Shoeless Joe & Me by Dan Gutman Page B

“There’s somebody on the phone for you…and it’s a boy !” He giggled. I heard footsteps and then a few seconds of arguing. One of them must have put a hand over the mouthpiece, but I thought I heard a girl’s voice say, “Shut up, Wilbur,” and his reply, “ You shut up.”
    â€œHello?” a girl said sweetly.
    â€œIs this Gladys Kozinsky from Cincinnati?” I asked.
    â€œYes, it is. Who is this?”
    I took a deep breath and paused for a moment to appreciate how amazing it was. I was actually speaking with my great-grandmother, who had died many years before I was born.
    â€œMy name is Joe Stoshack.”
    â€œJoe who?”
    â€œStoshack.”
    â€œDo you go to my school?”
    â€œNo…”
    â€œThen how do you know me?”
    I hadn’t counted on actually reaching my great-grandmother, so I hadn’t given much thought to what I would say if I did reach her. I couldn’t tell her that I had come from the future or that we were related, of course. But I had to come up with some reason for calling her up.
    I looked around the hotel room. Joe Jackson was holding the bat up in his other hand and his wife was brushing her hair.
    â€œYou and your brother are twins, right?” I asked Gladys.
    â€œYes…”
    â€œI need to take a picture of twins.”
    â€œA photograph?” she asked.
    â€œYes.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œIt’s…for a school project,” I lied. “Would you mind letting me take a pic—photograph—of you and your brother?”
    She didn’t say anything for a moment, then replied simply, “I guess so.”
    â€œWhen can we shoot the picture?” I asked.
    â€œWell, are you going to the game tomorrow?”
    â€œYou mean the World Series?”
    â€œOf course I mean the World Series!” she said. “What other game could I be talking about?”
    â€œI’ll be there.”
    â€œMy parents always let us go buy hot dogs after the fourth inning,” she explained. “You can meet us at the hot dog stand on the third-base side. Okay?”
    â€œOkay!”
    There was a loud knock at the hotel room door. Somebody said, “Jackson, you in there?”
    I was afraid it was one of the gamblers who had locked me in the closet. Joe and Katie looked at each other, then they looked at me. Joe put the bat down and put on a bathrobe. Then he picked up Black Betsy with both hands.
    â€œGet in the bathroom!” Katie whispered to me urgently.
    â€œI gotta go,” I told Gladys. “See you tomorrow.” I hung up the phone and rushed into the bathroom.After closing the door, I got down on my knees and peeked through the keyhole.
    â€œHiya, Chick,” I heard Joe say, after letting somebody into the room. I remembered that the gamblers had mentioned that a player named Chick was in on the fix.
    Looking through the keyhole, I could see that Chick Gandil was a really big guy, taller than Joe and at least two hundred pounds. He had hollow cheeks and he was puffing a cigar. He took off his hat when he saw Joe’s wife. Gandil was dressed neatly in a sports jacket.
    â€œEvenin’, Mrs. Jackson,” he said politely. Chick Gandil didn’t have a Southern accent like Joe and Katie. “Getting some last-minute batting practice in, Joe?”
    â€œWhat do you want, Chick?” Joe asked. It didn’t look like he liked Gandil.
    Chick threw an enormous arm around Joe’s shoulder. “Joe, a bunch of us got together and we decided to frame up the Series. Eddie Cicotte told me you weren’t interested in helping us.”
    â€œThat’s right, Chick,” Joe said, breaking away from Gandil’s arm. “Ah play to win. That’s the way Ah do things.”
    â€œYou’re a fine man, Joe,” Gandil continued, “but the men we’re working with want you in this thing pretty badly. They told me they would