by Chris Lynch
I can’t believe I’m seeing and hearing this. It could be, must be, a hallucination.
“Do you know who I am?” I say, because his eyes will not confirm anything.
He doesn’t hesitate for an instant.
“You’re the loudmouth clown who plays left field for the Centreville Red Sox,” he says.
In yet another in a long line of insane, upside-down moments from this long, awful war, this frail and broken man remains unemotional while his rescuer can hardly speak. I am sobbing so hard I can just about ask, “Are you Hank McCallum?”
“I am Hank McCallum,” he says flatly. “My brother is Theo McCallum, Army Air Corps. Have you spoken to him? Do you know where he is?”
I shake my head no, his eyes roll down, and his knees buckle.
I catch Hank McCallum, and I pick him up in my arms. I walk up the ramp carrying him like a child into the truck. It is so easy to do this, no effort required at all.
“We’ll find your brother, Hank. We’ll find him. We’ll all go home now. Let’s go home and play some ball.”
Zack never met Hank, but on the way down the ramp he pats his head lightly, saying, “Yeah, boys. Let’s all go home and play some ball.”
Yeah. Let’s.
Chris Lynch is the author of numerous acclaimed books for middle-grade and teen readers, including the Vietnam series and the National Book Award finalist Inexcusable. He teaches in the Lesley University creative writing MFA program and divides his time between Massachusetts and Scotland.
Copyright © 2015 by Chris Lynch
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available
First edition, September 2015
Cover art © 2015 by Tim Bradstreet
Cover design by Christopher Stengel
e-ISBN 978-0-545-52306-6
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