Moxie and the Art of Rule Breaking (26 page)

“For my college applications,” he responded. I whacked him. He sighed.

“Moxie? Seriously? I’m doing this for the same reasons
you are: Because it’s right. Because I love Grumps and I don’t want anything to happen to him.” He paused. “And because you’re my best friend and I’ll miss hanging out with you next year and I don’t want you to be alone when Sully Cupcakes kills you. Okay?”

“Okay, Ollie.” I stifled a yawn.

“MIT is gonna love this,” he muttered.

What felt like a second later, Ollie was nudging me. His face was right in mine.

“Moxie?
Moxie?
” His eyes were wide and he looked kind of panicked.

“Wha—what is it?” I winced. More head-hurting.

“You were asleep. It took me a while to wake you.”

I guess I had been. It was full night now, no hints of blue or streaks of leftover sunset above us.

We made it.

“Let’s do this,” I said. I swigged from a water bottle and stood. Luckily, the world stayed still, but the pain behind my eyes thumped with every heartbeat.

“We stick to the edge of the warning track, cross the Green Monster. There’s a door at the far side,” reviewed Ollie.

I nodded. What we didn’t need to say aloud: Once we got in, we’d have no idea where to look.

“On three.” This time I counted us off: “One…two…three!”

Bullpen door open, we slipped into the darkness and deep shadows at the edge of the warning track. Some of the stadium’s
lights were on, casting a clear glow over the infield, but the light didn’t reach us.

I was walking on the field at Fenway! No matter what happened later, this was still pretty darn awesome. Nini would love this…it’s just too bad I could never tell her.

We’d reached the Green Monster. Up close, the scoreboard was even larger than it seems on TV or from the stands. Each letter was almost as long as my forearm. We had to pass the National League column, all nine inning boxes, plus the lights for outs, strikes, balls, and at bat. Then the door. Crossing it was like being in one of those carnival games where you’re supposed to shoot the duck with a water pistol. The ducks float past a painted background and you just fire. That’s how exposed I felt. And, to be honest, my feet felt far away from the rest of my body.

The Monster doorknob didn’t stick out, probably so a player wouldn’t impale himself on it; instead it was a flat twist-ring set into the door. Ollie grabbed it and turned—
please, please let our luck hold
—and it opened.

“Disco,” he said, and grinned.

We stepped inside the Monster.

Heat and sweat: my first two impressions of the inside of the Green Monster. The smell made me want to yurk. Ollie pulled the door closed behind us, and opened his new cell phone. It let out an icy light.

“Flashlight app,” he explained.

“Sweet.”

The space was narrow—a concrete wall to our left, the field to our right. Ollie and I could probably stand side by side, hold our arms out, and stretch across the whole area. He flicked a switch, and two bare bulbs sparked to life. We blinked against the brightness. I shut them off again.

“Why’d you do that?” he asked.

“Because our eyes won’t be adjusted when we leave,” I explained. “What if we have to make a quick exit?”

“True,” he said. “Hey—watch out!” He gestured to a large slanted concrete column in front of us. “Wouldn’t want you to hit your head.”

“Ha-ha. Hey—check this out!” I pointed to the inside wall of the Monster. What I’d thought was graffiti at first was actually the signatures of Red Sox players from past
and current teams. Even some left fielders from other teams had signed it!

We took a few minutes to read the names. “Manny Ramirez!” “Ken Griffey Jr.!” “Johnny Damon!”

“Brian Cashman?” said Ollie.

“GM of the Yankees,” I explained. “Ick.”

“Let’s find this thing,” he said. “I’m starting to get antsy.”

I was too—and my head was still muzzy and painful.

The good thing was that there weren’t many places to look. The concrete wall and floor were solid. That left the beams above us. Although a normal-sized adult could probably reach them with no problem, we needed a few inches. And I was in no shape to give Ollie a boost.

“Think they’re up there?” Ollie asked.

“No other place they could be, I guess.”

He took his phone and we crept farther into the Monster. It was pitch-black at the edges of Ollie’s screen. But despite the darkness and my bleeding head wound, I saw something familiar in the corner…

“Jackpot!” I called. “Over there.” We stepped closer, and I hoped that it would turn out to be what I thought it was.

A stepladder.

It was a short one—Grumps had a similar one that he used for changing lightbulbs or doing work in the house.

I took Ollie’s phone, holding the light steady, and he lugged it to the beam closest to the door and set it up.

“What now?” I asked.

“We climb up, check them out, knock on them to see
if there’s a cubby or something. Hopefully get lucky.” He shrugged. “Want to go first?”

“Totally.” I’d just be extra-careful.

One, two, three steps up, and I could reach the beams. Unfortunately, when I tilted my head back and lifted my arm to knock on the beam, the world spun again.

“Crikey!” I said. I closed my eyes, and when I reopened them, things had settled.

“You okay?”

“Not really. I need to come down.” My head swirled again as I reached the floor.

Ollie watched me carefully before he stepped on the ladder. He climbed up and knocked on the beam in a couple of spots. Definitely metal. He came down, we slid the ladder over, he went up and knocked again. Metal.

We moved to the next beam. And the next. He climbed and knocked four more times. I was getting discouraged. Maybe the last two pieces of Gardner art would stay missing forever. And then…

“Oh, hel-lo,” I said. Instead of the metal ringing when Ollie rapped on the beam, there came a flat wooden echo.

“Got it!” said Ollie. He ran his hands over it, searching for a seam or hinge. I didn’t think we’d be that lucky, and I was right.

“It’s here,” he said. “There’s a crack that looks like part of the beam.” He pointed.

“How can you even
see
that?” I asked.

He grinned. “Ollie-vision,” he answered. “Do we have anything we can use to pry or break it open?”

I didn’t. We explored the Monster some more…numbered cards for the scoreboard, an old-school phone, a couple of folding chairs, and a table. That was pretty much it.

“What about these?” I asked. The cards were threaded onto giant rusty nails sticking out of the wall. “Think we can get one loose?”

“One way to find out.” Ollie and I tested all of them, and one gave the teensiest bit. We took turns wiggling, twisting, and scraping at the concrete around it using a rock that I found wedged in a corner. After what felt like forever, it came free.

The nail was almost as long as my arm, and heavy. Actually, it was more like a spike than a nail.

Ollie grabbed it and went back up the ladder. I checked his phone: 9:23 p.m. Thirty minutes to the fireworks, maybe ninety before the parents flipped out. But most worrisome was the total
lack
of a sign from The Redhead. At any second I expected her to burst into the Green Monster.

Crack!
Ollie slammed the spike into the spot on the side of the fake beam. Paint and wood chips sprinkled down.
Crack!
He did it again. The third time, a hole opened. He reached in and found some kind of latch, and swung the side of the beam open.

He pulled out a shoebox, tucked it under his arm, and came down. Together, we huddled above the white light from his phone and stared at the lid.

“You take it off,” I said. “You found them.”

Ollie nervously licked his lips and gave a half nod. He lifted the top of the box off, revealing two tissue-wrapped bundles—one of which he handed to me.

Slowly, I unfurled the paper. Cold, dark metal, shaped like an hourglass with a smaller bottom than top…I was holding the ku. A three-thousand-year-old vase. My hands started to shake—whether from my nerves or head injury, I didn’t know.

Ollie unwrapped the finial—the flagpole topper. An eagle with its wings outstretched; although age had tarnished it, you could still see the bronze in some places.

“Whoa,” he breathed.

“Pretty awesome,” I agreed. We traded objects, and I traced the feathers on the bottom row of the wings. Then we rewrapped both pieces and stuffed them in the bottom of my backpack. After all, we weren’t enjoying them in a museum.

He folded the stepladder and we tucked it against the concrete wall near the door.

“Ready?” he asked.

“Definitely.”

He pushed the door open onto the very dark corner of the field.

“Crap! Mox—” he began, and took a step back, hands up.

So
that’s
where The Redhead was…

Without thinking, I grabbed the only thing close by: the stepladder. As Ollie backed into the Monster, I stood to the side of the doorway, just out of The Redhead’s sight. Ollie was awesome: His eyes never flickered in my direction, just stayed focused on the woman in front of him. I gripped the ladder as tightly as possible, its edge digging into my palms. When the tip of one black boot stepped over the threshold, I swung it through the open door as hard as I could.

The shock from contact traveled up to my shoulders, and I dropped it onto the warning track.

“Run!” I screamed at Ollie.

We booked it. At least The Redhead had been knocked over by my horrible makeshift weapon. She was rubbing her chin and climbing to her feet. Two steps later and I realized we had a very big problem: On the field, we were done for. We’d have to run too far to reach a spot in the wall where we could climb into the seats. I grabbed Ollie and pointed at the Monster, then I raced back and snagged the ladder with one foot, dragging it close. The ground tilted, but I was determined not to stop.

The Redhead, swearing up a storm, grabbed the other end of the ladder with one hand. I pulled as hard as I could, and her hand came free. Ollie was by my side. Together, we brought the ladder to the door we’d just exited and had now closed.

“Open it!” I shouted. The Redhead lunged for me. Her nails bit into my arm, and she clawed at the strap to my backpack.

“I am out of patience with you,” she snarled, and gripped my other arm.

Bad move, Redhead. I whirled my forearms like first Grumps and, later, the self-defense instructor in gym class had drilled into me, breaking her grip. For good measure, I slapped the side of my hand into the front of her neck—another Grumps lesson. She coughed and staggered back. Behind me, Ollie huffed up the aluminum rungs.

Fenway has a ladder that scales the external Green Monster wall. Before the seats were there, grounds crews would retrieve balls caught in the net that stretched across left field, meant to protect cars and people on Lansdowne Street.

“Up!” he wheezed.

I spun and raced to the ladder, head throbbing. Scrabbling up the rungs, I heard The Redhead, breathing ragged, pounding across the grass. Just as I reached above my head, grabbing the rung sticking out of the Green Monster’s wall above the scoreboard, I felt her grab the stepladder. I kicked out with both feet, pulling myself up, and raced up the rungs.