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Chapter 4
After dinner, the boys headed up to Ryder's room to clear enough space for the air mattress. Jessie loved coming in here if for no other reason than the contrast to his own room. While his parents didn't allow anything to hang on the wall, Ryder's were covered from top to bottom in baseball posters. Most were from the Orange County Sea Lions, their favorite team. One entire wall was dedicated to last season's World Series championship, everything from store bought posters and pennants, to magazine and newspaper clippings, to articles and pictures printed out from the Internet.
As much as Jessie liked looking at the Sea Lion stuff, the far corner perplexed him. It was plastered with posters of Mickey Martell, the starting shortstop for the Las Vegas Aces. Mickey Martell was not only the best hitter in the entire league, but he'd probably be everyone's choice for the best fielder, too. Jessie, who didn't care much for him because of his tendency to beat the Sea Lions, had to admit that he was the most fun major leaguer to watch. At least when he was playing other teams.
Jessie pointed at the Mickey Martell posters. "It's just wrong. You should take them down."
"If being the best player in baseball is wrong, then I don't want to be right." He stared at the posters. "If I can turn into half the player he is, I'll be an all-star."
They grabbed a few items from the floor and stuffed them in the closet or under the bed until there was plenty of room for the mattress. Ryder looked around. "That should do. Go grab your glove and we'll play catch out back while Donny sets it up."
The backyard had flood-lights, so even though the sun had set, playing was no problem. It was sort of like being at a night game. Plus the yard shared a fence with the well-lit field from Bishop Bailey Elementary, their old school.
Ryder picked up a tennis ball and flung it towards Jessie, who snared it with his mitt. They played catch with a tennis ball for two reasons: one, Jessie didn't jump out of the way and have to chase it down nearly as often, and two, it took extra concentration because it tended to bounce out of the mitt much easier than a regular baseball. Ryder had heard that tip in an interview with Mickey Martell, so the tennis ball stayed.
As they played, Jessie occasionally looked up to the sky. So far no shooting stars, and there was no doubt that the only airplane he saw was actually an airplane. He wondered what Ryder would think of the UFO.
"I think I was asleep before you even got back from the bathroom last night."
Ryder made a catch over his shoulder and fired a strike back. "No, you were still awake. Once I got into my sleeping bag and started talking, though, you were out."
"I dreamt that a huge flying saucer came down and hovered right above me. Before I knew it, it took off again."
Ryder caught Jessie's next toss with his bare hand. "That'd be something to see. Wouldn't it be cool if aliens really existed?"
"It felt so real."
As Jessie reared back to throw, all of the lights in both the backyard and schoolyard went dark. He kept a grip on the ball and smacked it into his mitt. A shooting star fell straight above. Like last night. It paused for a second before disappearing.
It hadn't been a dream.
"What's going on?" Ryder said. "None of the other lights in the neighborhood have gone out." He pointed over to one of the windows in his house. The lights were on, and they saw the flicker of the TV.
Jessie's eyes snapped up to the stars. "Look. Something's going to happen."
Ryder jogged over to him. "It's just a power failure. You were dreaming last night, Jess. No aliens are coming down to get us." Jessie smiled, though, when Ryder's eyes betrayed him and scanned the sky.
What came next happened almost too fast. The blinking red and blue lights appeared high up, and a second later the flying saucer hovered right above them. Ryder let out a gasp, and Jessie slipped on the wet grass and toppled to his bottom. His eyes never left the alien ship.
Ryder reached down and pulled him to his feet. "Run!"
Jessie expected to take off for the back door, but instead Ryder threw himself towards the school's chain-link fence. Jessie followed, and they scaled it in record time.
"To the classrooms," Ryder said between puffs for breath. Not only were there a lot of overhangs around and between the classrooms, but there were also a bunch of trees which could block sight from above.
Jessie had a hard time keeping his footing through the wet field, which was saturated with puddles. He didn't look up to see if more hatches opened, but kept his attention on staying close behind Ryder. Though the school buildings wouldn't be much of a maze from below, he imagined they'd be just that from above. If they could get there, Ryder would keep them safe.
They managed to not fall and had made it only a few steps from the cover of the classrooms when a blue beam of light engulfed Ryder. His legs kept pumping, but he could only run in place. Jessie lunged to help when another beam came down and caught him in his tracks.
"What's going on?" Jessie yelled.
"No idea."
Something jerked Jessie backwards and up towards the ship. He glanced over his shoulder, and saw the blue light was their only means of support. He looked over at Ryder, whose eyes were wide and his face pale.
The jolting ride up to the spaceship took only seconds. Jessie looked down to see if anyone else was around, but it was as if the entire world, all except them, had frozen in time. Nothing moved, not even blocks away where the shopping centers were. From this height, he should have been able to see headlights flashing about.
He looked down at Ryder's house. Just before they were closed up inside, another light shot down and scooped up their baseball mitts. The tennis ball fell out of his, and the mitts rose into an opening in a different part of the ship.
That was strange.
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