`Stage two,' Slim said, `we see what's going on at Janks Field.'

I felt a little chill crawl up my back.

`Scared?' Rusty asked.

`Oh, yeah. Ooooo, I'm shaking.'

I was, but not so much that it showed. I hoped.

`We don't have to go there,' Slim said.

`I'm going,' said Rusty. `If you guys are chicken, I'll go by myself.'

`What's the big deal about Janks Field?' I asked.

`This,' said Rusty.

The three of us had been walking abreast with Slim in the middle. Now, Rusty hustled around behind us and came over to my side. He pulled a piece of paper out of the back pocket of his jeans. Unfolding it, he said, `These're all over town.'

The way he held the paper open in front of me, I knew I wasn't supposed to touch it. It seemed to be a poster or flier, but it was bouncing around too much for me to read it. So I stopped walking. We all stopped.

Slim came in close so she could look at the paper, too. It had four torn corners. Apparently, Rusty had ripped the poster off a wall or tree or something.

It looked like this:

Amazed and excited, I shook my head and murmured `Wow' a time or two while I read the poster.

But things changed when I got toward the bottom.

I felt a surge of alarm, followed by a mixture of relief and disappointment.

Mostly relief.

`Oh, man,' I muttered, trying to sound dismayed. `What a bummer.'