A Cheater Named Turquoise

by Darious, Corey and Khaled, ages 9 and 10

Written during Drop-In Tutoring

December 2007

Once there was a man named Turquoise. He had red hair, and he always wore turquoise because he was on a baseball team called Rockets to the Moon. The team played on the moon, which was dangerous, because if you lost a match, everything went black, another player crashed into you, and you flew into space forever and ever. This was called Sudden Death.

Rockets to the Moon was undefeated.

Turquoise was a professional centerfielder, but he was bad at batting. When the ball got thrown, he just watched the ball, and the ball smashed into his face. The team coach, Johnny McJohnJohn, yelled at him and got him disqualified for a month. So Turquoise was always sitting on the bench.

But one day, Johnny McJohnJohn Jr., the coach's son and the mail centerfielder, slipped on the ball and broke his knee and kneecap.

Coach McJohnJohn said to Turquoise, "You're the last person available to play. Don't disappoint me, you fool, or the team will get knocked out to Sudden Death."

Turquoise knew he was a bad batter. So he decided to make a robot arm that could bat so hard, it could hit to Mars, Earth, and Jupiter. He knew this was against the rules, but he still did it. He didn't care.

Turquoise stole some parts off of his archenemy Sylvia Plath's dad's car. And he turned it into his robot arm. Sylvia was on the Boston Red Sox, the team Turquoise was playing in three hours. Turquoise didn't think Sylvia would recognize her dad's car because it was only made from the tires, which were so small they could barely be seen.

Just when he finished, the game was about to start. The crowd was singing, "My Country Tis of Thee" even though they were on the moon, playing in a stadium that was a copy of Shea Stadium in the USA.

Turquoise was getting ready to bat. He heard static, "Zaza zoozee zah zah!" The robot arm popped and was broken! Then the real game started.

It was Turquoise's second at bat (he walked the first time) and the ninth inning. Sylvia was pitching. She threw two knuckleball strikes.

Coach McJohnJohn yelled, "If you don't hit this ball we're gonna die Sudden Death!"

Two strikes, two balls and bottom of the ninth. Sylvia threw another knuckleball. Full count. She threw the ball so hard that it lit on fire.

Turquoise closed his eyes and said, "It's now or never!" He swung the bat blindly and it hit the ball so hard that it exploded the lights and fireworks went off. Everybody cheered. Rockets to the moon had won!
It was time to push the Red Sox to Sudden Death. But Turquoise looked at Sylvia and said, "Look at this! What do you see?!" and held his arm in front of her face.

"A robot arm?"

The arm went out of control. It almost hit Sylvia, but she ran away. The guy who was supposed to send the Red Sox out to the moon got knocked out.

Sylvia hugged Turquoise and said, "All this time I loved you! I knew you stole my dad's car parts, so I just bought new parts from my McDonald's check so he wouldn't find out."

Sylvia Plath and Turquoise the Cheater got married and lived happily ever after.