I unsnapped the chin strap of my bike helmet and stared at the poster. I wondered if I was dreaming. It seemed too good to be true. But there it was, hanging in the window of McCloud's Sporting Goods, printed in big red letters on a piece of white posterboard:

ATTENTION YOUNG BASEBALL FANS:
Join us on a trip to Wrigley Field to see the Chicago Cubs play!
when: September 28
cost: $25 (includes grandstand tickets and bus trip)
for more information, contact Shirley at City Park Recreation Department.
Phone: 555-5630.

Mary Ann had told me last night on the phone that the poster was in the window, but I had to see it for myself. We'd started out early for school, and we took a one-mile detour to stop at McCloud's at the edge of Spring Pines Mall.

I leaned on my bike and reread the poster. "I can't believe it. This is great, really great."

Sports-especially baseball-are my life. I live for them. Mary Ann is a sports nut, too. We both played on the metro touch football and baseball leagues in elementary school, and we're going out for the Truman Middle School baseball team in the spring.

Mary Ann and I are the Cubs' biggest fans. But even though we live in Iowa, just five measly hours from Chicago, we've never seen a game in person at Wrigley Field. My brother, Sam, and I have been begging our mom and dad for three years to go, and they always say "Sure, sometime we'll do that." But it never happens.

Now I had my chance!

"We'll all go," Mary Ann said. "You, me, Sam, Zach, Ed, and Stinky." Zach is a fantastic athlete-last year he was voted MVP for the Raiders, our metro flag football team, and he shared the MVP award with me on our baseball team, the Hawks. He's my best friend in the boy category. In fact, we're going out. Ed and Stinky are great friends of ours, too, and they play in the elementary metro leagues with the rest of us.

Mary Ann's smile got bigger. "Maybe Al will go too," she said, her face turning pink. Mary Ann's going out with Al Pickering, which I think is pretty funny. I mean, he's a great guy, but he was our archenemy when he QB'ed for the Cougars last year. Middle school has a way of mixing up old loyalties.

"You have a piece of paper?" I asked her.

She pulled off her backpack and rummaged through it before handing me a piece of paper torn from a spiral notebook.

"How about a pencil?"

This probably sounds crazy and superstitious, but I didn't want to move. I was afraid that if I budged even an inch, or looked away from the poster for too long, the spell would be broken and I'd wake up and realize it was only a dream.

I heard her pawing through her bag, and after half a minute more, she handed me a pencil whose point had been worn almost to the wood.

I copied the number and Shirley's name and let out a breath. I'd gotten it down on paper, and I hadn't awakened.

"I'll call the lady at the rec commission right after school," I said, folding the paper and shoving it into the pocket of my jeans. "This is so great! Come on. Let's go tell everybody."

"Yeah!"

I snapped the chin strap to my helmet, and we started off down the road. "How fast do you think I can go?" I called back to Mary Ann. "I bet I can do twenty-five miles an hour on this stretch."

"No way."

I grinned. "Just watch me, Powers, and don't open your mouth, or you'll eat my dust."

"Fat chance."

I pumped hard, standing on the pedals, keeping one eye on my new computerized speedometer. It's a beaut. It tells me my current speed and keeps track of any new records I set. It even has a clock and an odometer. After a whole lot of talking and a fair amount of pleading, I'd convinced Mom and Dad to advance me the twenty-five dollars from my allowance to get it. Of course, that also meant that I had to promise to do some crummy chores like cleaning out the garage and the basement to help earn the money to pay them back. So far, I'd only cleaned a corner of the basement, but I was planning on doing the rest fairly soon.

I pumped the pedals and changed from ninth to tenth gear, watching the numbers on the speedometer climb higher and higher. Twelve miles an hour, 13, 14. I glanced back at Mary Ann. She was about thirty yards behind, but I kept pushing. The stretch ended about a half mile ahead.

I was up to eighteen miles an hour now, and the grass along the curb was a green blur as I raced over the road. Nineteen, twenty, twenty-one miles an hour. This was the fastest I'd ever gone. I'd told Mary Ann I could go twenty-five miles an hour.

Mary Ann saw the truck before I did.

"Lizard!" she screamed behind me. "Watch out!"

I looked up and saw a truck pull onto the street ahead, not fifteen yards away. I squeezed my brakes for all they were worth, jerked the handlebars to the right, and spun around, my back tire sliding out from under me.

If you liked chapter one of Lizard Flanagan, Supermodel??, find out more about the book.

Go back to the index of first chapters of new books for Fall 1999.