Roberto & Me Read Free Page B

you grow up, you’ll use the skills you have to help other people in some way. You should have a cause. Everyone should. So, by all means, I approve. Go save Roberto Clemente. Just be careful.”
    I thought about what my mother said. I confess, when I first started traveling through time, all I really wanted to do was meet famous baseball players. It was just a joyride. But when I saw how dangerous it was, I decided to do it only if I had a real mission to accomplish. I wasn’t about to risk my life just to see some guy hit a famous home run. That’s what video is for. And now I had come around to thinking I would only travel through time if I could do some good, right some wrong, help somebody. And if I could save Roberto Clemente’s life—well, the world would be a better place. Because if he had 40 or 50 more years to help people, he could have accomplished so much more.
    â€œDo you want to come with me?” I asked my mom.
    â€œIt’s tempting,” she said, “but going back in time once was enough for me.”
    Now for the next part of my mission, which should be the easy part: All I had to do was get a Roberto Clemente baseball card.

4
The Great One
    FLIP’S FAN CLUB IS IN A STRIP MALL ON SHELBYVILLE ROAD . It’s the place to go in Louisville if you want sports cards and memorabilia. Coach Valentini opened the store after he retired. Flip is the kind of guy who can never sit around and do nothing all day. He has to be busy all the time. That’s the way I want to be when I retire someday.
    The bell on the door jangled when I walked in. Flip’s is a tiny little place, with cards and stuff jammed all over. Flip is not what you’d call a neat freak. And I doubt that the store makes much money for him. Not many kids are serious card collectors like me. But running the store gives Flip something to do when he’s not coaching our team. Baseball has always been his life.
    Flip was reading the newspaper when I came in. He’s really old, and it shows. The little hair he has ispure white, and some of it grows out of his ears and nose. Me and the other guys on our team always tell him that he should trim that stuff because it grosses us out, but Flip says he hardly has any hair so he’s not going to cut off what he’s still got left.
    â€œHey, Stosh,” he said when I came in, “I was just readin’ an article about quantum physics.”
    â€œThat’s funny, Flip,” I said.
    â€œNo, for real,” he replied. “They figured out how to teleport a photon almost 90 miles.”
    â€œWhat’s a photon?” I asked.
    â€œHow should I know?” Flip said. “Somethin’ to do with dark energy and traversable wormholes, it says here. A bunch of mumbo jumbo, if you ask me. But it says that if humans ever figure out how to travel through time, when we disappear, there’ll be a rush of air into the vacuum left behind. Yeah, and it says that papers are gonna fly around, and moisture will condense out of the air into clouds.”
    â€œI better watch out,” I told him. “I don’t want it to rain in my living room.”
    Flip laughed. Besides my mom and dad, he’s one of the few people who knows about my “special gift.”
    â€œWhat can I do fer ya today, Stosh? Or are ya just here for my scintillatin’ company and good looks?”
    â€œI’m looking for a Roberto Clemente card, Flip,” I told him. “You don’t have one, do you?”
    â€œAh,” he said, “Clemente. The Great One, they used to call him. Plannin’ a little trip to New Year’s Eve, 1972, I’m guessing?”
    â€œWell, it doesn’t have to be that exact date,” I said. “As long as I can get to Roberto before he gets on that plane that killed him. I’m gonna try to talk him out of going and save his life.”
    â€œA noble mission,” Flip told me. “A tip of