr. Skerritt and T. Buffington Smiley whooped from the bleachers. His mom’s cheers filled the air with sweet music. He’d done it.
And as he took off for first, nobody noticed Oscar Indigo reach into the pocket of his uniform.
As he rounded second, nobody saw him pull his hand back out.
As he touched third, nobody glimpsed the golden gleam in his fist.
As he sprinted home and jumped into the waiting arms of Lourdes Mangubat, Bobby Farouk, Axel Machado, Kevin Truax, Carlissimo Fong, Steve Brinkley, and the rest, nobody spied a large, old-fashioned railroad watch fall to the dirt, only to be ground to bits beneath the crush of the Marlborough County Champion East Mt. Etna Wildcats, who were busy dogpiling the stuffing out of their hero, Oscar Indigo.
Rossini’s
The next evening, the light of the sun poured through the plate glass window of Rossini’s. Just the sun, the regular sun, the one and only sun. Scientists reported that the rogue star had somehow managed to escape through a nineteen-second gap in the gravitational field of the solar system the night before, right around the time Oscar had hit his historic home run, and it had disappeared into space.
In the red leather booth in the corner, the best table in the place, sat Lourdes and Oscar and their two mothers. “Spaghetti marinara for the champions—and my next star employee, Ms. Indigo. On the house,” said Mr. Rossini, setting down the plates himself. “And a bottle of bubbly water. Compliments of the gentlemen at the corner table.”
Mr. Llimb and Mr. Skerritt, suits beautifully cleaned and pressed, raised their glasses in salute.
Oscar lifted his in return. “I would like to propose a toast,” he proclaimed, holding his glass up in the light. “To the best baseball player in Pennsylvania.”
“To the best teammate in the world,” added Lourdes.
“To Lourdes,” said Lourdes’s mom.
“To Oscar,” said Oscar’s mom.
“To good times,” said Mr. Llimb.
“To friendship,” said Mr. Skerritt.
“Cheers!” said Oscar.
And they clinked glasses and enjoyed the evening, and there was not a pterodactyl in sight.
Acknowledgments
This book owes its existence to Alice Jerman and Jennifer Carlson, who cheered for every swing and every miss and did their fair share of coaching along the way. Thanks to Jennifer Klonsky for the care and feeding of the author. Thanks to Marisa de los Santos for innumerable game-time strategy sessions.
Thanks to the 1975 Boston Red Sox, the 2004 Boston Red Sox, the 2008 Philadelphia Phillies, the 2016 Chicago Cubs, and the entire 1973 Conway, Arkansas, Buddy League.
Thanks to Professor George Thompson and the Thompson boys for many thrilling seasons of backyard baseball.
Thanks to Andy Smith, Sarah Creech, Alison Klapthor, Michelle Cunningham, Mitchell Thorpe, Meaghan Finnerty, Renée Cafiero, and the entire HarperCollins Children’s team!
And thanks to my dad for showing me how to oil a glove.
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About the Author
Photo credit TISA DELLA-VOLPE
DAVID TEAGUE is the author of Henry Cicada’s Extraordinary Elktonium Escapade as well as the picture books Franklin’s Big Dreams and The Red Hat. David is also the coauthor of the middle grade titles Saving Lucas Biggs and Connect the Stars with his wife, New York Times bestselling author Marisa de los Santos. David is a professor at the University of Delaware and lives with his wife and their two children, Charles and Annabel, and their Yorkies, Finn and Huxley, in Wilmington, Delaware. You can visit him at www.davidteague.net.
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Books by David Teague
Henry Cicada’s Extraordinary Elktonium Escapade
With Marisa de los Santos
Saving Lucas Biggs
Connect the Stars
Credits
Cov
er art by Andy Smith
Cover design by Sarah Creech
Copyright
HOW OSCAR INDIGO BROKE THE UNIVERSE (AND PUT IT BACK TOGETHER AGAIN). Copyright © 2017 by David Teague. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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ISBN 978-0-06-237749-4
EPub Edition © October 2017 ISBN 9780062377500
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FIRST EDITION
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