The odd little man climbed onto one of the stools, pushed aside a protractor and a ruler, then sat on the blackboard table. Lorelei, Homer, and Hercules each grabbed a stool and gathered around, while Dog stretched out on the floor beneath the table. Lorelei took the map from the inside pocket of her jumpsuit, unfolded it, then set it on the table in front of the man.
He whistled. “Whit happened to yon map? Looks like it’s been eaten by Nessie herself.”
“Nessie, lad. The Loch Ness Monster.”
It was eaten by a monster, Homer wanted to say, an image of the mutant tortoise filling his mind. But a comment like that would surely lead the conversation offtrack and annoy Lorelei. Best keep to the issue at hand.
“I know these are stars,” Homer said, pointing to one of the black dots. “But I don’t know much about the constellations. Can you figure it out?”
The man stared at the map. He turned it one way and said, “Hmmmm.” Then he turned it the other way and said, “Mmmmm.” Then he turned it again and again until, with a satisfied grunt, he announced, “Ye’ve got yersel a Draco.”
“Draco?” both Homer and Lorelei asked.
“That’s Latin for ‘dragon,’ ” Hercules said.
The man grabbed a piece of blue chalk and began to draw on the map. “Hey, wait a minute,” Lorelei said, reaching out to stop him, but Homer held her back.
“It’s okay,” Homer told her. “It’s just chalk. We can wipe it off if we need to.”
They watched as the man expertly connected some of the dots. When he’d finished, a dragon lay across the map, the tip of its tail at one end, its head at the other. “It’s one of the oldest constellations,” the man said. “The Egyptians identified it way back when the pyramids were made, but the Greeks were the ones tae name it Draco the dragon, because of yon myth.”
Lorelei sat up straight. “What myth?”
“The one aboot Hercules and the dragon with one hundred heads.”
“Oh, I know that myth,” Lorelei said. “Hercules’s eleventh labor was to steal golden apples from the dragon, but he couldn’t do it alone. So he asked Atlas for help.” She glanced at Homer. “By the way, Atlas was the guy who held up the world. That’s why the atlas is named after him.”
By the way? Of course Homer knew that fact. Anyone who knew anything about maps knew that atlases were named after Atlas. He rolled his eyes. She was such a know-it-all.
Lorelei continued. “So Hercules, being superstrong, held up the world while Atlas went to get the apples. That’s how Hercules completed his eleventh labor.”
“Why is that star drawn bigger than the others?” Homer asked, pointing to a star near the end of the dragon’s tail.
“Yon’s the North Star,” the man said.
“Polaris,” Homer said.
“Nae. It’s a star called Thuban.” The man scratched his beard. “It used tae be the North Star, but it isn’t anymore.”
“What are you talking about?” Lorelei asked, leaning her elbows on the table. “Stars don’t change.”
“But we do, lassie. The earth moves. It wobbles on its axis. And it takes twenty-six thousand years tae make one full wobble. That’s why every twenty-six thousand years, the North Pole points to a different star. When Draco was discovered, the North Star wasna Polaris. It was Thuban.”
“I never knew that,” Homer admitted. He’d spent most of his map-reading days focused on the surface of the earth, not fixed up at the heavens. Star charting was new territory to him.
As the conversation proceeded, Hercules took notes in his notebook. He was very serious about his record-keeping duties.
“I don’t understand,” Lorelei said. “Where does this map take us? I mean, how does celestial navigation work?”
“Celestial navigation is the art and science of using celestial bodies tae determine the observer’s position on Earth,” the man said. Then he tapped a finger on Rumpold’s map. “Draco is a constellation in the far northern sky. Yer mapmaker went tae the far north tae draw yon map.”
“Well, I guess that’s a start,” Lorelei said. “But where, exactly, in the far north?” The man pointed to the date scrawled in the map’s bottom corner. “I still don’t understand,” Lorelei said.
Homer thought he knew the answer to this. “I think the date is important because the view of the sky is always changing, but the earth’s surface pretty much stays the same. So, if you stood on a mountain and looked down, the coastline would look the same whether you stood there on a Saturday or a Monday, or whether you stood there in January or in October.” He glanced at the man, who nodded for Homer to continue. “But, if you stood on that same mountain and looked up, the sky would be totally different one day to the next. So that’s why the date matters.”
“Aye!” the man said with a smack of his knee. “Ye’ve got it, lad.”
“So if we have the date and we have the image of the sky, then we can figure out exactly where the mapmaker was standing when he drew the map.”
“Aye!” He smacked his knee again. Then he scrambled off the table and headed for his cot. “Well, ah read it for ye. Now away wi’ ye. Ma brain is hurtin. Too many people. Too much bletherin.” After climbing onto the cot, he lay on his back and closed his eyes.
Homer, Lorelei, and Hercules shared a confused look. “Wait,” Lorelei called. “How do we figure it out?”
“Computation,” the man said, his eyes still closed.
“Math,” Hercules told her. “He means we have to use math.”
“Math?” Lorelei groaned. “I hate math.”
“I’m not fond of it, either,” Hercules said. “I can translate mathematical terminology for you, but when it comes to manipulating numbers, I’m pathetic.”
They both looked at Homer expectantly. They were probably waiting for him to say, “Oh I love math. No problem. I’m some kind of math genius.” He grimaced, remembering the bright red C- on his last math test. Sure, he could have studied more, but given the choice between studying a map on the mysterious crop circles of the American Midwest or studying fractions, well, he’d made the obvious choice. “I’m not so good at math, either,” he admitted.
They still desperately needed the man’s help. Experts on celestial navigation didn’t grow on trees. Team L.O.S.T. and FOUND would probably have to travel to a different city just to find another one. And there was no time to do that. Homer was expected back on the farm in just five days. It was now or never. And that’s why he crawled under the table to wake Dog. “Hey,” he whispered in Dog’s ear. “We need you. Go over there, wag your tail, and give him your sad face again.”
Dog was sound asleep. His belly rose and fell steadily. His back leg twitched as he chased something in dreamland.
“Dog?” Homer gently shook him. Dog opened one eye. “Ur?”
“Come on,” Homer whispered, dragging him toward the cot. “Be charming.”
Dog’s ears, which were extra-long even for a basset hound, swept the dusty floor like furry mops. He opened his other eye just as he came to a stop at the foot of the man’s cot. Clearly assuming that a new napping spot had been chosen for him, Dog closed his eyes and began to snore. The freight train–like sound caught the man’s attention, and he sat up. “Aw, the poor wee thing. He’s fair worn out.” The man grabbed a pillow, jumped off the cot, and tucked the pillow under Dog’s head.
“Yes, he’s very tired,” Homer said. “He’s tired because it’s been a long trip. We came all the way from the country just to find a celestial-navigation expert.”
“The country, ye say? Yon’s a long way for a basset tae travel.” The man patted Dog’s paw. Dog farted. “Aw, the poor beastie. A’ that travel has upset his disposition.”
“He’s a mess,” Homer said. “He even had to go through a revolving door.”
“A revolving door?” The man’s bushy eyebrows flew to the top of his head as he stared up at Homer. “Bassets hate revolving doors. Everyone knows that.”
“But he went through one because he wanted an answer to the map, same as us,” Homer said. Of course, this was a huge stretch of the truth, but it was the only tactic Homer could think of. The man wasn’t fond of people, but his love of basset hounds might persuade him to offer more assistance. “Just think how disappointed Dog’ll be if we have to go all the way back to the country without the answer to our question. We don’t have any celestial navigators back home. We might have to go on another long trip to find one. We might have to go through more revolving doors.”
The man threw his hands up in the air. “Nae, dinna be doing that. Let the beastie rest.” He stomped back over to the table, climbed the stool, and sat on the blackboard surface. “Whit kind of person makes a basset hound walk through a revolving door?” he mumbled as he grabbed a ruler, a calculator, a protractor, a compass, and a bunch of other things. “Whit is the world coming to?”
“Good work,” Lorelei said, nudging Homer’s arm as he returned to the stool. He smiled and rested his arms on the table, watching as the man began to take measurements of Rumpold’s map. Anticipation shot down Homer’s spine. One day, a long time ago, Rumpold Smeller the Pirate had stared up at the sky. Draco the dragon had greeted him. Wherever Rumpold had stood at that moment in time was where he’d buried his treasure.
Together, Homer, Lorelei, and Hercules took a long breath, their lungs filling with possibility.
The answer was just a few calculations away.