Tom sits on the bed in his new room. His backpack lies in a swath of sunlight illuminating clouds of dust around the boxes scattered on the sand-colored carpet. Maybe I should get unpacked, he thinks. Maybe that’ll give me something else to obsess about.
The first box Tom lifts rattles with a metallic sound produced, to his knowledge, by only one object in the world. He sits back down on his bed, the box resting on his knees, and sweeps a hand across the sides and top. He picks at a red FRAGILE sticker, then tilts the box to read the words he scribbled on the sides the week before, back in his old room in Tin River: TOM’S TROPHIES—HANDLE WITH EXTREME CARE.
Last week, we were still in Tin River, he says to himself as he grabs a flap of packing tape along the box top and tugs at it. In our old neighborhood. I was still a Raven.
Now what am I?
He removes from the box a plaque with one half of a miniature soccer ball, roughly the size of a tennis ball and made of hard plastic, glued to it. The brass plate beneath the ball reads, PLAY OF THE SEASON—TOM GRAY. He remembers the play vividly—the game winner, as it turned out, in the regional semifinal match against Burnsfield. More memorable even than the goal’s bringing the Ravens victory—and a trip to the championship match with Southwind—was the kind of goal it was: a scissors kick from twenty yards out. Tom stares at a spot on the floor and replays the offensive push that led him to that pivotal patch of grass:
Fletcher’s pass down the right sideline to Carr . . . Carr’s long run to the right corner, where he heeled the ball back to Fletcher, who’d done the smart thing and followed Carr to support him . . . Fletcher’s crossing pass from the right side of the field to a plot of empty turf just outside the line marking the top of the Burnsfield penalty area . . . Tom’s sprinting to the space then, at the sight of the ball spinning through the rain, pacing his last few steps with the ball’s descending arc, leaping off his right foot, cutting the air with the “scissor” of his left leg—
The sound of the front door opening interrupts the mental replay. That morning his mother told him she might come home from the hospital for lunch, but he knew that this was her way of saying that she’d come by to see what he’d decided to do about the soccer team. If he wasn’t home, she’d know.
“Tom?” she calls. “You there?”
“Yes,” he answers.
Silence seems to suck the air out of the muggy room. Please don’t come down here, he thinks. Please just leave me alone.
“Hungry?” his mother calls—another question with a second meaning: Do you want to talk about it?
“No.” He puts the plaque back in the box and sets the box on his bed. He reaches for his backpack.
A minute or so later, dressed for soccer but without his shin pads, he grabs his ball from the closet—still the only thing in there besides the smell of fresh paint.
In the kitchen, he and his mother say nothing for a few moments as she eyes his soccer shorts and ratty Ravens practice jersey. “Hi, Tom,” she says, seeming a bit perplexed by his uniform.
“Don’t worry,” he says. “I’m not playing for Southwind. I’m just going to that park we passed down the street.”
His mother smiles and lets out a breath. In the next instant her eyes bend at the corners—sadly, it seems to Tom—and she takes his hand. “You know I support you no matter what, owira’a,” she says.
Tom resists a cringe at his mother’s use of that word, owira’a—Mohawk for “baby,” which is what he feels like every time she says it. But he’d rather be alone than complain right now, so he lets it slide and eyes the front door.
“You could change your mind right now and I wouldn’t stop you,” she goes on. “This is your decision. You know that, right?”
Tom nods, pulling his hand away.
“Do you want a ride to the park?”
“It’s about three hundred yards away, Mom.”
His mother looks down as if caught telling a lie, or at least trying to trick him. “Can we talk about this later . . . then?” she says in a small voice, leaning to look into her son’s eyes. “I mean, I assume the coach, there—”
“Dempsey.”
“He’s not ready to deal with the mascot issue?”
“Not for me he isn’t.”
“Well, I’m sure he wouldn’t do it for me either. Fortunately, we’re not alone. Just this morning, I spoke to the chairman of the Parents’ Association. Apparently, some people are starting to come over to our side. Dempsey will have to change the mascot sooner or later. He thinks he can make this decision unilaterally just because he’s a coach—”
“He’s also the school athletic director.”
“Right. I know that. But, still, when the people in favor of changing the mascot reach a critical mass . . .”
With a sigh, Tom steps toward the door.
His mother pauses. “You’re okay?” she says.
Tom keeps looking away. “I’ll be fine. I just need to get used to it, I guess.”
“We will,” his mother says in an upbeat tone as she moves to the sink and turns on the tap. “We’ll both get used to it. Somehow.”
August heat ripples above the brown-green grass in the park, empty except for a woman pushing two little kids on a swing set in a sunken play area just inside the park sign:
MILTON “SONNY” AUDETTE
MEMORIAL PARK
Tom had noticed the park when he and his mother pulled into town a few days earlier. It had reminded him, right away, of Tin River Park, down below the locks. He’d guessed, from the way the trees bent into a tunnel along the far edge of the park, that there was a river or creek hidden back there. So, before lacing up his cleats, he walks to the far edge of the park to check. Just as he suspected, a creek roughly thirty feet across snakes into a dense forest leading back toward his condominium development.
He stares into the current for a few moments, enjoying the shade and imagining the creek winding all the way north to Tin River. He knows the two waterways aren’t connected, but he indulges himself with the idea that the river could carry him home—and back in time.
Turning back to the park, he spots a kid walking into the center of the field. The kid carries a plastic bag in one hand and a board roughly one square yard under his other arm. He sets the board down and begins tossing items from the bag onto the grass. From where he’s standing, Tom can’t tell what the kid is unloading, but he thinks he sees wires sticking out of some of the objects.
Lacing up his cleats, he watches the kid assemble what soon resembles a three-foot-high rocket. Tom keeps watching as he stretches in the shade of the riverside trees. The moment he kicks his ball out into the glare, though, the kid turns to him and freezes.
Tom waves and, catching up to his ball, executes a perfect rainbow: His right foot rolls the ball up the back of his left shin, where it meets the flick of his left heel and arcs straight over his head. He settles the ball with his right instep and cradles it to the ground in the crook of his right instep and shin. That’s as good as I’ve ever done that, he thinks. How long before I lose my touch?
“Soccer Guy!” the kid shouts, waving at Tom with what looks like a cell phone. “If you hear me scream ‘Incoming!’ make sure you duck.” The kid lets out a slightly crazed-sounding cackle and begins punching numbers into the device.
“Where are you aiming that thing?” Tom calls back.
“Aiming?” The kid cackles again. “I wish.”
Tom kicks the ball toward the kid, then juggles the rest of the way—knee to knee, knee to head, right foot, left foot, right foot . . .“I’ll just stand near you,” Tom says, reaching the launch pad. “That makes one less target.”
“Smart thinking . . . for a jock.”
Tom stares at the kid, a little tweaked by his tone: for such a scrawny guy, he’s surprisingly lippy. His black buzzcut clings to his head like some strange, dark species of moss, and his pale skin seems not to have been exposed to much direct sunlight recently. His clothes—green corduroys, a white dress shirt with a button-down collar—further suggest that he doesn’t get outside much. “Who said I was a jock?” Tom says, just to test him.
“You’re not exactly dressed for a career in sales.” The kid runs a wire out of a gray box just smaller than a car battery and clips it to the base of the rocket. “And I saw that rainbow. I may be the biggest geek you’ll ever meet, but I know what it takes to do a rainbow like that.”
“How do you know—”
“Stand back.” The kid steers Tom behind him with his free hand and punches a button on the cell phone with the other. The kid glances around the park, settling his gaze on the two children playing a hundred yards away. “Hmm,” he mutters. “These are not ideal launch conditions, but . . . hmm. Ah, whatever.” He turns back to the rocket and punches more numbers into the phone.
“This seems dangerous,” Tom says. “Are you sure it’s safe?”
“Yes and no,” the kid says with a shrug.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, yes, it’s dangerous. And, no, I’m not sure it’s safe. But with so little wind, I think the odds are against hitting those targets down by the swings.”
“Then why call them targets?”
The kid cackles again and, holding the phone up at eye level, punches another button. “Focus on the altimeter,” he says, gesturing toward the launch pad.
Red numerals—a series of eights—suddenly illuminate a display screen the size of an alarm clock bolted to the board. “Commence countdown,” the kid says as 00:25 appears on the screen. “Twenty-four, twenty-three, twenty-two,” he counts.
At “zero,” the battery clicks and a cloud of dense smoke forms around the rocket base. “Liftoff,” the kid says, taking another step back and pulling Tom with him.
Just before the nose of the rocket disappears in smoke, Tom notices the orange fire gathering at the base. A split second later, the fire explodes with one quick pop—about as loud as a bike tire blowout—followed immediately by a fwoom. The rocket screeches into the sky.
As Tom watches the rocket rise, the kid quickly punches more numbers into his phone. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he says in a smarmy, radio-deejay-style voice, “this is your captain, Preston Allard. On behalf of the entire crew, I’d like to welcome you aboard today’s flight.”
Tom turns to see the kid staring at the altimeter, which ticks off a rising string of numbers. Eventually, at just above 1200, the numbers begin to slow and then descend. “Not a bad launch,” the kid says, “but the landing’s the tricky part.” As the numerals on the display screen descend rapidly, the kid punches numbers into his phone. “No,” he groans. He punches the numbers in again. “Come on, open!” He tries again, but the numbers on the altimeter are now spinning downward so quickly that Tom can’t read them.
Tom looks into the sky and notices the black form hurtling toward the ground. It looks like a duck that has just been shot, its wings drawn to its body, its beak rotating slowly. “I see it,” he says.
“Well, take a good look.”
A few seconds later, the rocket smashes into the field, erupting in a campfire-size flame. Tom reflexively jogs a few steps toward it, then stops. He turns to find the kid standing in the center of the launch pad and talking into his phone. “Allard Angel-Agitator launch log, August twenty-three,” he says in his “This is your captain speaking” voice. “Model three. Model three launch—successful. Altitude—new altitude record established at twelve hundred, thirty-seven feet by measurement of base altimeter, recorded and stored in altimeter chip. Recovery and landing apparatus—total malfunction. Repeat, landing apparatus—total malfunction. Salvage effort to commence immediately. Prospects . . .” With the phone still to his mouth, the kid takes a small fire extinguisher from inside the plastic bag and walks to Tom’s side. “Salvage prospects . . . ,” he repeats and holds the phone up to Tom.
“Bleak,” Tom says.
With a cackle, the kid punches a button and stuffs the phone into his pocket. “I’m Preston Allard,” he says.
“Tom Gray.” Tom shakes Preston’s hand, and the two walk to the crash site. “I just moved here.”
“From where?”
“Tin River. Up near the Canadian border.”
“I know where it is. You live on the res?”
“No. In the village. But you shouldn’t call Kawehras ‘the res.’”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know. I just don’t like the way it sounds when you say it—”
“You don’t live there. What do you care?”
“I used to live there.”
“Why’d you move?”
“Long story. Anyway, that was before I started high school.”
“So you went to Tin River Union?”
“Yeah.”
“The Ravens.”
“Right.”
“Did you play lacrosse too?”
“Nah. For some reason, I suck at it.”
“I guess you’re not much of an Indian.”
Tom nods at the fire. “I guess you’re not much of a geek. But you’ve sure got a smart mouth.”
Preston stares at Tom for a couple of seconds, then shrugs. “Sorry. Sometimes I get out of line. That’s what they say, anyway. And, to be honest, I’m a little on edge at the moment.” He peers at the melting rocket from different angles, as if he might learn something from the way it pulverized. “This is the third rocket I’ve trashed in five days.” Finally, with one extended blast from the fire extinguisher, he puts the small blaze out.
As Preston picks through the wreckage, Tom glances toward the swing set, where the woman has gathered the children to her side. “I always thought these rockets were just empty tubes,” Tom says, “you know, once you launch them.”
“Typically, they are,” Preston says. “But I loaded fuel into afterburners on this one—rocket boosters, you know, to boost the altitude.”
“Fuel. I can’t imagine the cops would be too psyched about that.”
“No, not really—ow!” Preston drops a piece of melted plastic onto the grass.
A copper-colored SUV with tinted windows pulls into the parking lot, its stereo speakers rumbling across the field.
“But, then,” Preston adds, “the cops have bigger problems to deal with.”
As Preston plucks plastic fragments from the grass and stacks them in his hand, Tom watches four guys walk from the vehicle over to a cluster of picnic tables tucked in the farthest corner of the park, at the end of the trees, where the creek disappears into the woods. “Are these bad guys?” Tom says.
“Not as bad as they think they are.” Preston hands Tom a pile of warm rocket chips. “But they’re definitely not Eagle Scouts.” He gestures for Tom to follow him back to the launch pad, where Preston dumps the rocket fragments into the bag and indicates that Tom should do the same.
“What went wrong with your rocket?” Tom says.
“Signal problem with the recovery system.”
“That’s the landing system, right?”
“Theoretically. I thought I had it wired. Must be a code problem.”
“It’s a pretty sophisticated rig—or, rather, was.”
“No, it just seems that way. It’s actually a series of simple steps all strung together.” Preston eyes the soccer ball. “Like that rainbow you did.” Wiping his hands on his pants, he walks toward the ball and, two steps away, jogs into a rainbow maneuver. He gets the ball up onto the back of his left leg, but in his long pants he brings his left heel up too slowly. When he flicks the ball, it gets only as high as the back of his head. As the ball bounces away, he cackles and stumbles forward.
The guys sitting on the picnic tables hoot and applaud. Tom notices one kid standing off to the side, smoking a cigarette. He’s not laughing, just watching.
“How’d you learn to do a rainbow?” Tom says as Preston passes him the ball. He notes that Preston kicks with the side of his foot—correctly, not with the toe, as kids who don’t know how to play soccer often do.
“You can see how well I learned.”
“Did you ever play on a team?” Tom flicks the ball to Preston’s chest, and the geek traps it and brings it down to his foot with notable control.
“I still do,” Preston says. “Once a week, with a few other freaks. Two homeschooled kids and an exchange student from Sweden. Our parents basically make us do it.”
“They make you play soccer?”
“They said we had to do something to get the rocket fuel out of our lungs.”
“These other guys are into rockets?”
Preston kicks the ball ahead a few yards and tries to execute another rainbow. He’s only marginally more successful this time. “Yeah, rockets are our thing these days. Rockets and greasy food.”
“So, where are those guys?”
“They’re probably at the Nucleus. It’s a hobby shop down on Church Street. Geek central. There’s a great diner next door—‘great,’ of course, being a relative term where diners are concerned.”
Preston dribbles toward Tom, challenging him to stop him. Tom anticipates Preston’s cut around his left side and easily plucks the ball away with the bottom of his left foot. Preston cackles, trips, and topples to the ground.
Tom turns to the picnic area again, where the one kid off to the side is still watching while the other guys sit facing in the opposite direction, toward the woods.
“But I’ll tell you what,” Preston says as he stands up and brushes grass from his pants. “There’s no reason the others need to know about today’s launch. Know what I mean?”
“How would they hear it from me? I don’t even know them.”
“No, but you’ll meet them.”
“I will?”
“I mean, you’re going to kick it around with us, right?” Preston dashes suddenly toward Tom, who lets him steal the ball from his foot. Even this effort nearly sends Preston tumbling over again.
“When did I say that?” Tom says.
“Well, if you’re not playing for the school team, then we’re the only game in town.”
“How do you know I’m not playing for the school team?”
Preston chips the ball to Tom, who settles it with his right knee and lowers it to the ground in the crook of his right foot and shin. “Because their preseason training camp started today,” Preston adds. “And I think you’re developing an interest in rockets.”
“Maybe. Never gave them much thought before.” Tom executes another flawless rainbow. Dishing the ball off to Preston, he senses the kid in the picnic area still watching.
Preston tries another rainbow but fails more miserably than in his previous two attempts. “I give up,” he grumbles, passing the ball back to Tom.
“You’re not exactly dressed for soccer,” Tom says. “I mean, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that out.”
“You know, that’s sort of funny,” Preston says. “Sort of.” He picks up his launch pad and the bag of rocket trash. “Come to the Nucleus tomorrow morning, and I’ll introduce you around. We’ll get some breakfast next door.”
“Okay.”
“You like really fresh, healthy food?”
“Yeah. I guess.”
“Well, we’ll get some breakfast next door anyway.” Preston cackles and hoists the bag over his shoulder like a maniacal Christmas elf and heads toward the street.