archaeological sites.
âSure itâs weird.â Liz tapped the plate with the bat. âThatâs because Groverâs Mill is right in the center of a giant triangle of weirdness. Itâs obviously been that way forever.â
Mike laughed, pounding his glove with his fist. âAt least since people used to live in those caves. Hey, wouldnât it be great if today turned out to be the first non -weird day? I mean, thereâs a first time for everything.â
Liz tapped the plate again. She knew what he meant. Their town had had a lot of first times.
The first time zombie Martians attacked the earth was in Groverâs Mill. The first time a prehistoric dinosaur egg hatched out a living dinosaur was there. The first time octopus monsters from Planet X landed was there, too.
But the first non-weird day?
Tap! Tap! Liz tapped the plate again. The sounds echoed beneath her.
âGet ready to strike out!â Sean yelled, starting his windup.
Liz pounded the plate again, a little harder.
Boom! The ground rumbled deeply beneath the plate. It shuddered and quaked.
âWhoa! Did you hear that?â Liz said.
Mike stood up and frowned at the ground. âSounds hollow â¦â
Liz pounded the plate some more. Boom-boom-boom! The ground around them started to shake and shift. Their legs wobbled as they tried to keep their balance.
âThis isnât right.â Mike threw down his glove and picked up the other bat. He started to pound the plate, too.
âHey!â Jeff shouted. âOne batter at a time.â
But with every hit of the two bats, the ground rumbled and boomed louder and more deeply.
âStop joking, you guys!â Sean yelled. âMy fastball is gonna slow down if we donât start!â
âButâitâs hollow under here!â Liz shouted.
RRRRR! The earth rumbled sharply. It swelled under the plate and shifted with a suddenness that caught Mike off balance.
âM-M-Mike, watch out! C-c-c-cave in!â Liz stammered. âThe g-g-g-ground!â
The g-g-g-ground exploded!
KA-BOOOOM!
Home plate shot up like a rocket and the earth erupted from below with a loud wumping sound. Huge chunks of dirt and rocks blasted out everywhere.
The ground sunk beneath Mike suddenly and he tumbled into a deep dark hole.
âHelp!â he screamed.
But he wasnât down there for long.
Something was coming up out of the ground.
Something very big.
2
Headâs Up!
âM ike, what is going on?â Liz screamed, scrambling back to the backstop for protection.
âSomethingâs down here! Something big! And itâs moving!â he screamed from down below.
Dirt exploded out everywhere. The rumbling shook the earth under the field. Sean, Jeff, and Holly came running over.
A second laterâ whoom! âMike rose up into view, sprawled on top of a giant flat stone. He leaped off when the stone came to the surface.
But the giant stone kept rising. It pushed itself up out of the ground and continued to blast up, higher and higher into the air. Ten feet. Twenty feet. Thirty feet!
It was big! It was huge! It was enormous!
Finallyâ RMMMM! âthe stone stopped. The ground thundered once more, then fell silent. The dust cleared around the huge stone.
It towered over the field.
âWhoa!â Liz gasped when she saw the size of the stone. âThat was under us? Itâs ⦠itâs â¦â
âItâs humongous!â Mike cried, looking up from the ground. Then he squinted. âItâs also carved like a statue.â
Mike was right. The stone was a giant carved head. In the middle of the face was a long nose rising between sharp, high cheekbones. Underneath was a broad mouth and a jutting chin.
But those werenât the most striking features.
âCreepy!â muttered Holly, running over to Liz and Mike. âThe eyes. The eyes are so deep and creepy!â
âFor once, Iâve got to
Brenda Clark, Paulette Bourgeois