My Great-grandfather Turns 12 Today (19 page)

“Of course, honey,” Mom said.

“And Aunt Sissie, too?”

“Who?” Sarah asked.

“That’s what Great-grandpa calls Great-great-aunt Lauretta sometimes,” Dad said. “Sure, you can. We all will.”

“Let’s go home,” Mom said and I nodded.

Home looked different when we got there. There were electric lights, televisions, radios, hot and cold running water, flush toilets. Toilet paper. Scented, two-ply toilet paper.

“I think I’ll take a shower,” I said.

“Are you sick?” Mom asked, touching her cool hand to my forehead.

“No, but he smells a lot like a cat’s litter box,” Robert said.

“A barn,” I answered. “That’s hay and it’s how a barn smells.”

“Oh, excuse me. You smell like a barn.”

I ignored him and headed for the bathroom.

“How much did you get again?” David stopped me and asked.

“How much what?”

“Money. From all the relatives.”

I told him. “Amazing!” he said. “That’s exactly how much I was going to sell my bike for. Gee, what are the odds?”

“Yeah,” I said. “What are the odds?”

“So is it a deal?” he asked and I said, “Yeah.”

I took a long hot shower and it felt great. Then I got dressed in some clean clothes, carefully putting the marble and my knife in my top dresser drawer. I put the red baseball jacket back on. I kind of liked the smell of the barn.

The house seemed too cramped and too loud so I stepped out into the back yard and took a deep breath. By now it was late afternoon. Not quite supper time. The fog made it a little chilly so I snapped up my coat and jammed my hands into the pockets.

There was something in there. Something someone had given me that I had forgotten about.

Chapter 31

A Visitor

I pulled out the stiff pieces of cardboard. Aunt Mary’s sister, Margaret, had stuffed them in my jacket pocket right before the Founders’ Day tournament began.

I quickly shuffled through them. They had pictures on them. Pictures of baseball players. They were baseball cards! Baseball cards from eighty-eight years ago!

In mint condition.

I was rich.

“Boompa?” somebody softly called out from the far end of the back yard.

“What?” I asked, staring into the dense fog.

“Boompa?”

“Who’s there?” I asked.

A shape emerged from the white cloud. A boy about my age. He was wearing some kind of coveralls that almost looked as if they were made out of liquid. They were a dull blue.

“Who are you?” he asked, looking confused.

“Who are you?” I answered.

“I asked you first,” he said.

“So?” I said.

He came a little closer and looked around. “This has got to be the best Vir-Rel I’ve ever had,” he said.

“Viral?” I asked. “Like an infection?”

“Vir-Rel,” he said. “Vir-Rel, Vir-Rel. Virtual Reality. It looks as if you’re really here.”

“I am really here,” I said, “and who are you?”

“BOOMPA?” he called out and then said to himself, “Just great, I lost him.”

“What’s a ‘Boompa’?” I asked.

“This has got to be the stupidest birthday ever,” he said to himself, ignoring me as if I were a TV show or something. “He drags me away from the rest of the family and asks me to go for a walk. He starts going on and on about being the third son of a third son. Now he’s out tooling around somewhere in his PTU and I’m here in . . . in . . . in Waterville.”

“I never heard of any place called . . .” I began.

“From ‘Ditch Rider.’ You know, the classic Vir-Rel. You’re very interactive. Tremendous graphics.”

“And you’re nuts,” I said.

“What’s that mean?” he asked.

“What’s that mean? It means . . .”

“BOOMPA!” he called out again, apparently tired of me.

I thought about what he had said before. “What’s a PTU?” I asked.

“Personal Transporter Unit. This really is Waterville, isn’t it?”

“No,” I said, “it’s . . .”

“BOOMPA!”

“And what’s a ‘Boompa’?” I asked.

“Does an In-Vee work here?’ he answered.

“A what?”

“An In-Vee. I got one for my birthday. Just a cheap one but still . . . . Are there counters here or what?”

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

“This,” he said. He pulled a slender silver-colored chain from his pocket and clasped it around his left wrist. Then he touched a spot on it with the first two fingers of his right hand and—
poof!
—he disappeared.

“Hey!” I said. “How did . . .?”

Poof!
He was back. “I guess there are no counter-invisiblers here, huh?” he asked. “This cheap thing would never work in the city.”

I walked over to him. He was a little taller than I was. He had straight, sandy brown hair and blue eyes. Sky- blue eyes.

“Your birthday?” I asked. “You’re twelve, right?

“Yeah. How did you . . .? Oh, I get it. Part of this Vir-Rel is based on my brain waves so that my thought patterns are interpreted by images like you and . . .”

“Who’s Boompa?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

“It’s a nickname for my great-grandfather,” he said. “He turns one hundred today and so there’s this big party thing.” He stopped and looked back into the fog. “Great-uncle Frank are you doing this to me?” he asked.

“Your great-grandfather,” I said. “His name is Michael Farrell.”

“Right,” the boy said, “and I’m Dan Farrell.”

“And you think this is a dream,” I said.

“No,” he answered, “I think this is a Vir-Rel and I think I’ve had just about enough.”

I reached over and pinched his arm.

“Hey!” he protested.

“This is real,” I said.

“Then where . . . ?”

“What year is it?” I asked him and he told me.

 “Wrong,” I said. “You missed it by eighty-eight.”

“What!”

“I’m Michael Farrell,” I said.

“Hey,” he said, “just like . . .”

“Look at me,” I said. “Closely.” He stared for a moment or two and then I could see the shock enter his eyes. His mouth dropped open.

“What year did you say this was?” he asked and I told him again.

“My great-grandfather turns twelve today,” he said.

“You don’t know the half of it,” I answered.

About the Author

or

Stuff to Add to Your Book Report So It Isn’t Too Short

Do you have some questions for that book report that’s due tomorrow? (It’s due tomorrow!) Send an e-mail to [email protected]

You can find out more about the author at
BillDodds.com
but here are ten things to get you started:

1. Bill Dodds didn’t read books for fun when he was in grade school. He never received a certificate from the library at the end of the summer for reading books during those months because he . . . never read books for fun when he was in grade school He only read them when he had to for school.

2. Bill Dodds had some very good teachers who taught him the rules about writing and after he (had to) learn the rules he started to like to write. And he started to like to read for fun.

3. Bill Dodds went away to a boarding school when he was fourteen.

4. Bill Dodds has one older sister, one older brother, and two younger sisters. He is right in the middle.

5. Bill Dodds wrote ten books before he finally had one published. Now he has had dozens and dozens of them published. Some are for children and some are for adults. Some are fiction and some are non-fiction.

6. Bill Dodds wrote the poem “Mrs. Stein” which is about a very scary substitute teacher. That poem is based on his own experience in the fourth grade. This poem is a good choice for a speech contest.

7. Bill Dodds is the author of the middle-grade novels “My Sister Annie” and “The Hidden Fortune.”

8. Bill Dodds is a husband, a father, and a grandfather. Bill Dodds is old.

9. When Bill Dodds turned twelve a candy bar cost a nickel and a bottle of pop was ten cents.

10. Bill Dodds has time traveled, but only forward. He does that every day, one second at a time. You probably do that, too.

And here’s a peek at another great book by Bill Dodds.

The Hidden Fortune

Chapter 1

Freddy Krueger Comes to Dinner

“I’ve already got one. What would I do with two? Go give it to somebody who needs it.”

I stared down at the old man in the ratty gray sweater. It’s gray now, that is. It’s probably supposed to be white. A gaping hole in the right elbow. Two buttons missing.

Then I looked at the brand-new sweater folded in my hands. All wool. Cream-colored. Leather buttons. A thick collar.

Stupid. A stupid idea to buy a stupid sweater for this stupid man.

Believe me, I know stupid. A girl doesn’t live with a little brother like mine for nine years without becoming very familiar with stupid.

This had been Mom’s idea. A nice dinner party for her Uncle Jackie—a great-uncle. So far, from what I’d seen, he wasn’t so great. Mom and I went shopping right after school and bought the sweater and wrapped it all up. Then we made a really nice dinner, which he ate hardly any of. Then he told me to unwrap his present for him. And when I did, he said he didn’t want it.

I could feel tears start to fill up my eyes, just waiting to jump down my cheeks and embarrass me even more. I hate it when that happens. Twelve-year-olds don’t cry.

“It’s a beautiful sweater,” Uncle Jackie said, looking at me, not the sweater. “How about if I help you find somebody else to give it to?”

I nodded, afraid to speak for fear of starting the tears. Jackie is a stupid name for a man, I decided. Isn’t it amazing how some people have just the right name?

* * *

That was the end of dinner. Except Uncle Jackie gave his dessert—apple crisp—to my brother, Pat.

“If you don’t want that either, I know somebody who does,” Pat had said to him. Everybody laughed and laughed and laughed at that—except me. I didn’t think that was very funny at all.

“It’s Thursday,” my dad whispered to me, and he raised his eyebrows and kind of nodded toward the kitchen.

“I know.”

“Let’s go,” he said.