Wall Ball by Kevin Markey Page A

red pepper slices and white stripes of cheese. It looked like an American flag with the stars and stripes jumbled together.
    “I’m afraid to ask,” I said. I’d never seen blue eggs before.
    “Blueberries,” Dad said proudly. “Good and good for you.”
    Mr. Bones growled. “Enough with the questions,” he seemed to say. “Let’s eat!” Blue eggs didn’t bother him one bit.
    I cut off a corner of the scrambled flag and nibbled the edge. Not bad. Not bad at all. Quite good, in fact. I slipped Mr. Bones a piece under the table. He gulped it down and sat up for more.
    “Can we give you a ride to the game?” Mom asked between bites.
    “No thanks,” I said. “Better stick to the routine.” I always biked to home games. Of course, there’d never been snow on the ground before. But still. I didn’t want to go changing things at the last minute.
    “The plows were out yesterday, so the streets should be pretty clear,” I said. “Plus, everything is melting fast.”
    “Okay then.” Mom nodded. “We’ll see you in the second inning.”
    This was another of our traditions. Mom and Dad came to all my games, but they always came late. It’s a long story. Years ago they had missed the first inning by accident, and I ended up having the best game of my life. Hit about a gazillion dingers. Ever since then, they timed things so they arrived at the ballpark for the top of the second. Call it superstition, but it seemed to work.
    I hoped it would today.
    I scarfed down some stars and stripes and then dressed for the game. Winter coat over my uniform. That was a first. Then Mr. Bones and I headed over to the ballpark. Out of habit, I took my shovel.
    The first thing I noticed when we got there was that the whole place shimmered. The air itself seemed to glow.
    The second thing I noticed was snow. More precisely, the lack of it. Huge mounds still dottedthe foul areas in the shadows of the stands, but the field itself was clear enough for baseball. The sudden thaw made things wet. Really wet. But the snow was gone.
    Finally.
    “I guess I won’t need this after all,” I said, ditching my shovel by the dugout.
    “And it looks like I won’t need any of these,” said Orlando, coming up behind me. He wore the modified golf spikes on his feet.
    He held a big cardboard box. A pair of old-fashioned wooden snowshoes stuck out the top. They looked like tennis rackets for feet. Many other pairs of shoes were crammed inside. Rubber galoshes. Tennis sneakers. Football cleats. Swim flippers. Ski boots. Even a pair of ice skates.
    “I brought everything,” Orlando explained. “Just in case.”
    “The sandpaper shoes are all you need,” I said. “They really work. Just not in the way we expected.”
    Orlando glanced at his feet. “What are you talking about?” he asked.
    “Check it out,” I said. I pointed toward the summit of Mount Rambletown, visible above the naked tree line. Orlando shaded his eyes and looked to the sky.
    He did a double take.
    I didn’t blame him. There seemed to be two suns up there. The regular one and a second one parked atop the mountain.
    “The gigantic foil Ramblers sign,” I explained. “It’s acting like a huge mirror, reflecting the sun’s rays right down onto the field. That’s why everything’s glowing so weirdly.”
    The sign also explained how so much snow had disappeared so quickly. The thing melted it like a laser beam.
    “Whoa!” murmured Orlando. “Do you think it will last?”
    I really had no idea.
    “As long as the sun keeps shining,” I said, “it should.”
    “It kind of makes me feel like a hamburger or something.”
    “Just make sure you put a lot of mustard on your relay throws,” I joked.
    By now the other guys had showed up and were marveling at the condition of the field.
    “Sloppy but playable,” said Tugboat, strapping on his catcher’s gear. “Bring on the Haymakers!”
    He hunkered down behind the plate, and the rest of us tossed our coats into