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as my ticket back home when I was ready to return to my own time. I carefully slipped the pack into one of the zippered pockets on my backpack.
    I took the messed-up Clemente card out of its plastic sleeve. It was time to see whether or not a card in such poor condition would still be able to take me back in time.
    I flipped off the light and sat on the bed. My bedroom was totally dark except for a sliver of white under the door. I closed my eyes and concentrated.
    Â 
    Nothing happened.
    I didn’t panic. Usually, nothing ever happens for a few minutes.
    My eyes still closed, I focused my mind on the past. It was hard. Most times I know the specific year I’m traveling to, so I can concentrate on that year. This time, the year on the card had been obliterated. I would just have to go wherever the card took me. Go with the flow.
    Clemente was a rookie in 1955. I knew that. He played his last game in 1972. Eighteen years. A lot can happen in that time. I had to be prepared for anything.
    That’s what I was thinking when the faintest tingling sensation tickled my fingertips.
    Aha! The card works!
    The feeling was buzzy, like a vibrating string on a guitar. I resisted the urge to drop the card. The tingling grew stronger, and then it started to move. First across my hand and then up my arm. I nodded my head pleasantly. Soon there would be no turning back.
    I thought about what Flip had said. Something about quantum physics and wormholes. There was supposed to be a rush of air around the room after my body left it. Papers were supposed to blow around. I wondered if any of that stuff would actually happen. My room was pretty much a mess, anyway. Who would even know if papers blew around?
    The tingling sensation was moving across mychest, and soon I could feel it on the other side of my body. My legs were getting numb. I knew it wouldn’t be long. My whole body felt lighter, as if I had suddenly lost fifty pounds. Maybe I did. Maybe that’s what happens when you—
    There were no more thoughts to be had. I just vanished.

7
Peace and Love
    BEFORE I EVEN OPENED MY EYES, MY BRAIN WAS BEING pounded by an avalanche of sound. It was an awful, eardrum-rattling noise—almost like a jet taking off. Or landing. Or, more likely, crashing. It was a shrieking, screaming sound, but not a human voice. It was more like a distorted air-raid siren or a wounded animal crying to be put out of its misery. People say that the sound of fingernails on a chalkboard is horrible. This was even worse. I covered my ears, but it was no use. It was so loud I could hear it through my skull.
    Maybe I’m in the middle of Roberto Clemente’s plane crash , I thought. I was afraid to open my eyes.
    And then, in the middle of all the noise, I recognized a tune. I knew that song. It was…it was “The Star-Spangled Banner”!
    I opened my eyes.
    I was outdoors, and there were people crowdedaround me on all sides. There were people everywhere. I mean everywhere . They were almost all teenagers, and they were dressed in tie-dyed shirts, sandals, jeans, and headbands. It was hard to tell the girls from the boys, because almost everybody had long hair. It took a moment or two before I realized who they were.
    Hippies!
    For Halloween one year, I dressed up as a hippie, with my dad’s old bell-bottom jeans and a wig. People thought it was a riot. I won the contest that year at school for having the best costume.
    I didn’t know where I had landed, but I knew when—the sixties.
    The guy next to me wasn’t wearing a shirt, and he had a big red peace sign painted on his chest. His eyes were closed, and he was dancing. He wasn’t dancing with anybody. He was just swaying back and forth to this strange music. He had long, stringy hair; and it looked like he hadn’t washed it in a long time.
    â€œWhat is that noise?” I shouted into his ear.
    â€œThat’s Hendrix, man,” he said without opening his