by Dan Gutman
“Nothing,” I replied.
Metallica Boy stepped right up in my face.
“You tryin’ to say I’m nothin’?”
I took a quick look around. I could probably take the kid, but my school has a zero-tolerance policy about fighting. It wasn’t worth getting suspended just to see this guy with a bloody nose.
“Knock it off, Duane,” Bobby said. “He ain’t bothering nobody.”
“What are you?” Duane asked Bobby. “One of them?”
“Let’s leave these two alone,” one of the other guys said. “They probably want to do their homework together.”
Bobby’s idiot friends laughed as if that was funny and walked away.
“So long, Bobby,” Duane said as they left. “I hope you two get straight As.”
What a bunch of jerks.
“Okay, Stoshack,” Bobby said when his friends were gone. “What do you want?”
“I have something to show you,” I told him.
I swung off my backpack and took out the Colgan’s Jim Thorpe card. I kept it in the plastic sleeve, partly to protect it and partly to prevent me from sending myself back in time by accident.
“What’s this?” Bobby asked as he slipped the card out of its sleeve. “This ain’t no baseball card.”
“It’ll work,” I said. “Be careful with it!”
Bobby looked at me with his evil grin. Then he pinched the card and held it like he was going to rip it in half.
“No, don’t!” I screamed.
Suddenly the hall was silent. Everybody was looking at me.
Bobby laughed. “Relax. I wasn’t gonna rip it,” he said. “I was just goofing on you.”
“It’s worth 50,000 bucks!” I whispered. “There are only two of them in the world!”
“Look, Stoshack,” Bobby said as he slipped the card back into its sleeve. “I already met Jim Thorpe. The guy turned out to be a loser. Give it a rest.”
“But he’s your great-grandfather!” I said.
“So what?” said Bobby. “He was a jerk. He dissed me. Nobody treats me like that. I hate him.”
The bell was about to ring. Lunch period was almost over. But I wasn’t ready to give up.
“Think about it,” I said to Bobby. “This card was printed sometime between 1909 and 1912. I read it on the Internet. The Olympics were in 1912. If we can get to Jim before the Olympics, we can convince him not to compete. If he’s not in the Olympics, he won’t win the medals. And if he doesn’t win the medals, they can’t take them away from him.”
Bobby thought it over. I have to give him credit for that.
“But if he doesn’t win the medals,” he said, “Jim Thorpe will be a nobody.”
I couldn’t argue with that, and I had to admit he had a point. You can’t be infamous if you’re not famous. Which is worse—to be famous for doing something wrong, or to be a nobody your whole life?
I wasn’t sure. But my gut told me that, at least in this case, doing something was better than doing nothing.
“Don’t you ever feel like something is just the right thing to do?” I asked Bobby. “I mean, this is your chance to right a serious wrong. Not many people ever have the chance to do that in their whole lives.”
The bell rang. I had to get to math.
“You can’t change me, Stoshack,” Bobby said. “You’re not gonna turn me into a Goody Two-shoes do-gooder like you. I’m gonna do my own thing.”
“Fine,” I said, turning on my heel. “Do your own thing.”
I don’t need Bobby Fuller, I thought to myself as I walked down the hall to class. Bringing him along only makes things more complicated anyway. I’ll just do it on my own. He can do his thing and I’ll do mine.
Every time I go back in time, Mom and Uncle Wilbur act like they’re sending me off to sleepaway camp. Mom was running around putting snacks, Band-Aids, an umbrella, and other stuff in a suitcase for me to take. No way was I taking a suitcase with me to 1912.
Uncle Wilbur dug up some of his old clothes, which he saved from back when he was my age. He grew up after 1912, but he insisted that his clothes would still look current because men’s fashions don’t change that much from year to year. He pulled out a white button-down shirt, suspenders, a brown hat with a tiny little brim, and a pair of gray pants that stopped at knee level. Then he gave me a pair of socks that went all the way up to the bottom of the pants. They looked ridiculous, but I put the stuff on anyway.
“You look like a million bucks,” Uncle Wilbur told me.
Besides the baseball card, there was only one thing I wanted to bring along with me—the newspaper article I had copied at the library about Jim losing his medals. If I could prove to him that competing in the Olympics would ruin his life, it might help him to make up his mind.
Everything was ready. I patted my pocket to make sure I had the Colgan’s card and a new pack of cards to bring me back home. Uncle Wilbur wished me good luck and went upstairs to bed. Mom gave me a hug and told me to be careful (for the hundredth time). I sat on the couch and got myself ready.
That’s when the doorbell rang. Mom went to get it so I wouldn’t have to explain why I was dressed so oddly. I was more than a little surprised when she came back into the living room with Bobby Fuller.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“Joey, is that any way to talk to your friend?” Mom said.
“Mom!” I shouted, shooing her upstairs.
“I changed my mind,” Bobby told me. “I want to go too.”
Maybe it would be good if Bobby came along, I tried to convince myself. If I got into a jam, he might be able to bail me out. After all, he did save my life when that wrecking ball almost creamed me the first time.
“Okay, put these duds on,” I told Bobby.
“Are you kidding me?” Bobby said. “Suspenders are for clowns. You look like you should be in the circus, Stoshack.”
“You want to blend in when we get there, don’t you?” I told him. “You don’t want to look like some freak.”
“All right, all right,” Bobby agreed. “But I gotta bring my backpack with me.”
“What do you have in there, anyway?” I asked.
“I told you, my meds,” he replied. “That, and my iPod.”
“You’re bringing an iPod?!”
I couldn’t believe it. If the people in 1912 saw an iPod, they’d probably spaz out, call the cops, and have us thrown in jail.
“A man’s gotta have his tunes,” Bobby explained.
I could have argued. You can argue about anything. But then you find yourself arguing all the time. If he wanted to bring an iPod with him, that was his business.
Bobby went into the bathroom and came out wearing Uncle Wilbur’s clothes. They were a little small on him, but he didn’t look that bad. He actually looked more like a regular kid.
We sat on the couch. I took a few deep breaths to relax, and held out my right hand. This time, Bobby took it without complaining.
“Ready?” I asked.
“Let’s blow this pop stand,” he said.
I dipped my other hand in my pocket and took out the Colgan’s card. I needed to tap the plastic sleeve against the coffee table to make the card slip out.
The tingling sensation didn’t come immediately. Sometimes it takes a while. I have to get in the mood, relax, and think about where I’m going. Early 1912, I hoped. Someplace, I wasn’t sure where. Somewhere in the general vicinity of Jim Thorpe. I knew that much. We could end up on an Indian reservation—or in Stockholm, Sweden, where the Olympics took place. Or anywhere. That was part of the mystery. I just hoped Bobby Fuller wouldn’t mess things up for me. It was a big risk, taking him along. I’d have to be very careful.
“It’s happening,” Bobby whispered. “I can feel it.”
He was right. I had been thinking so much that I didn’t even notice my fingers were starting to tingle.
“Is everything gonna be in black-and-white?” Bobby whispered.
The buzzy feeling moved up my arm quickly. Soon it washed across me like a crowd doing the wave at a game and my whole body was vibrating. I wished I could bottle that feeling, because there’s nothing like it in the world.
Then I started to feel the atoms that make up my very existence disappear one by one, like when you pop bubble wrap until there are no pops left. My body was vanishing from the present and moving through space and time to another era.
We were gone.
10
The Truth About Bobby Fuller
WHEN I OPENED MY EYES, THE FIRST THING I SAW WAS A ballpark. But I wasn’t in the ballpark. I was up on a big, rocky hill overlooking it. Part of the field was visible, but most of it was blocked by the stands.
I didn’t recognize the place. It was in the shape of a big horseshoe. There were apartment buildings all around. It was in the middle of a big city, that was for sure.
New York? Maybe. There were wooden water towers on the roofs of buildings around the park. But it wasn’t Yankee Stadium. I had been there. It couldn’t be Shea Stadium either. That wasn’t built until the 1960s.
There was a chill in the air. It felt like early spring, maybe March or April. The beginning of baseball season. The sun was high in the sky. It must be around noon, I figured.
Suddenly I remembered Bobby Fuller was with me. I wheeled around and there he was, lying on the grass. He was asleep, snoring. Jet lag, I guess. Going back a century in time must have knocked the wind out of him. Me, I’m used to it.
Bobby’s backpack was on the ground, and the zipper was open a couple of inches. He seemed so protective about his stuff. What did he have in there anyway? I wasn’t sure if it would be an invasion of Bobby’s privacy to peek inside. But as long as he was taking a snooze, there was no harm in poking around a little. I opened the zipper a few more inches and looked inside.
His iPod was on top, with the earbuds wrapped around it. Underneath were two small medicine bottles. They didn’t have labels on them, but I could see there was liquid inside.
Hmm, that was odd. I always thought kids with ADD took their medicine in the form of pills.
I dug a little deeper, and that’s when I found something that blew my mind—a syringe. A hypodermic needle. One of those things doctors use to give you a shot.
Why would a kid have a syringe? Couldn’t Bobby just take his medicine with a spoon? I know lots of kids with ADD and none of them have to inject themselves.
There was only one logical explanation. I hated to think it was true, but it was obvious.
Bobby Fuller was a junkie!
I had heard that some kids my age were addicted to drugs, but I’d never met anyone who used them. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I just didn’t know they were using drugs.
This was horrible. I looked at the bottles again. In school one time they showed us a movie about drugs, and they said junkies inject heroin into themselves with needles.
Suddenly, I felt a little differently about Bobby Fuller. All these years I’d hated him for the mean things he had done to me. Maybe I should have pitied him. Maybe being addicted to heroin was what messed him up so much. Maybe he couldn’t control himself. This explained a lot.
I looked at Bobby’s arms to see if there were any needle marks on them. He didn’t have any, but I know that junkies can be very clever. They know how to shoot themselves up in different parts of their body without leaving marks. That was in the movie too.
My first impulse was to throw the syringe and bottles away so Bobby couldn’t use them. But no, that would be wrong. If he’s addicted to the stuff, who knows what might happen if he couldn’t get it? I decided to play it cool and not say a word. Pretend I didn’t know Bobby was a drug addict. When we got back home, I’d ask my mom what I could do to get Bobby some help. She’s a nurse and knows about treatment programs for people who have substance-abuse problems.
“Uuuuuuuh!” Bobby mumbled, stretching out his arms.
Quickly, I jammed the stuff into his backpack and zipped it closed.
“Are you okay, man?” I asked Bobby. “Do you need to be by yourself for a while?”
“Where are we?” Bobby asked.
“I’m not sure,” I said, “but something tells me Jim Thorpe is around here somewhere.”
The hill we were standing on looked like it would be a good place to watch a ball game without paying admission. You couldn’t see the whole field, but you could see leftfield, centerfield, and the area around second base. In fact, there were a few people with picnic baskets spreading out blankets and setting up lawn chairs. They were dressed a lot like us in their old-fashioned clothes.
Bobby and I walked over to an older couple, who were fanning themselves and eating.
“Excuse me,” I said. “Where are we?”
“Whaddaya mean, where are we?” the man snapped. “You dumb or somethin’?”
“Perhaps they’re from out of town, dear,” the lady said.
“Yes,” I explained, “we’re from Louisville, Kentucky.”
“Welcome to New York,” the lady said, shaking our hands. “This is Coogan’s Bluff.”
I’d never heard of Coogan’s Bluff. Neither had Bobby, by the look on his face.
“Told you they were dumb,” her husband remarked.
“It’s right outside the Polo Grounds.” The lady pointed to the field. “You know, where the Giants play.”
“Is there a game today?” I asked.
“Oh, yes!” the lady replied.
“The Giants?” Bobby said. “The Giants play in San Francisco. And you say we’re dumb!”
“Who ya callin’ dumb?” the man said, jumping to his feet and putting up his dukes.
I pulled Bobby aside and whispered that the Giants used to play in New York. They moved to San Francisco in the late 1950s, the same time the Brooklyn Dodgers moved to Los Angeles.
“Please excuse my friend,” I told the couple. “He’s, uh…learning disabled.”
“He’s what?” said the guy. “I should disable his face! What’s that you got? A fancy purse?”
“It’s a backpack,” Bobby said.
“Looks like a purse to me.”
Bobby was itching to fight the guy, but I pulled him away. We crossed the bluff and started walking down a long staircase toward the ballpark, passing two signs marking the intersection of 157th Street and Eighth Avenue. The streets were mostly empty. There were a few cars parked on the block, those old-time cars you see in silent movies.
“Why do they call it the Polo Grounds?” Bobby asked me.
“I don’t know,” I replied. “Maybe they used to play polo here.”
There was a garbage can on the corner. I reached into it.
“Stoshack, what are you doing?” Bobby shouted. “Don’t be a pig, man! You don’t know what’s in there. That’s disgusting!”
“I’m looking for a newspaper,” I explained, and soon I found one.
Oh, no! It was 1913! I had read on a website that the Colgan’s cards were printed from 1909 to 1912. It must have been wrong! I let out a few well-chosen curse words and stamped my foot. That is the last time I will ever trust any fact I read on the Internet.
“1913!” Bobby yelled. “Stoshack, we’re too late! You screwed up again! What happened? I thought you said that card was from 1912.”
“I thought it was,” I said. “The website had it wrong. Maybe it was printed in 1913. I don’t know. I told you, time travel isn’t an exact science.”
“This sucks, man!” Bobby moaned. “You’re hopeless, Stoshack. What are we wasting our time for? Let’s get outta here.”
I ignored him. I didn’t travel a century back in time just to turn around and go home as if I remembered I had left the water running. I scanned the headlines in the paper until something caught my eye:
Five days after his Olympic medals were taken away, Jim Thorpe signed to play baseball.
“Look at this,” I told Bob
by.
The article went on to say that the Giants signed Jim hoping he would bring them a championship. They had lost the last two World Series. In 1911 they were beaten by the Philadelphia A’s and in 1912 the Boston Red Sox beat them. I didn’t know how old the newspaper was. It could have been in the trash for a while.
“The Red Sox?” Bobby said, reading over my shoulder. “I thought they were cursed for like 80 years after they sold Babe Ruth to the Yankees.”
“This is before they sold Ruth,” I told Bobby. “This is even before they signed Ruth. It’s 1913. Babe Ruth didn’t start playing until 1914.”
“Well, excuse me, Mr. Baseball,” Bobby cracked.
We walked around the perimeter of the ballpark. The place looked like it was deserted. A sign said that game time was at 3:30. Admission was 25 cents for bleacher seats and 50 cents for box seats. Man, stuff was cheap in 1913.
The only problem was, I didn’t have any money. There was no way for us to get inside.
“Where’s that wad of cash you wanted to pay me?” I asked Bobby.
“I left it at home,” he said.
“Lot of good it’ll do us there.”
It occurred to me that Bobby’s money wouldn’t do us any good even if we had it. Money has changed a lot since 1913. If we tried to use bills from the twenty-first century, we’d be arrested for counterfeiting. It almost happened to me before.
“I guess we’re gonna have to panhandle or something,” I said.
“Panhandle?” Bobby said. “Are you kidding me, Stoshack? I’m not begging for money.”
“Then how do you suggest we get inside?” I asked. “Rob somebody?”
“Haven’t you ever snuck in anywhere without paying?” Bobby asked, as if that was a normal thing to do.
“No,” I told him. I’ve never cheated on a test or beat anyone up or shoplifted or took drugs either—all things that Bobby probably did regularly.
“You’ve got a lot to learn, Stoshack,” Bobby said. “Follow me.”
We continued walking around the outside of the Polo Grounds, trying to open every door we passed. They were all locked. Bobby wanted to hop over a brick wall near the outfield fence, but it was too high and there was no place to dig a toe in to climb up.