Shoeless Joe & Me by Dan Gutman

got in line.
    â€œWhat’ll it be, son?” the hot dog guy asked when it was my turn.
    â€œOne hot dog, please,” I said, fishing around in my pocket for the twenty-dollar bill my mom had given me.
    â€œThat’ll be five cents, sonny.”
    â€œFive cents?!”
    Five cents for a hot dog? The last time I went to a ballpark, my dad had to pay three dollars for a hot dog.
    â€œWhatsa matter?” the hot dog guy asked, as I was still hunting for the bill in my pocket. “You ain’t got a nickel?”
    â€œAll I have is a twenty-dollar bill.”
    â€œAin’tcha got nothin’ smaller?” the hot dog guy asked, looking at me with disgust. “Sonny, I don’t make that much dough all week .”
    I stuck my hands in my pockets, but all I could find was my medicine, my camera, and my baseball cards.
    â€œRich kids,” the hot dog guy grumbled under his breath.
    â€œI’ll pay for his hot dog,” somebody chirped behind me.
    I turned around. It was a girl about my age, with long, kinky hair that was pulled back from herforehead. She held out a nickel to the hot dog guy and smiled at me.
    The hot dog guy took the nickel and handed me the dog. I thanked the girl and took a bite. It tasted good.
    â€œYou have twenty dollars?” the girl asked, impressed.
    â€œSomewhere in here,” I replied. “My mom gave it to me.”
    â€œYour mama must be loaded, giving a boy your age so much money.”
    She flicked her eyelashes up and down, still smiling at me.
    â€œNot really,” I replied.
    Twenty dollars, I gathered, must have been big money in 1919. My mother once told me we weren’t rich and we weren’t poor, but we were a lot closer to poor than rich. She also told me that if a girl ever flicks her eyelashes as you, it means she thinks you’re cute. I tried not to blush.
    â€œLet’s go , Gladys!” urged a boy standing about ten feet away. “I got a headache!” The boy was wearing a white mask that covered his nose and mouth, the kind of mask doctors wear on TV when they do surgery. He had a book in his hand titled Captain Billy’s Whiz Bang .
    â€œShut up, Wilbur,” the girl replied. Then she whispered to him, “He’s rich !”
    â€œ Youshut up,” the boy responded.
    Gladys? Wilbur? Suddenly I realized the boy and girl were my great-grandmother and her brother!
    â€œAre you Gladys Kozinsky?” I asked, marveling that this girl in front of me would grow up to be my great-grandmother.
    â€œWhy, yes!” She smiled, holding out a hand. “And who might you be?”
    â€œJoe. Joe Stoshack.”
    Gladys looked puzzled. “The boy who called me on the telephone? I was looking for somebody with a camera. How are you going to snap our picture if you don’t have a camera?”
    â€œWith this,” I said, pulling the Olympus out of my pocket.
    â€œYou’re going to take a photo with that little bitty thing?” She giggled uncontrollably. “Look, Wilbur. It’s a toy!”
    I wasn’t about to explain to them how computer chips had made it possible for many machines to be much smaller than they used to be. They probably didn’t even know what a computer was.
    Wilbur didn’t seem interested anyway. He stood off to the side, tapping his foot impatiently, reading his book, and smoking a cigarette. Whenever he took a puff, he pulled the surgical mask away from his mouth.
    I wondered if wearing a mask was some weird 1919 fad. A number of fans were wearing them. I thought about telling Wilbur that smoking was bad for his health, but he looked like he might punch me or something.
    â€œIt’s…a new camera,” I said simply. “Hey, Ithought you were twins. You don’t look anything like your brother.”
    It was true. Wilbur was more fair-skinned, with straighter hair and squinty eyes. It was hard to tell exactly what he looked like with