Free Comeback of the Home Run Kid by Matt Christopher Page B

something.
    Syl listened, too. He heard car doors slamming shut. He sat up and looked at the parking lot at the far end of the field.
     There were his mother and Duane!
    A wave of relief flooded over him. “It's my mom,” he said, turning back to the man.
    But the man was no longer there. He had simply vanished!

3
    S ylvester!” Mrs. Coddmyer hurried to her son's side. “Oh my! How badly does your ankle hurt?”
    “Pretty bad,” Syl admitted. “But there's something else I —”
    His mother cut him off. “I'm calling your doctor.” She pulled out her cell phone and punched in the number.
    Duane sat down next to him. “Sorry you had to wait out here by yourself.”
    “But I wasn't alone,” Syl said in a low voice. “Didn't you see the man wearing the Yankees cap?”
    Duane shook his head. “You were alone when we got here! Maybe you hit your head when you fell — or dreamed up the guy?”
    Sylvester sank back onto the grass. His ankle was throbbing worse than ever. “Maybe I did,” he murmured.
    His mother clicked her cell phone shut. “The doctor says to go right to the emergency room for X-rays. Duane, can you help
     me get him to the car?”
    The rest of the day passed in a blur. The X-ray of the ankle showed it wasn't broken. But the doctor told Syl to stay off
     it for a week or so.
    “Rest, ice, and elevate that ankle every day,” she said as she pushed her patient in a wheelchair out to the car. “Start doing
     those exercises I showed you in a few days. And before you play any more baseball, get yourself a sturdy ankle brace. You
     don't want to suffer a reinjury!”
    It wasn't until that night, after Sylvester had finally crawled into bed, that he thought about his meeting with the mysterious
     man in the Yankees cap. He toyed with the idea of searching for information on him. He was pretty sure he knew where to look:
     baseball books, websites of old-time ball players, and Duane's baseball card collection.
    But in the end, he decided against it. While part of him was burning with curiosity, a bigger part of him wanted to see what
     would happen next. Would the man reappear and help him with his game, as he had said he would? And if he did, would he be
     like Cheeko or Mr. Baruth?
    But as the days went by, the man didn't show up. By the middle of the next week, Sylvester had almost convinced himself that
     Duane had been right. He had dreamed up the man after all.

    “Checkmate! I win again!” Duane knocked over Sylvester's black king with his own white bishop and smiled triumphantly. Then
     his smile faded.
    “You could at least
look
like you cared that you just lost for the fifth time in a row!” Duane grumbled as he gathered up the chess pieces.
    Sylvester blinked. The day's weather was perfect for baseball. But instead of throwing, catching, and batting, Syl was sitting
     inside, his ankle elevated on an ottoman.
    He blew out his breath in frustration. “Sorry, Duane,” he replied. “I guess I'm getting bored of these board games.”
    “Oh.” Duane gave a small laugh. “For a moment there, I thought you were getting bored of me!” He finished putting the pieces
     back in the box and closed the lid. “Say, you hear anything from Joyce?”
    Joyce Dancer was Syl's other close friend. She was away for the summer, vacationing on Cape Cod with her family.
    “I got an e-mail the other day. She sounds like she's having fun.”
    “Did you tell her about your ankle?”
    Syl shrugged. “What's to tell? I sprained it, and now I'm sitting around all day waiting for it to get better instead of playing
     ball like I want to!”
    In another room, the phone rang. Sylvester heard his mother answer it. A few minutes later, she came into the room carrying
     a tray with a pitcher of lemonade, some glasses, and a bowl of popcorn on it.
    As Mrs. Coddmyer served the lemonade, she said, “That was Coach Corbin on the phone. He was calling to let you know that you'll
     be on his team, the Hooper Hawks.