The Green Beans, Volume 1: The Mystery of Hollow Oak

by Gabriel Gadget

  "You're just covering for them because they're your kids," Jack said. "It's not fair."

  "Oh, is that so?" Jasper asked. He raised an eyebrow, in feigned concern. "It's unfair, is it? Tragic. Most tragic? Punks. Trying to flimflam me, are you? Always making more work for ol' Jasper. As if I didn't already have my hands full around here, sweeping up after all these brats. Who do you think is going to have to clean up this mess?"

  "Shucks, I figured you'd be happy," Neil said. "You love mopping!"

  Jasper stood back upright, and rubbed at his stubbly chin with his free hand. "Well, yes, I suppose that's true?"

  And it was. Jasper loved cleaning. His mahogany broom was constantly at his side, and he could not help but clean everything in his path. Though he might have been rather rough around the edges, nobody would argue against this point: He was the most efficient janitor one could hope for.

  "But irrelevant!" Jasper added, returning to his surly self. "Just because I enjoy mopping, that doesn't mean I want to see corn chowder dumped all over my beautiful floors, you miserable, ungrateful punks. You need to show some respect for my shiny floors, you see. I'm going to have a word with the principal, and explain what you've done here."

  "What?" Neil asked in disbelief.

  Deflated, his shoulders sagged in defeat. But there was nothing to be done for it. You did not mess with Jasper. The school janitor was powerful, in more ways than one, and he held influence with the school administrators. He was the "ace in the hole" that Jebediah and Cletus had when it came to staying out of trouble at school, despite all their bullying and meddling.

  This was not to say, however, that there would not be repercussions for the Cragglemeister Brothers. Jasper pointed a weathered finger at them, and said, "You two look like a couple of catawampus fools. Get home, and get clean. You know that I can't abide such filth!"

  "Yes, sir," they said in unison, as they shuffled for the door, obedient to their father.

  "Quit lollygagging!" Jasper barked, waving his mahogany broom at them, hastening their progress.

  As the Cragglemeisters, covered in chowder, hurried past the Beans, Jebediah pointed at them. Ignoring the stares of the other students, he said in a lowered voice, "This isn't over. We'll settle this score tonight, on the diamond? On the baseball field."

  Chapter Eighteen

  Game On

  Cuh-rack!

  The sound of impact traveled, like a bolt of thunder, to Neil's ears. He was deep in centerfield, and at the resonance of bat striking ball, he was in motion. His head tilted back, to track the ball. His legs started pumping, to propel him over the turf. And his left hand pumped the heel and the webbing of his glove in anticipation.

  The fly ball had been driven from the bat of Jebediah. Though every player in the Hollow Oak Baseball League used aluminum bats, the Cragglemeister Brothers were the exception. They chose to wield a wooden behemoth that went by the name of Hammerhead. It was a heavy monstrosity that only Jebediah and Cletus could handle, due to their great advantages in size and strength. Therefore, when Jebediah connected with the baseball, the sound it created was a crack, as opposed to a ting.

  As the ball departed, Jebediah paused at home plate to admire its path. Without any concern for haste, he casually let the bat drop from his hand. And with a gesture that could only be described as despicable, he pointed his index finger at Sara, as if to say, "Gotcha."

  Sara glowered in return, but quickly turned toward the outfield, to mark the path of the ball. Jebediah had smacked a heck of a whopper, but if it would just stay in the ballpark, she felt good about her odds. She knew that Neil was patrolling the outfield, and that she was therefore in good hands. It just had to stay inside the park.

  Nobody in the Hollow Oak Baseball League had home run power? except for the Cragglemeisters. Unusually big and strong for their age, they alone had the ability to bash balls to distances beyond the outfield fence. Together, the fearsome Cragglemeister Brothers already had over a dozen homers on the season.

  Jebediah was confident that he had just launched another one. Bitter because he had already struck out twice to Sara during this evening's game (and still enraged over his earlier humiliation in the school cafeteria), he was doing his best to rub it in. He finally left home plate, slowly sauntering his way toward first base, loping along at what Coach called a home run gait.

  Neil was vaguely aware of all these things: of the wordless exchange between Jebediah and Sara, of his showboating at home plate, of his slow, confident home run gait. Neil was aware of all these things, even as he pursued the fly ball, as it scraped the stratosphere.

  Neil lived to catch fly balls. It was his calling, his duty. He had done it hundreds, possibly even thousands, of times before. He was as confident as a ten-year-old baseball player could be, when it came to patrolling centerfield.

  And yet, this time, when he pivoted his hips, and began running back and to the right, he felt something that was very unfamiliar to him. It was like a hiccup, caught halfway up his chest. As he was sprinting back, deeper and deeper into the outfield, he felt something stuck in his windpipe, something that felt to him like a bubble of indecision and insecurity. It was such a strange sensation, he didn't even realize what it was.

  With his head tilted back, tracking the ball, Neil ran and ran. He could hear a great commotion of sound behind him. There was a collective groan from the Beans. The dugout of the Summer Squashes exploded with cheers. And there was also the sound of his own breath, heavy in his ears. It sounded, he realized with something like astonishment, rather panicked.

  The ball had been crushed deep, but it was also high. It was real high. This was beyond a whopper. This was like a UFO or something. Neil could barely see the darned thing. It was little wonder that Jebediah had instantly considered the ball to be long gone. But Neil would not give up on it. There was a chance that the ball would stay inside the park. Not a very good chance, given its current trajectory, but a chance nonetheless.

  "Finally," Neil murmured. He forced himself to ignore the weird panic he felt building inside of him. "A real challenge!"

  The baseball had been launched so high, it seemed it might have been caught upon the currents of wind that rode far above the earth. As Neil ran back, eyeballing its passage through the air, he found that he was tracking it at an undesirable angle. Which didn't make any sense? he was sure he had put himself on the right path to pursuit when he had first run after it.

  It was only then, as he was sprinting deeper and deeper into centerfield, that he realized that the ball had been hit so high, the wind currents were actually altering its trajectory, midcourse! With a gasp, he pivoted his hips and his feet, and began reversing his direction from right to left, even as he continued backward.

  As Neil turned, the toe of his cleat caught in the turf, and he stumbled. His cleats were new? they had been given to him just today. The entire team had received brand new cleats, courtesy of Coach, to replace their terribly worn spikes. It was the final product of a brand new venture at the sneaker factory, and the company's first attempt at manufacturing cleats. It was the big project that Coach and Mr. Murray had been working on for quite some time.

  They had given a pair to every player on the team, and told them that they were the test pilots for these new products. It was a great honor, since the shoes were not even for sale yet. The only people on earth to own the cleats were the Green Beans.

  Coach and Mr. Murray had clearly designed them with their team in mind, for the white and green colors complemented their uniforms perfectly. Streamlined in every way possible, Neil was already convinced that the cleats would be a huge success for the sneaker factory.

  But though they were undoubtedly awesome, it was also true that they were not yet broken in, and so he was not quite used to them. They were still a little stiff on his feet, and such an unexpected and quick maneuver made him stumble, however briefly. The new shoes simply refused to give and respond, as a broken-in pair would have.<
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  Even as he staggered in his steps, Neil continued forth, pursuing the ball. He lurched forward, and nearly wiped out, but he placed a hand on the ground to brace himself, and recovered his balance. With a quick gesture, he smacked his cap from his head, and continued running backward. He knew that he was getting close to the outfield fence? real close? but he didn't care. He would not give up on this ball.

  Neil thought of all his teammates. He thought of his dad, coaching from the dugout. He thought of Sara, standing on the mound, counting on him to back her up. No, he would not give up on this ball.

  "This one's mine," he murmured to himself.

  Neil heard Coach calling out to him in warning, from far away. "Fence, Neil, fence!"

  Even though he knew that it was imprudent to do so, Neil took a split-second to look away from the baseball, which was now descending, gaining velocity as it came plummeting toward the earth like a tiny meteor. There was but a single question that remained: which side of the fence would it land on?

  When he turned his head at Coach's warning, Neil saw the outfield fence. It was alarmingly close. And his footsteps were bringing him ever closer.

  "Peel off!" he heard Coach shouting from far away. "Let it go, Neil!"

  "I'm sorry," Neil whispered, running hard, not giving an inch. "I just can't do that."

  Chapter Nineteen

  Not This Time

  Neil thought of Jebediah's fist, planted in Jack's tortilla chips? the food that he was counting on, given to him by his friends. He thought of Sara on the mound, depending on him. He thought of his teammates in the field behind him, who wanted to beat the Summer Squashes more than anything. And he thought this: You can count on me.

  The fence was coming, ever closer. It was chain link, built from steel, reinforced with the periodic placement of posts. It was three feet in height, and there were sheets of plywood fastened to it here and there, painted with advertisements for local businesses. The fence would not give an inch.

  But neither would Neil. You can count on me.

  Time began to slow, as if Neil were underwater. His senses seemed to acquire a heightened state. He could distantly hear the roar of the parents and the spectators who were gathered on the bleachers, as they collectively cried out in anticipation and alarm.

  He could smell the fresh cut grass in his nose with striking detail, and the rich aroma of the approaching forest? twigs, and earth, and moss. The sound of his new cleats, colliding with the ground, was thunderous in his ears, along with his heavy breath and his heartbeat, which shook his ribcage.

  There were two men on base, and two outs. If Jebediah was successful in his bid for a home run (as he surely thought he would be), it would give the Summer Squashes the lead in this close game. But if Neil caught the ball, it would result in the third out of the inning, preserving the slim lead that the Green Beans held.

  I catch fly balls, Neil told himself. It's what I do. Like Nibbler chasing a thrown stick, there is no choice in the matter. And for my friends? you can count on me to be there for you.

  As Neil continued his chase, ever closer to the outer limits of the baseball field, he realized again that he had pursued too far in one direction. He needed to make a minor correction, and again he reversed his hips and his feet, chasing the ball. It was awfully close to the earth at this point, and he was sure that he had tracked it down.

  But then, at this, the most critical moment, there came another distraction. It was a noise, my astute reader, that you have undoubtedly come to recognize for yourself at this point. It was the noise that sounded like this: Rustle-rustle-rush-crush.

  Jarred from his concentration on the ball, Neil tore his gaze from the sky to a horizontal level, and what he saw was the outfield fence. It seemed to be but an arm's length away, and coming ever closer. Another step or two would bring him into contact with it.

  And from the depths of the forest before him, he heard that strange noise belch forth, louder than he had ever before heard it. Rustle-rustle-rush-crush, so it came, calling to his ears, distracting him. RUSTLE-RUSTLE-RUSH-CRUSH.

  And in those depths, where the forest became dark and undefined, and potentially filled with things that were beyond the comprehension of grade-schoolers, there glowed a pair of slightly distorted orbs, green in color. Glowing, narrowing, and if one were to give it much thought? suspiciously similar to a pair of eyes, staring with an intent that was malicious at best. Staring, so it would seem, at Neil.

  During this strange point in time, when everything seemed to slow, and his senses were heightened, Neil also smelled something odd. It seemed to come at him as if a warm breeze, but his first intuition was that it was not at all a breeze, or a gust of wind. Rather, it seemed to him that it was almost a waft of warm breath, strange and organic and earthy, expelled from the mouth of some enormous creature.

  In a near panic, before the moment of impact, Neil forced himself to look away from the fence that would soon greet him, and away from the curious noise that seemed to summon him. Away from those strange, glowing orbs that might have been eyes. The ball, the ball, he cried to himself internally. For it was all that mattered.

  It was only due to the fact that Neil was smack dab in the middle of a most nerve-wracking, rather harrowing experience, that he was able to ignore the things that he was currently seeing, and hearing, and smelling. These things, that seemed to go beyond the ordinary? and into those realms of the weird and unknown.

  With only a moment remaining before the critical impact, Neil turned his head back to the sky. The ball was right there, coming down, nearly leaving a trail of fire in its wake. Neil was where he wanted to be? right below it, more or less.

  But there was a problem. The fence was in the way. The baseball was going to come down on the other side of it.

  No, Neil thought. He thought of Jack, and of Maria, and of Sara, standing on the mound, counting on him, her fist clenched at her side, her breath caught in her chest. And of all the other Beans, counting on him in equal measure. It will not end this way. I can't let it.

  There was a tremendous impact, and Neil felt the air rush from his lungs. It was forced from his insides, expelled from his mouth in an instant. His midsection collided with the three-foot fence, and his upper-body crumpled over a large sheet of plywood that had been fastened to the chain-link for an advertisement.

  As if by miracle or magic, Neil ignored the distraction. His head remained skyward, and his eyes remained locked on the descending baseball.

  And though the ball did indeed carry over the fence? it was into the webbing of his glove that it landed. As the wind was knocked from him, and he gasped, Neil felt the familiar, spherical shape of the ball colliding inside of his glove, and he somehow managed to retain his concentration. He squeezed the ball as tightly as he could, fearful of losing the prize he had worked so hard to earn.

  There was a brief moment when the force of the impact made everything go blurry for Neil. He bounced off of the fence, and fell back to the turf, landing hard. He heard the crowd of spectators collectively crying out, in what sounded like alarm at the collision. But did they realize he had caught the ball, Neil wondered?

  Ignoring his lack of breath, he quickly rolled to his feet, with his glove held high above his head. With his free hand, he removed the baseball, holding it high, like a champion's trophy.

  The crowd's noise transformed from one of concern to that of amazement, and they burst into applause. The Green Beans howled with glee, and the joy of the Summer Squashes turned to despair and disbelief. From the dugout, Nibbler barked with unbridled enthusiasm.

  The umpire at home plate appeared to be just as astonished as everyone else. He had removed his mask to watch the flight of the ball, and his eyes had become the size of saucers, as if he could not believe that Neil had plucked it from the air, robbing Jebediah of his home run. The umpire turned toward Jebediah, who was halfway between first and second base, slowly trotting in his home run gait.

  He ext
ended his index finger and pointed at Jebediah. "Out!" he shouted. The umpire formed his hand into a fist and shook it once, to emphasize the fact. "You're out!"

  Jebediah's mouth fell open, and his eyes adopted a confounded look about them. He slowed his feet until he came to a standstill on the base path, and bit by bit, his mouth hanging ajar, he turned toward centerfield. As Jebediah looked to the outfield in disbelief, Neil held the ball before himself, for it to be admired.

  And even from that distance, Neil could see, quite clearly, the blood draining from Jebediah's astonished and dismayed face.

  "Not this time, Jeb," he said quietly. "Inning over."

  For his part, Jebediah stared daggers.

  Neil smiled in return, briefly pausing to retrieve his hat from the grass, as he jogged back toward the infield. He was happy, as he always was, when catching fly balls.

  Sighing in relief, Sara pointed at Neil and pumped her fist. "Nice catch, Neil," she called. "You had my back on that one. But, hey, did you have to make it look so hard?"

  Neil smiled back at her, wheezing with winded breath. He briefly tapped his fist against his chest. "You know I always got your back! And you know what? that one actually was pretty hard."

  As he left the outfield behind him, Neil glanced over his shoulder. There was no sign of what he had thought he had seen lurking in the woods earlier, when he had been tracking the fly ball to the outer limits of the field. But just as he was about to look away, he saw the trees quickly move and shake about.

  It was as if something that was prowling in the shadows and the brush had withdrawn to the greater depths of the forest? pushing aside all obstacles as it went.

  Chapter Twenty

  No Time to Spare

  It remained a close game. During the bottom of the sixth (which was the final inning), the Green Beans held the lead by a single run. The Summer Squashes had last at-bats, and they were doing their best to close the gap.

  There were two outs, and two base-runners. One was at third, the other was at second. Sara was once again in a bit of a jam, but she remained confident on the mound. She believed in her arm, and she believed in her teammates, who defended the field behind her. They had her back.