Roberto & Me (10 page)

IT WAS HARD TO SLEEP THAT NIGHT. I KEPT THINKING ABOUT
everything that had happened over the last couple of days—my talk with Señorita Molina, Woodstock, Jimi Hendrix, Sunrise, Peter and Wendy, the game at Crosley Field, and of course meeting Roberto Clemente.

There's a little night-light plugged in near the door of my room. It's not that I'm afraid of the dark. What I'm afraid of is smashing my toe against the furniture in the dark. I did that once and nearly had to go to the emergency room. The night-light gives off just enough light to see my way around.

At some point in the middle of the night, I woke up. There was a noise, I think. I looked at the clock next to my bed. It said it was 2:14. Then I looked across the room, over at my desk.

There was somebody sitting there.

In the dark.

Looking at me.

I didn't freak out. It had to be a dream. How else could somebody get into my room in the middle of the night?

The night-light was bright enough for me to tell that the person at my desk wasn't my mom. And it wasn't my Uncle Wilbur, who lives with us. It looked like a boy, about my age. He was just sitting there.

“Are you awake?” the boy whispered, leaning forward in my chair.

“I'm not sure,” I replied honestly. “If this is a dream, then no.”

“Are you Joseph Stoshack?” the boy asked.

“Yeah,” I replied. “Who are you?”

“My name is Bernard,” he said. “Bernard Stoshack.”

“Are you related to me?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he replied. “I'm your great-grandson.”

Well, now I
knew
I was dreaming. I'm 13 years old. I'm not married. I don't have kids, much less grandkids. Either I was having a dream, or somebody was playing a very elaborate practical joke on me.

“That's funny,” I said.

“I know this probably sounds a little crazy,” said the boy, “but I'm telling you the truth. You're my great-grandfather. I live in the year 2080.”

Oh, this kid was
good
. I looked around the room for the blinking red light of a video camera. There had to be one somewhere. This would probably be on
YouTube by morning. I figured I might as well play along.

“Um-hmm,” I said. “And how did you get here, Bernard Stoshack…or whatever your name is?”

“I climbed in the window,” he replied.

“No,” I said. “I mean, if you come from the year 2080, how did you get
here
, to my time? Did you walk? Did you fly?”

“No,” he replied. “I used a baseball card.”

“What!?”

“I know you have the power to travel through time with a baseball card,” he explained. “So do I. My father couldn't do it. Neither could my grandfather. But it must be genetic, because I have the same power that you do. It must have skipped a couple of generations.”

“What gave you the idea that I can travel through time with a baseball card?” I asked.

“I read it in your diary,” he replied.

Ha! Now I
knew
the kid was a phony.

“I don't even keep a diary!” I said.

“You will,” he told me, “when you're an old man. You'll want to tell your children, and your grandchildren, that you have this gift. You'll want to alert them that they might have the same power as you. And I do, Grandpa! Whenever I pick up an old baseball card and hold it in my hand, something strange happens. I get this tingling sensation in the tips of my fingers. Then it moves across my body. It feels almost like…like waves on the beach.”

I fell back against my pillow.

“I know the drill,” I said. “Let me see the card you used.”

My eyes had adjusted to the light somewhat. He pulled a card out of his pocket and showed it to me. It was an Alex Rodriguez card, a little beat up and yellowed; but it looked real.

“You say you found this in the year 2080 and used it to get here?” I asked.

“That's right,” he said. “I found it a few weeks ago in an old trunk filled with your diary and some other stuff. But I had a heck of a time finding you, Grandpa. I live in Chicago. I thought the card was going to take me right here. But I landed downtown at the Louisville Slugger Museum and had to figure out where you lived. As I was walking over here, some guys tried to rob me and I ran away. I almost got killed. Did anything like that ever happen to you, Grandpa?”

It
had
to be a dream. That was the only possible explanation. The only person I know who can describe the time travel process so accurately is
me
. Even my mother doesn't know exactly how it works.

I looked at the clock again. It was 2:16.

Usually I don't remember my dreams. They seem so real while they're happening. Then I wake up in the morning with this vague memory that I had a dream but with no idea what it was about. This one was particularly vivid.

I should write it down
, I thought,
so I won't forget
it
. But it's too much trouble to get out of bed to find a piece of paper and a pen when you're so tired. I promised myself I would remember. It would be fun to tell my mother about this one in the morning.

Bernard went on and on, talking about everything he went through to find my house in the middle of the night, how he climbed the tree outside my window and crept into my room.

What a great dream
, I thought, as he kept right on talking. If only it was real. It would be cool to actually meet my great-grandchildren.

I rolled over and fell back asleep.

 

I don't know how much time passed, but I was lying there in bed for a while and something caused me to wake up again. I punched the pillow and tried to get comfortable. All I wanted to do was get some sleep. If I didn't fall asleep soon, I knew I would feel lousy all day. And I had a game to play that night.

I looked at the clock—2:19. This was going to be a long night.

“Grandpa…” a voice whispered.

Startled, I looked across the room. The kid was still there!

I bolted up from my bed.

“Get out of—”

The kid leaped to his feet and clapped one hand over my mouth before I could get out another word. He pushed his other hand against the back of my head and held it tight, like a clamp. He was strong,
stronger than me. He didn't smell very good. This wasn't any dream. Now I was freaking out.

“Is everything okay, Joey?” my mom called from down the hall.

“Tell her everything's okay,” the boy whispered.

He took his hand off my mouth.

“Everything's okay, Mom,” I said. “I was just having a dream.”

“Now,
shhhhhh
!” the boy whispered, putting his hand back over my mouth. “You're
not
dreaming! I know you're scared right now. I'm sorry I had to do it this way, but I didn't know what else to do. You've got to listen to me. I know it's hard to believe. My name is Bernard Stoshack, and I'm 13 years old, okay? You are my great-grandfather. I live in the year 2080, and I have the same power as you to travel through time with baseball cards. This is not a hoax. It's for real. You got it?”

I nodded my head, and he let go. I flipped on the light next to my bed to get a better look at him. He was dressed in ratty old clothes—torn, faded jeans and a striped shirt that should have been turned into a rag a long time ago. I searched his face for a family resemblance. He looked a little like me, I suppose. Dark hair. Kind of big ears. Stocky. It was hard to tell. He could have been anybody.

“Prove you're who you say you are,” I demanded.

He pulled out a wallet from his pocket and produced a library card.
CHICAGO PUBLIC LIBRARY
, it said at the top. His picture was below it, next to the name
BERNARD STOSHACK
. I looked to see when the card was due to expire—February 2082.

Maybe the kid
was
for real. But I wasn't completely convinced. It could still be a hoax. It would be easy to make a fake library card. The question was, why would anyone bother?

“I know everything about you, Grandpa,” he told me. “Your parents' names are Terry and Bill. They got divorced when you were nine years old. Your mom is a nurse. She works at Louisville Hospital. Your dad was in a traffic accident that paralyzed him. Your favorite thing in the world is playing baseball. Your coach's name is Flip Valentini. I could go on if you want me to.”

I was beginning to believe that he was the real deal. Still, it was hard for me to wrap my mind around the idea that my own great-grandson was sitting right next to me…and that he was the same age as me! I went to give him a hug, and he hugged me back.

“Why are you here?” I asked.

“Shhhhh!”
Bernard said. “You'll wake Grandma…I mean, your mother.”

“Did you come here just to meet me?” I whispered.

“No,” he replied.

Why would somebody from the year 2080 travel back to our time? I wondered. There could be lots of reasons. It would be pretty cool, for one thing. But time travel is too risky to do just for kicks. Bernard
must be on a mission, I decided—just like I always give myself a mission to accomplish when I travel through time.

“Then why are you here?” I repeated.

“I can't tell you right now.”

“Why not?” I asked.

“Shhhhhh!”
Bernard said urgently. “I need to show you something. I need you to come with me.”

“Where?” I asked.

“To 2080,” he said. “I need to take you to the future, Grandpa.”

THE FUTURE
!

Ever since my first experience traveling through time, I dreamed of going to the future. If I could move backward in time, why not forward? Common sense says I should be able to go in either direction. But, of course, I knew why that was impossible.

“How can I travel to the future?” I asked Bernard. “I would need a future baseball card.”

“I know,” he replied. “I have one.”

He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a piece of gray cardboard that was a little bigger than a baseball card. Actually, it was two pieces of cardboard taped together on three sides. He tapped it a few times until the edge of a card popped out the side that wasn't taped. The card fell on my bed, faceup. I wondered why Bernard didn't just keep his baseball cards in plastic sleeves the way I do.

I went to pick up the card, but Bernard pushed my hand away.

“Don't touch it, Grandpa!” he warned me. “Not yet. You know what happens when we touch it.”

I pointed my light at the card and leaned over to examine it.

Nina Wallace

“Bob Feist?” I said. “I never heard of this guy.”

“Of course not,” Bernard said. “He hasn't been born yet. Bob Feist plays in
my
time. He's one of my favorite players. This card is what I brought along to take me back home, and to take you into the future, Grandpa.”

“Do you have to call me Grandpa?” I asked.

“But that's who you are,” Bernard said. “You're my great-grandfather.”

“It's creepy,” I told him. “I'm 13.”

“Well, what do you want me to call you?”

“Stosh,” I said. “Just call me Stosh.”

“Okay, Grandpa,” Bernard said. “I mean, Stosh.”

“Wait a minute,” I said, looking at the card again. “Chicago
Cubsox
? You don't mean to tell me—”

“Yeah, the Cubs and the White Sox merged into one team a long time ago,” said Bernard. “It was around 2050. It's a long story.”

“Wow,” I said, “people in Chicago must have been really upset.”

“They're used to dealing with adversity,” Bernard said.

I leaned over to study the card more closely.

“Lowstop?” I asked. “What's a lowstop?”

“The word ‘shortstop' was considered offensive by midgets and dwarves,” Bernard told me. “So it was changed to ‘lowstop.' There have been a lot of changes in the last 70 years.”

“I'll bet.”

I thought about Sunrise. She could barely picture all the things we have in the twenty-first century: DVDs, IMAX, iPods, the Internet. In 1969, the PC hadn't even been invented yet. And that was only a few decades ago. I couldn't imagine how much the world would change and technology would advance
70 years from now. In Bernard's world, it was probably like
Star Wars
every day.

Bernard got up and started looking curiously at the stuff on my desk, picking things up and putting them down. It occurred to me that my room must look like an antique shop to him. Or maybe one of those living-history museums.

“Do you have a flying car?” I asked him.

“Hmmm?” Bernard had picked up a calculator from my desk and was engrossed in punching the buttons.

“A flying car,” I repeated. “They say that in the future, every family will have a car that flies. Do you have one of those?”

“Uh, no,” he replied.

“Too bad,” I said. “It would be cool to ride in one. But I bet you have lots of other great stuff, huh? Like robot servants and microwave freezers. How about light sabers and laser guns? Do you have them?”

“You'll find out when we get there,” Bernard said absentmindedly. He was looking at my cell phone charger.

“What about a jet pack?” I asked. “I bet you have your own jet pack, right?”

“A what?” Bernard asked.

“A jet pack,” I said. “You know, one of those things you strap to your back so you can go flying around? Do you jet pack to school every day?”

“No,” he said, “I don't have a jet pack.”

“Oh,” I said. “Too bad. Hey, can we go now? I can't wait to see what the future will be like.”

I pulled on a pair of jeans and took a clean T-shirt from my drawer.

“Give me just one minute, Grandpa,” Bernard said.

“Don't call me Grandpa!” I said.

“Shhhhhhhhhhh!”

Bernard seemed fascinated by the ordinary stuff in my room. He found the switch on my desk lamp and turned it on. Then he turned it off again. Then he turned it back on and looked at the bulb.

“You probably don't even need light switches in the future, huh?” I asked. “You probably turn your lights on and off through mind control or something, right? You just think ‘On' and the light goes on. Man, future stuff is cool.”

“Um-hmm,” he mumbled.

Bernard didn't seem interested in talking about what the world is like in 2080. He looked at my electric pencil sharpener, my laptop, my iPod.

“This stuff must look like a lot of old junk to you, huh?” I asked. “I bet you have much cooler stuff in 2080. Futuristic stuff.”

“Okay,” Bernard said with a sigh, “I've seen enough. We need to go.”

I was curious why he always used the word “need.” It was never “We
should
go” or “I would
like
to take you to the future.” It was always “We
need
to go” and “I
need
to take you to the future.”

We both knew what to do. Bernard turned off the desk lamp and sat on my bed next to me. I grabbed his hand and closed my eyes.

“Aren't you forgetting something?” he asked.

“What?”

“Some baseball cards?” he said.

“Oh, yeah. Of course.”

I went to my desk and got a pack of new baseball cards out of the drawer. My ticket back home. I put them in my pocket and sat down on the bed again.

“Do you want to hold the Bob Feist card?” he asked me. “We both have the power. I suppose it doesn't really matter which one of us holds the card.”

Usually I'm the one who is taking somebody with me through time. I had never been a “passenger” before.

“You hold it,” I said. “I want to see what it's like to go along for the ride.”

Bernard took my hand with his right hand and picked up the card with his left. My hand was sweaty, and I realized I was nervous. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes.

“This will take a few minutes,” Bernard said.

“I know,” I said. “Hey, I just remembered. I have a game tomorrow night.”

“I'll get you back in time,” Bernard told me.

While I waited for the tingling sensation to come, I concentrated on the future. If Bernard read a diary that I kept as an old man, he must know a lot about me. He knew things that I didn't even know about
myself. There was so much I wanted to ask him. What did I grow up to do for a living? Was I successful at it? I must have gotten married. Who was my wife? How many children did we have? And, of course, when did I die?

Bernard probably had a lot of questions he wanted to ask me too. But there would be time for that once we got to 2080.

“It's starting to happen,” Bernard suddenly said.

“You feel the tingling sensation?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he replied, “in my fingertips.”

“It won't be long now,” I said.

“It's moving up my arm,” he whispered.

I knew exactly what he was experiencing. After a minute or so, my left hand—the one he was holding—started to tingle. The sensation quickly moved across my body and down my legs. We were approaching the point of no return.

“In the future,” I whispered, “is everything, like, in 3-D and stuff?”

“You'll see very soon, Grandpa,” Bernard replied.

“Don't call me Grandpa!”

And then we disappeared.