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through the bus. Kids who hadn’t met him, which was pretty much everyone, openly stared.
    Orlando seemed relieved when he spotted Slingshot, Stump, and me. His face lit up like a video arcade under his red hat.
    “That’s the new center fielder, isn’t it?” Gabby whispered. “I recognize him from practice.”
    “Orlando Ramirez,” I told her. “He’s like a frog. Expert at catching flies.”
    “I never saw a frog jump straight into a wall,” Gabby said.
    “You saw that?”
    “I see everything the Rounders do,” said Gabby. “It’s my job.”
    “What’s happening, Orlando?” I greeted him. “How many fingers am I holding up?” I flashed two.
    “Cut it out, Walloper.” He chuckled. “I can see just fine.”
    “Tell it to the outfield wall.” Stump laughed. “Hey, Gasser, get your bum leg out of the way and make room for Orlando. He’s on the team, you know.”
    “Pleased to meet you,” said Gasser, pogoing out of his seat. “Slide in, why don’t you? I need to sit next to the aisle so I can stretch out my leg.”
    Orlando scooted over beside the window, and Gasser plopped down beside him.
    “So, you’re the guy who’s taking my place?” he asked.
    “I guess so,” Orlando said apologetically. “I mean, I didn’t plan on replacing anyone. I just wanted to play baseball. I’m sorry about your leg.”
    “Don’t worry about it. The doctor says the old peg will be fine. It just needs time to heal. You ever break anything?”
    “I broke my wrist once,” Orlando said as all the kids on the bus listened in. “Skate-boarding.”
    Everybody nodded appreciatively. A skate-boarding accident was cool. I could tell Orlando would be just fine at Rambletown Elementary.
    Gabby leaned toward him and introduced herself.
    “I write about the Rounders for the newspaper,” she said. “We should talk.”
    Orlando smiled politely and nodded in an offhand way. All the attention seemed to make him uncomfortable.
    Under normal conditions, either a broken leg or a new kid would totally dominate school news all by itself. To have both on the same day? That was like dessert after Thanksgiving dinner: almost too much of a good thing. Apple pie and pumpkin pie and ice cream and shortbread cookies and whatever crazy thing your great-aunt had dreamed up with Jell-O, whipped cream, and custard. A person hardly knew where to start.
    But our first day back after vacation turned out to be anything but normal. Both Gasser and Orlando were dwarfed by a snow mountain.
    Literally.

CHAPTER 8
    W e saw the mountain for the first time when the bus pulled into the school parking lot. You could hardly miss it. The thing totally dominated the white winter landscape. It towered above the school grounds like a land-locked iceberg. If it had been an iceberg, forget about the Titanic . It was so big, it would’ve sunk Greenland.
    As we drew into its enormous shadow, every kid fell quiet. The only sound at all was the thunk of dropping jaws as they hit the floor. A silent school bus was a strange and eerie thing. But compared to the snow mountain, a quiet school bus seemed normal.
    “Holy Himalayas,” Slingshot finally gasped.
    Gabby whipped a camera out of her backpack and started snapping pictures through the window.
    “Where on Earth did that come from?” Gasser wondered.
    “I don’t know,” said Gabby. “But this is front-page stuff. Have you ever seen anything like it?”
    “In my nightmares,” said Stump. “It’s so steep, it makes Darkness Falls look flat.”
    “Don’t talk about Darkness Falls,” said Gasser.
    “The plows,” Slingshot whistled. “They must have made it when they cleared the parking lot.”
    Of course! Slingshot was right. So much snow had fallen during spring vacation that the road crews had run out of places to put it. In pushing and piling it around the lot, they had created a giant, jagged peak that made Mount Everest look like an anthill.
    “Wow,” breathed Orlando, his eyes