When they were both nine years old, their teacher gave them a time capsule project. They had two options – they could bury their time capsules on the school grounds, or they could bury them in their own back gardens (with their parents’ permissions, of course). Zeke had the bigger garden, so his parents allowed them both to bury their time capsules in it. There was little point in letting the boys dig up two gardens, after all.

In truth there was not much of value or historical significance in their capsules – some basic Pokemon cards, a can of Pepsi Max, a few superhero action figures – basically just stuff the boys had no sentimentality attached to.

They started digging in the back of Zeke’s garden at midday on a Saturday, each with their own garden shovel. Zeke’s parents had requested that the boys didn’t dig too deep, but they were having too much fun with it, feeling like treasure hunters digging for ancient buried treasure. But they were utterly shocked when nearly one metre down into the earth, they actually did find something – a cricket bat! Mikey pulled it up out of the earth.

“Whoa, what’s a bat doing buried in your garden, Zeke?” Mikey asked.

“I have no idea. Why would someone bury a bat?”

“I guess they were trying to hide it? Oh-my-god, what if this is a murder weapon?” Mikey dropped the bat on the word ‘murder’.

“A murder weapon? Please, ain’t nobody been killed in this town since the second world war.”

“So? Maybe it’s a really old bat, you don’t know!”

“Well sure, but look, it says Puma on the side of it. I’m no expert but I’m pretty sure Puma weren’t making cricket bats in the 1940’s. Look, let’s just clean it off and have a better look at it, okay?”

“Sure, whatever, fine.”

When it had been covered in dirt, the bat had looked old and worn. But once they washed it with the garden hose, they were shocked for the second time to find that the bat was actually very new looking. Pristine, even. Not a single scratch or dent on it. They both decided to leave their time capsule project for the time being and take the bat to their local park to try it out. Neither of them owned a cricket ball (as neither of them had actually ever played cricket), but Zeke grabbed a few tennis balls from his garage.

Zeke was the first to bat (as the bat had been found in his garden). Mikey threw a tennis ball directly at his head, but Zeke not only batted it away, he knocked it over sixty metres away. ‘Beginner’s luck’ they both thought. A second throw, this time Zeke hit the ball over eighty metres away. Zeke felt incredibly comfortable with this bat in his hand. It was like he just knew exactly the right way to hit the ball, no matter what angle it came at him from. But how could that be when he’d never played before?

Reluctantly, he let Mikey have a go batting. To Mikey’s surprise (but to some degree not Zeke’s) Mikey also hit the ball far away on his first attempt. That confirmed Zeke’s suspicion: this was no normal cricket bat.

What will the boys do with the special bat?

Will they tell anyone else about their discovery?

Will they find out where the bat originally came from?