Mickey & Me (10 page)

THE FOOTSTEPS I HEARD COMING UP BEHIND ME COULD
have been anybody's. They could have been those of a little old lady walking to the market. Or they could have been trouble. I decided to risk a little embarrassment and turn around.

They were trouble.

“Remember me?”

I didn't, at first. It took a moment or two to recognize him. Then I remembered—the kid who had shown up the day before to be the Chicks mascot. I had taken the job in his place and told him to go away.

How did he know what I looked like? I wondered.
I had had the chicken suit on when I met him. Then I remembered that the head fell off when I threw the ball at Hitler. The kid must have been watching me like a hawk. Now he was staring at me with a
cold look in his eyes. Playing it cool seemed to be the way to go in this situation.

“Sure I remember you,” I said cheerfully. “Hi! I'm leaving now. Taking the train home. The mascot job is open if you still want it.”

I was ready to turn around and continue on my merry way, but the kid was still staring coldly at me.

“Nobody makes a monkey out of me,” he said.

I've had my share of fights in my life. I know how to use my fists. But the last thing I wanted to do was get into a fight now. Oh, I could take the kid, I felt certain of that. He was no bigger than me. I really wanted to say, “What are you going to do about it?” But I didn't. All I wanted to do was go home.

“I'm sorry,” I said. “They asked me if I was the new mascot and I said yes. My mistake.”

That should have been the end of it. I had apologized. What more did he want from me? To get down on my knees and beg his forgiveness? That wasn't going to happen.

“I ain't here to listen to your sob story.”

The kid let out a whistle, and five other guys came out from the alley behind him. A couple of them were holding baseball bats, and I didn't think they'd brought them to play a game. I was in real trouble.

“What do you want?” I asked, taking a step backward.

“You,” one of them said. “We're gonna knock your block off.”

“When somebody messes with one of us,” another boy said, “they're messing with all of us.”

This was not good. My heart and brain were suddenly racing. I couldn't fight them all. I might get myself killed. There was nothing I could say that would make them leave me alone. I could scream for help. Not very manly, but it might work. Why did this stuff always happen to me? Why did I have to pick on a kid who was a member of a gang?

“Whatsamatter, kid? Ya scared?”

There were ten singles in my pocket, I remembered. That's a week's pay for a lot of people in 1944. Maybe if I chucked the bills up in the air and made a run for it, I could get to the train station a few blocks away. I didn't need the money, and they would probably rather have ten bucks than beat me up.

Just as I was reaching into my pocket for the bills, a thumping noise came up from behind the six boys. It sounded like hoofbeats. When they all turned around, I saw a horse galloping directly toward us. It was Chico's Flame, with Mickey Maguire on top.

One of the kids let out a curse. Just as Mickey was about to mow them down, the boys scattered out of the way like bowling pins.

“Hop on, Stosh!” Mickey hollered.

I climbed up behind her and grabbed her around
the waist tightly. She flicked the reins and Chico's Flame took off. I turned around to see the boys waving their fists and bats at me.

“How did you know—”

“Max noticed a boy following you through the stands,” Mickey explained. “He was going to send the two Bobs to chase the kid away, but I told him I could get here quicker.”

Mickey steered Chico's Flame up the street and right into a big building that said
NORTH WESTERN RAILROAD DEPOT
on it. A few people recognized Mickey and shouted greetings to her. I hopped off, gave Chico's Flame a pat, and thanked Mickey. She wished me well and galloped right back out the door.

It wasn't very likely that those boys would have followed us to the train station, but I didn't want to take the chance. I ran to the ticket window.

“Where you heading, sonny?” the ticket seller asked. “And what's your rush?”

“Anywhere,” I replied, gasping for breath. “When is the next train?”

“The 9:55 to St. Louis, with a stop in Chicago, is just arriving on track three. I think you can still make it.”

“Sounds good.”

The fare was $4.50. I fished five singles out of my pocket and slid them under the bars. He gave me the change and a ticket.

“There he is!” somebody shouted as soon as I left
the ticket window.

I turned around to see those six jerks at the door Mickey Maguire had just left. She couldn't help me now. I was on my own. They were coming my way.

“All aboard for Chicago and St. Louis! Track three. All aboard!”

Clutching my envelope, I made a dash for track three and got there just as the train started moving. I jumped on the last car as the train was pulling away from the station.

Peering out the side, I saw the boys on the platform. They couldn't catch me now. I let out a sigh of relief.

I wasn't sure whether or not they'd understand, but just for the fun of it I gave them the finger.

 

The train had one of those big old steam engines, with a fancy dining car and uniformed conductors walking up and down, punching people's tickets. I had hoped to find a quiet car where I could pull out my baseball cards and send myself home, but this train was jammed with passengers.

“Next stop Chicago!” a conductor hollered.

After walking through two cars, I finally found an empty seat next to a husky kid with a crew cut. He looked about my age. He was wearing a baseball uniform that said
BAXTER SPRINGS WHIZ KIDS
on it.

“You play ball?” I said as I sat down next to him, realizing instantly what a stupid question that was. Of course the kid played ball.

“Yup,” he replied.

That was all he said. When fifteen minutes had gone by and he didn't say a word, I figured the kid was just the quiet type and I should leave him alone.

“You?” he suddenly asked, startling me.

“Huh?”

“Do you play ball?”

“Oh yeah,” I told him. “Little League mostly. Pickup games too, if anybody's around. I live for baseball. Always did.”

“Me too,” he replied. “When I was little, we had this old tin barn next to our house. My dad would pitch tennis balls to me against the barn. We did it for hours. It would get dark and my mom would be hollerin' for us to come in for dinner. Dad would say, ‘Your belly can wait. Ten more pitches.' My dad taught me everything I know about the game.”

“Same with me,” I told him.

He said he was on his way back home to Oklahoma. The kid spoke with a soft drawl, and he had an easy laugh. I liked him right away. We had a lot in common, too. We were both about the same age, we both loved baseball, and we both dreamed of playing in the big leagues one day.

We were both poor, too, but his family was even poorer than mine. He told me his dad was a miner and part-time sharecropper. They lived in a two-bedroom house, with two parents and five kids. He didn't have a toilet in his house. One year, he said, it rained for days and days. His family lost
everything they had in the flood.

“Next stop Chicago!” yelled the conductor as he came down the aisle, collecting tickets. “Change for Peoria, Kansas City, Wichita, and Tulsa.”

The kid seemed to enjoy telling stories, and I enjoyed listening to him. But as the train was slowing down to stop in Chicago, he grabbed the bag under his seat and said he had to switch to the train for Tulsa, which was near his home.

“I hope to see you again when we're in the majors someday,” he said as he got up from the seat.

“Yeah, me too.”

“Hey,” he said, patting his pockets, “you and me oughta swap signatures. That way, if one of us makes the bigs, the other will have his autograph.”

“Okay.”

The train squeaked to a stop, and just about everybody got off. The kid found a piece of paper and a pen. He ripped the paper in half and handed me one of the pieces, along with the pen. I wrote my name and gave him back the paper and pen. He wrote his name on the other piece of paper, folded it once, and handed it to me.

“Bye,” he said, hustling down the aisle. “Good luck.”

“Bye.”

He got off just before the train started to pull away from the station. Through my window, I saw the kid on the platform. I unfolded the piece of paper he had given me.

For almost an hour, I had been sitting next to thirteen-year-old Mickey Mantle, and I hadn't even known it!

I bolted up from my seat. For almost an hour, I had been sitting next to thirteen-year-old Mickey Mantle, and I hadn't even known it! I pounded on the window, trying to get his attention.

“Mickey!” I shouted. “Mickey!”

Finally, he turned around and looked at me. The train was starting to accelerate.

“The drain!” I screamed. “There's a hidden drain outlet in the outfield at Yankee Stadium! Don't step on it!”

“What?”

Mickey cupped a hand to his ear and looked at me with a puzzled expression on his face. He got smaller and smaller.

I COULDN'T BELIEVE IT
.
I HAD ACTUALLY MET MICKEY
Mantle, but he hadn't heard the one thing I had gone back in time to tell him. Things just never seem to work out the way you think they will.

The train had pretty much emptied out at Chicago. There were a couple of heads poking over the tops of seats at the front of the car, but I didn't think they would bother me. The clickety-clack of the wheels on the track was actually relaxing, in a way. It felt like a good environment to use my “special gift.”

I slipped the big envelope under my arm and pulled my new baseball cards out of my pocket. Thankfully, after all I had been through, I hadn't lost them.

It didn't matter which card I used, so I didn't waste time going through them. Picking a card at
random, I closed my eyes.

While waiting for the tingling to begin, I thought about everything that had happened to me from the moment I'd arrived in 1944 until the moment I was about to leave. Seeing the Chicks coming out of the shower room (that was a high point!). Meeting the great Max Carey. Dressing up as a chicken. Dressing up as a girl! Helping the Chicks win the game. The graveyard. Toni Stone. Being chased by those jerks. Sitting next to Mickey Mantle. It had been some trip.

Soon I felt the tingles in my fingertips. It was the best feeling in the world. It meant I was going home.

The vibrations rolled up my arms and down my chest. There was no turning back now.

“Next stop St. Louis,” a conductor said as he came down the aisle.

It didn't matter to me now. I kept my eyes shut as the tingling sensation flowed down my legs. I was almost there.

“Next stop—Whoa! Kid, are you okay? Oh, man, this boy is fading away!”

 

When I opened my eyes again, I was sitting on the couch in our living room, just as I had been when I left. The envelope was still under my arm. Mickey Mantle's autograph was still in my pocket. My cousin Samantha was curled up in a ball on the floor below me, watching Bugs Bunny on TV.

“Good morning,” I said, causing her to jump up with a start.

“Where were you?” she asked. “I've been looking all over the house!”

“I wasn't in the house. I was in Milwaukee in 1944. Now do you believe I can travel through time?”

“It was a trick,” Samantha insisted. “You used mirrors or something.”

“Maybe this will convince you,” I said, pulling the team photo of the Chicks out of its envelope and handing it to her.

Samantha had a smirk on her face, but it vanished when she realized what she was looking at.

“I met your hero, Connie Wisniewski,” I told her. “Flip it over.”

She turned over the photo and looked at the other side. With each autograph she recognized, her eyes got wider. With each note the players had written to me, her mouth dropped open a bit more.

“It…works?”

“Of course it works!” I exclaimed. “You tricked me, slipping that Mickey Maguire card in place of my Mickey Mantle card!”

“I…I never thought you were really going to travel through time,” she said. “I thought you were pulling a joke on me, so I pulled one on you first. Oh, it doesn't matter now, does it? What was it like in 1944? Were they nice? Tell me everything.”

“First things first,” I said. “Where's the Mickey
Mantle card you took out of my hand?”

“I sold it,” she replied. “For ten dollars.”

“What?” I exploded. “That card is worth seventy-five thousand dollars! How could you—”

“Just kidding,” she said, pulling the plastic card holder from her pocket and handing it to me.

Girls!

“Gimme that!” I said, snatching it away from her.

“Oh, Joey, your baseball coach left a bunch of messages on the answering machine about some game you have this afternoon. You told me not to pick up the phone.”

I had forgotten all about the game. I had figured that the first thing I would do when I got home was to go over to the hospital to see how my dad was doing.

I was about to call the hospital when a car pulled up outside. I looked out the window and saw that my mom was home. I took the team photo of the Chicks and hid it under the couch.

“Don't tell my mother I left you alone all night,” I warned Samantha. “She'll ground me for the rest of my life if she finds out.”

“I told you, I didn't need any baby-sitter, anyway,” Samantha said.

“Just don't tell her!”

Mom came in and gave each of us a hug. Her eyes looked tired, like she had been up all night. Her hair needed combing or something.

“Have you two been good?” she asked, sitting
heavily on the couch. “What mischief did you get into while I was away?”

I shot Samantha a look and she shot me one back.

“Nothing much,” I said casually. “We watched TV mostly. How is Dad?”

Before Mom could answer, there was a knock at the front door. I went to get it. Coach Tropiano was standing on the front porch. I let him in.

“I couldn't reach you by phone,” he said, “so I thought I'd stop by. I just wanted to see if your dad was okay, Joe, and to see if you might be able to play today. It's a big game, our last game.”

I turned to Mom. She motioned for me to come over to her, and took my hand in hers when I did.

“Dad is doing better now, Joey,” she said. “But he…doesn't have any feeling.”

“You mean he's paralyzed?”

She nodded her head, and I collapsed in her arms.

“Below the neck,” she said softly.

“Uncle Bill is paralyzed?” Samantha asked, bursting instantly into tears.

“I'm sorry!” Coach Tropiano blurted out, backing toward the door. “I shouldn't have come over at a time like this. My deepest condolences, Mrs. Stoshack. I'll call you in a few days to see how you're doing, Joe.”

“Wait,” I said, getting to my feet. “Don't go, Coach.”

Coach Tropiano paused in the doorway.

“What is it, Joe?” he asked. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Yes,” I replied. “Start me.”

“Joe,” the coach said, “I completely understand if you don't come to the game. The guys on the team will understand, too. I'll make an announcement.”

“No announcement,” I said. “I want to play, Coach. Is it okay, Mom?”

My mother nodded her head. I went upstairs to put my uniform on.