Chapter Two

Mission Log

“Good luck!” Darcy Luna shouted as GEORGE flew out the open office door. “And stay warm!” He glided swiftly down the twisty hallways. In front of the building, sunshine filled the sky. Thin rays of light fell through the waving branches of a tall oak tree.

The warmth of the sun soaked into GEORGE’s metallic body. And the sad thought that had been stuck to him like flypaper—I’m all alone in the world—began to fade a little. Just a little.

GEORGE’s micro-wings, which were lighter than the lightest feather, began to flap quickly. Then all at once…BZZZZZZZZ! He shot off into the sunlit sky toward his first mission, at 500 miles per minute.

Oh, my! So. Dizzy.

GEORGE had been dizzy when the interns at the university did a test run on his flight speed, too. Not a bad dizzy, he thought now, but kind of like the way humans describe riding a roller coaster.

The tiny GPS sensors on his antennae told him to fly east. Staying high enough to avoid airplanes, and low enough to avoid satellites, he zipped through the atmosphere like a miniature bullet train.

GEORGE squinted his vision receptors. They helped him to see light and color in higher definition than humans could.

So gray, he thought. Now, blue. Then a white cloud mixed with specks of sunlight swirled around him, like tiny golden ballerinas dancing in a powder of snow.

GEORGE gulped. So beautiful.

Seconds later, his body shivered. Fat drops of rain splashed off his back. Icy pellets of sleet slapped his face. I need windshield wipers, GEORGE thought as he raced through the misty clouds.

To keep his mind off the cold, GEORGE reviewed his mission log:

DESTINATION: Mount Everest, Himalayan Mountain Range.

MISSION TARGET: Small vest-pocket camera.

CAMERA LAST SEEN: With climber Andrew Irvine.

MISSION DETAILS: Andrew Irvine climbed Mount Everest with partner George Mallory in 1924. They never made it back down the mountainside. If the lost camera is found, and the film is developed, the photographs could change history.

Andrew Irvine (left), George Mallory (right)

“I could change history,” GEORGE said, amazed. He downloaded more details from his microcomputer:

The first climbers to reach the summit of Mount Everest and return were Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay in May 1953.

GEORGE’s electronic brain sorted through the facts. “If Irvine and Mallory reached the summit in 1924, then they got there before Hillary and Tenzing in 1953. So, who was the first to really reach the top? It’s my mission to solve this human mystery.”

Just then, his internal GPS went BEEP-BEEP-BEEP and gave a short CHIRP.

“I made it!” GEORGE shouted. “I flew 7,378 miles from Boston to Mount Everest in less than 15 minutes. Not bad, I think.”

GEORGE made a steep turn downward to land on the mountain. A layer of frost coated his tiny metal body.

So cold, he thought. No chubby babies with swinging arms or grumpy gardeners with flyswatters up here, that’s for sure!