Chapter 5

back forty years

We had to get out of the junkyard—right now. None of this was adding up. The yard looked completely different and this Yogi guy definitely wasn’t the Yizzzzza, no matter what Bones thought. This guy wasn’t a mean, old man. He was a young, jolly, junkyard-smelling giant.

I looked down at Stevie’s phone. Still nothing but the spinning wheel—no time, date, nothing at all to give us a hint of where we were or what was going on. 

“Well, thanks for everything, Yogi,” I said, slowly backing away with my bike toward the street. “We have to get going to, um, school.” I really didn’t know where we were going, but that sounded believable. 

Yogi looked at me with one eyebrow arched, then turned his attention to Bones’ shiny, new-looking Basket Barge. He stared at it and scratched his shiny, bald head. Uh-oh. What was wrong? What was he thinking? I opened my mouth to ask, but Yogi grabbed Bones’ bike. 

“Let’s get that flat fixed first,” he said, looking at the tire, then at G. “G, size sixteen tube.” G sprinted off, as if she knew exactly what Yogi had said. Sure enough, less than a minute later, G reappeared with a bicycle tube in her mouth.

She dropped it at Yogi’s feet. Yogi picked up the tube, eyed it, then looked at G and said, “Perfect size, G.” 

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