2015 Young Explorer's Adventure Guide Read online

  “Que es, Senor?” asked the littlest.

  “Es cohete,” said Miguel. “And I will fly away to the sky.”

  “Imposible,” offered a child.

  “No, it will fly to the moon and farther.”

  The younger children beamed. The older scoffed. A few left. Of those who stayed, Miguel set them to tasks. When he stopped they did not leave. He retrieved a book his grandfather read to him: Donde Viven los Monstruos? His voice was soft and gentle and perfect for reading. When he was done the children pleaded for more, but he sent them home to their own dinners.

  It was a good day.

  …………………………

  He filled his days with hammering and carving and shaping the bones of his rocket. Children came again and he set them to working in the same manner his grandfather had set him to working: with gentle instruction and patient demonstration. When lunch time came in mid-morning, Miguel would light his outdoor stove to cook a stew of vegetables and meat. Sometimes he would make bread or fry a great heaping plate of bananas. He knew that for some of the children it would be all they ate that day. His savings dwindled but what could he do? They were here.

  As the days went on and the rocket rose, the number of children multiplied and Miguel found himself teaching them proper Spanish and mathematics so they could speak and calculate accurately. He did not know as much as he thought he should but what he did know he would share. He taught them English for the same reason his grandfather taught him, because for some odd reason it was the language of discovery and science and business. When he tired of explaining the same thing over and over he stopped building and taught all of the children at once. His rocket construction slowed but he found he did not mind so much.

  …………………………

  Miguel was shaping a strut when a new child appeared. His name was Alonso and he was dark and quick and very clever. Alonso came from the streets of Bacigalupi and had a type of wary feral nature not found in the country children. Alonso was ever ready to defend himself with wicked wit or quick fists. He was not mean to the young or weak. He had a curious patience with them. The children gravitated around Alonso to listen to his stories of the streets. He had a gifted way with words and a natural disposition for leadership. He appointed himself second-in-command and worked with an intensity that the others could only aspire to.

  Alonso devoured every book within reach. When he ran out, he found more. One day Alonso came back with a box of school texts. Miguel did not ask where they came from, but he suspected a school had been robbed the night before. Miguel realized that his informal lessons had become formalized. In the cool mornings Miguel would sweep the children together and instruct them. In the afternoons they built the rocket. Curious and suspicious parents appeared and spied on the school. Gifts of food and company and lesser things appeared.

  Each evening Alonso left with the other children. None of the others knew where he went. One day Miguel followed. He tracked the boy to an abandoned shack on the edge of a ruined farm. From a distance, Miguel watched Alonso spark a small fire to life, and then alone, without any supper, go to sleep.

  …………………………

  “Alonso,” said Miguel. “You know how to find things. Can you find me someone to help build the rocket full time? Do you know of anyone that can? I do not have any money. All I can do is give room and board.”

  Alonso considered for a moment and said no, he did not.

  “This is too bad. These children they take up so much of my time. After supper I have to think about how to build this coheta and run this school. It is too much for one man.”

  Alonso thought for a moment.

  “I could,” said Alonso. “Maybe.”

  “It will be very difficult there is much thinking that goes into building a rocket and running a school. I do not know if someone so young is up to the task.”

  “I am. I can think very hard.”

  “Bueno,” said Miguel. “You will have to.”

  …………………………

  The children were expert scavengers. Whatever they thought was useful for rocket building was brought, and each time Miguel would hold up the perfectly useless object and pronounce it exactly what was needed to make the rocket fly. Somehow, somewhere the object was installed with artful precision to the child’s delight. Alonso was an expert scavenger of a different sort. He devoured knowledge with furious intensity. At night, after dinner, Miguel would watch Alonso read texts on geometry and calculus and physics and, in his watching, came to his own cruel understanding of reality. Passion and enthusiasm were not enough. It took armies of experts, legions of engineers, and billions and billions of pesetas to make a rocket fly. He wondered where his initial foolishness came from to think a wooden rocket festooned with car parts and old TV sets would ever leave the earth. Still, it was too late to stop.

  A reporter came and did a story about the rocket in the jungle. They filmed planks of mahogany steaming in old steel barrels and then fitted in graceful curves. They filmed children in the school. One day a long black SUV parked in the dirt road at the edge of his property. Police and men with powerful black suits fanned out across his property. The Minister of Education entered the illegal classroom and berated him for running an illegal school. El Presidente entered and walked slowly around the room. He paused at his own portrait.

  “Bueno” he roared.

  He looked to his minister. “Buy this school desks and books and ..and..a computer.”

  El Presidente’s entourage applauded his generosity.

  “Now let me go see the cohete,” said El Presidente.

  Miguel took El Presidente to the rocket and the man roared with laughter. El Presidente had seen a real rocket up close. He had gone inside it and no matter how finely crafted and graceful the mahogany rocket was, it would never go into space.

  “So you are crazy and ugly, eh?” said El Presidente.

  El Presidente’s entourage roared with laughter

  Miguel looked to the ground.

  “Eh, I am just making fun. I will talk to my aviation minister. You must get a permit to fly a rocket.”

  The entourage laughed again.

  “I am making more fun. You should be used to it.”

  The photographer set up and positioned all the children around El Presidente. Miguel was kept aside as no one wanted to see a picture of a cripple. With the photos taken, El Presidente’s staff passed out buttons and stickers and candies and the smallest denomination the country had.

  Before they left, El Presidente embraced him and whispered. “You are a dangerous man, senor. Nothing more dangerous than a man with a dream.” He looked at the rocket. “Even a foolish dream.”

  The children chased the SUV down the road, school and rocket forgotten. Alonso stayed.

  Miguel sat down on a step. His back ached and he felt very sad. Alonso sat down next to him.

  “I am a terrible old fool. Of course, it can never fly.”

  Alonso put his arm around him.

  “It already has. That is why they are here.”

  …………………………

  Alonso poured through all the books the Minister of Education delivered. At night he used the computer, and within two years he had earned a high school diploma. He then applied and was accepted to a northern university to study astrophysics.

  “It is impossible,” said Alonso with the conviction that only a frustrated young man can possess. “I cannot go. Even with the scholarships it is too much.”

  “Nothing is impossible. Look we have built a rocket.”

  “A rocket. It is a pile of junk. It can never fly. You have made me into a bigger fool.” With that he left the house and went to the city.

  Miguel stayed up waiting, but Alonso did not come back home. Miguel waited some more, and when the moon had risen to its zenith he heard the nightsong of a phoenix. Something fluttered in the trees and he went to see. Avian ghosts shifted and moved in the shadow
s and began their soft singing. He saw the phoenix feather lying on a ground silvered with moonlight. It was worth an incalculable fortune or violent death. He picked it up and wrapped the feather in tissue paper. Tomorrow he would bring it to the hotel where the bird watchers hatched their futile plans.

  …………………………

  The scientists lounged around the pool. They were startled to see a crippled hunchback approach them.

  “I have a phoenix feather,” said Miguel.

  The scientists laughed.

  “Oh boy, mi amigo, if I had a dollar for every phoenix feather that some peasant brought me. Show me,” said a skinny sun-burned scientist.

  “Not here,” said Miguel

  “Dios mio,” said the scientist. “Follow me.”

  They went through the lobby and up the elevator. The scientists wrapped themselves with towels. Their pasty white skin puckered in the cool hotel air like a plucked chicken’s. In their room they positioned themselves in front of machines that hummed and purred like jungle animals as they warmed and came to life.

  “The feather,” said a scientist.

  Miguel unwrapped the feather and held it out.

  A collective gasp escaped the scientists. They were used to dyed peacock feathers or trimmed and snipped feathers of exotic but identified birds that were sold to witless ecotourists. This one, at the very least, was different. If it were a forgery, it was the most exquisite they have ever seen.

  Miguel handed it over and the scientist regarded it for a moment, shifting it back and forth in the light to see it beam with an inner radiance. He took a knife and scaled the root of the calamus, the hollow central shaft of the feather. He put the scrapings in the machine and waited.

  The machine hummed furiously. Lights flashed with urgency. Across a screen G’s and C,’s and T’s and A’s marched across the screen like ants. Faster and faster, the screen blurred with scrolling alien proteins.

  The machine proclaimed the specimen as unidentified and the scientists leaned in to watch. The machine hummed and sequenced and collated. The scientists looked at each other. The letters swirled and spun, aligning themselves, weaving into complex patterns that took form and shape. The unraveled DNA resolved into an image.

  An archaeopteryx imperator.

  “This is going to bigger than bigfoot,” said one scientist.

  “This is going to be larger than loch ness,” said another.

  “The mother of all birds,” said the third.

  The image, just a simulation, showed a toothed bird even more fabulous than anyone had ever imagined. It was as magnificent as could be for any creature that had been flying uninterrupted for more than 150 million years.

  “Where did you get this feather? We have been looking for evidence for years.”

  “I will tell you, but first, the price,” said Miguel.

  “The price? What price? This is the scientific discovery of the century, bigger even then those Siberian mammoths.”

  Miguel retrieved his feather.

  “Wait. What do you want?”

  Miguel told them and they conferred.

  “I will make a phone call to our sponsor.”

  The scientist went into the next room and after a few minutes came back out.

  “It is agreed.”

  Miguel handed over the feather.

  “You must tell us where you found it.”

  “When your end of the deal is done. You must not let El Presidente know. You hold death in your hand.”

  …………………………

  Miguel searched for Alonso. He walked the dirty streets of the poorest and most violent section of Bacigalupi. Music dueled in the streets. Whores and criminals threw taunts at him as he limped down the alleyways peering into bars. He found Alonso bellied up to a bar surrounded by young toughs and women in tight cloths and gaudy makeup.

  “Alonso,” he said.

  “Hey, muy feo,” said a thin man with a scarred face

  “Monstruo,” said another. “Mira.” He shoved Miguel and he fell to the beer splattered floor.

  “Alonso,” he said again. “I found a way.”

  Alonso turned and saw Miguel on the floor.

  “Basta ya,” said Alonso.

  Miguel struggled to his feet and his leg was swept out from under him. A hand extended to pull him up and he took it gratefully. He was halfway up when a violent slap knocked him back to the floor.

  Alonso threw a punch and knocked the slapper away. The bar exploded into violence and curses. Miguel watched Alonso fall into a savage pattern that he had suspected but never seen. When it was over Miguel was still on the floor but so where his attackers. Two men backed away from Alonso and shouted empty threats. With Alonso’s help Miguel climbed up off the floor. They left wary of pursuit.

  “I found a way,” said Miguel.

  “I should not have doubted,” said Alonso. “Lo siento, perdoname por favor.”

  …………………………

  Alonso was gone. He finished his studies at the university earning degrees in astrophysics and engineering. He visited when he had the time and wrote infrequently, but it had been a year since the last visit and three months since the last letter.

  Sometimes the children would show up to play on the rocket but mostly not. El Presidente was gone replaced by another El Presidente who allowed the non-governmental organizations to come back. One of them built a school in the village. Perhaps it was for the best. He was old and tired now, and sometimes in the night his heart raced and woke up anxious and scared.

  Miguel sat on his porch, drank a cold beer and watched the sun set. The stars peered down and the nightsong of the phoenix laced the air, but he could not find the bird in the darkening trees. Hundreds of miles away scientists searched, and he felt comforted. He would not repay the bird’s generosity with betrayal.

  In the pale moonlight a figure walked up his path and as it came closer he saw that it was Alonso. He was tall and broad shouldered. His hair was cut short.

  Miguel stood up. Unsteady. His joints cracked like wet wood in a fire. His bones hurt.

  “Alonso mi hijo,” said Miguel. His eyes blurred with tears.

  They embraced and held onto each other for a long time. They sat on the porch and Alonso told him about school and studies and showed him a picture of a beautiful young girl, his fiancé. He told him how he was accepted into the latest group of astronauts and that after training he would go into space.

  “Marvelous,” said Miguel. “I am so proud of you.”

  “I came back to thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “For building a dream. Look at that.” He gestured at the mahogany rocket rising from the jungle foliage. Scudding clouds raced in front of a full moon.

  Here in the moonlight with Alonso, Miguel did not feel so foolish. He slapped at a mosquito. “It is late,” said Miguel. “And I am an old man. I will see you in the morning Alonso.”

  Miguel stood up and groaned. He made his way inside.

  No, he thought, maybe not so foolish after all.

  …………………………

  Miguel woke, flushed with a strange heat and confused. He woke Alonso.

  “What is the matter? What is wrong?” said Alonso.

  “I have to fly the rocket, Alonso. I have to fly.”

  “Miguel, it is late. Manana por favor.”

  “Ayuda me, Alonso.”

  “Okay, okay.”

  Miguel climbed slowly and stopped frequently to rest and breath. They climbed past the baubles and gizmos and the repurposed Christmas lights and old television sets. As they climbed to the top of the rocket he flipped switches and turned valves. Lights flashed and blinked and water surged and sang in the pipes for no other reason than to inspire wonder. He paused to see the paint smeared handprints of children that had helped build the rocket and when they reached the top Alonso helped him into a chair built for his curved back.

  “I am ready. Fly t
he rocket. Turn on the switches! Turn on the switches and tell me what you see. Please, tell me what you feel!” said Miguel.

  …………………………

  The rocket roared as the engines exploded into life. It trembled. Explosive bolts fired with a percussive resolution and freed from restraint the rocket rose into the night sky, accelerating faster and faster, a whirl storm of foliage lofted by the hot exhaust and boiling steam spun beneath the rocket. They soared through patches of dark cloud, pierced the rising moon and rolled, arcing to the east plowing through the atmosphere.

  “Max Q go for throttle up,” said Alonso. The engines peaked in intensity burning thousands of gallons per second. A bright blade of curved light filled the cabin as they pushed towards the terminator.

  “It’s beautiful,” said Miguel. “Take me higher.”

  The pressure eased. The engines cut out and a warm peace suffused his body. The mahogany rocket traversed its silent orbit. Sunrise, brighter than he had ever seen filled the cabin. Miguel looked through windows of his cohete at the ordinary people that spun far below. His fingers fumbled for a moment and unfastened his harness and he floated free tethered only by Alonso’s grip on his other hand. His curved spine uncoiled in the glorious weightlessness and for the first time he was without pain.