Dibs’s eyes meet mine.
“Was that you?” I ask him behind my palm.
“Are you kidding me?” He pinches his nose with his thumb and pointer finger.
“What is it, then?”
“Beats me.” Dibs spits into the dirt. “I didn’t smell anything like this before.”
“Where’s it coming from?” I look all around me.
“I don’t know.”
“My eyes are burning,” I say.
“Mine too.” Dibs farmer-blows toward the ground and a bunch of runny snot shoots out of his nose.
“Try the ring again,” I tell him, wiping at my forehead with my arm. “Wave it up in the air this time.”
Dibs holds his ring high in the air, moving it slowly back and forth above his head. “Nothing. If it’s not flashing or beeping some kind of warning, then there’s probably nothing to worry about. I’m pretty sure I remember that now from the back of the Kix box. We should be okay.”
“That stink doesn’t smell like we’re okay to me,” I tell him.
“Hey,” he says, studying the ring closely. “What if the radiation is so bad that the ring just plain quit working on account of the levels being too high?”
“Yeah,” I agree. “Maybe we should go back, huh?”
“Want to?” he asks.
“Do you?”
“Asked you first,” he answers, pulling a red bandanna from his back pocket, carefully folding it in a triangle over his face, and tying the corners behind his head.
“To catch the snot,” he informs me.
“You look like Billy the Kid.”
“I got another one if you want it.” He pulls a blue one out of his back pocket.
“You want me to put your nasty snot-rag on my face?”
“It’s only got sweat on it. And it helps with that stink.”
My eyes are watering from the smell now, too, and my throat feels like I swallowed a lit match. “Fine.” I reach out and grab the bandanna.
I fold it in a triangle just like he did, put it over my nose, and tie it in a knot behind my head. Now we both look like Old West bandits ready for a holdup.
“Let’s keep on,” he says, adjusting his bandanna so high over his nose that it’s almost covering his eyes, too. “We’ve come this far, let’s just keep going a little longer, and if it gets any worse, we’ll head back. Deal?”
Everything in me wants to say no.
Everything in me wants to get on my horse and keep on galloping until I’m back home and in my bed under the white sheet, where the world seems safest these days. But I don’t want Dibs to think I’m a chicken.
I swallow hard. “Deal,” I say.
We start moving forward again, the stench getting thicker with every step. Dibs lifts the bottom corner of the bandanna and spits down into the dirt about every five seconds as the horses scuffle over brush and climb over jutting rocks and crumbling dead tree trunks dry and rotting on the ground.
I reach into the bib of my overalls and rub Shortstop’s head with my free hand, wishing Obie were here with us. He’d be out front leading us like he wasn’t scared at all.
That’s how much courage he had.
He was the closest thing to a human superhero I’ve ever known.
“Take a break?” I call out to Dibs when I see a tall yucca tree up ahead.
“Yep.”
“That ring of yours doing anything?” I ask him, climbing down off Pitch.
“Nuh-uh.” His voice is muffled behind the bandanna.
The inside of my mouth and throat are tingling something awful from the stench now, and there’s a funny taste in there, too. I still can’t see anything and I’m so hot, it feels like I could catch fire without a match.
And there’s something else, too.
“Mylo,” Dibs says, his voice quivering as he slips down off True Belle. “Something’s…something is happening….”
“What is it?” I say, feeling a tugging from the deepest part of my body that pulls me in every direction and lifts my arms straight out from my sides.
Dibs holds out his forearm. “Look at that! All the hairs are standing straight up. Look at it! Look at it! And my lips itch, too! Do yours? Do your lips feel itchy?”
“It’s like there’s electricity in the air,” I say.
“It’s those Martians trying to harvest our brains right out our ears, just like I told you they would,” Dibs says. “I know it.”
“It is not,” I tell him.
That’s when he points a finger out toward a large arroyo in the distance and breathes in real hard, choking on the fumes and then gagging. “Oh, my good God!” He lifts the bandanna against his forehead, spitting into the dirt. “I see it!” He shouts. “That’s it! I can see the edge of it! A disk! There!” He points harder this time. “See it now? Right there!”
I squint, holding my hand over my eyes to shield them from the sun. “I don’t see anything,” I tell him.
“No! It’s there!” he insists. “I can see it! Dead ahead!”
I squint again. “You’re crazy,” I tell him. “There’s nothing out there.”
“Then you need glasses, because it’s a real live flying saucer!”
I squeeze my eyes shut real tight and then open them again, inching my boots forward one more step, then another. The ground’s uneven and the whole entire world feels so unsteady that one wrong step will send me spiraling into the abyss of nothingness.
I strain my eyes, peering through the haze of the heat mixed with fumes, taking another slow and careful step, sliding my boot forward. The left one, then the right one. Left, then right. Left—
And then…there’s something.
My boots inch closer as a shape forms in front of me. A shape that doesn’t belong out in the desert. Or anywhere on Earth, either.
It can’t be.
It’s a bad dream.
It has to be.
Wake up, I tell myself. It’s only a dream! That’s all it is!
My lashes separate.
No sweaty sheet…No toes to nose…Just one silvery disk wedged and crumpled, tight against an arroyo in the desert.
Its final resting place.
I stand frozen, blinking at it.
A real live flying saucer.
“Come on!” Dibs starts to run.
I watch him sprint toward the disk, my feet frozen to the dirt and electricity buzzing all around me.
“Mylo?” Dibs stops, shouting back at me. “What are you waiting for?”
I drag my boots after him, watching him pull ahead of me as he runs full blast toward the thing.
When I finally catch up to him, we stand there staring at the thing. A broken flying saucer right in front of us.
“So.” Dibs smiles big. “You believe me now?”
I don’t say anything.
“You think it’s full of dead Martians?” he asks.
“Why can’t you stop saying that word!” I demand.
“Martians?”
“No,” I snap.
“Oh,” he says.
He’s quiet then, while I inch forward.
“You can go and check to see if any of ’em might still be alive if you want,” he says, pulling out his toy gun. “I’ll cover you.”
“I’m not going in there!” I tell him.
“Well, I’m sure not doing it!”
I take another few steps forward until I’m so close I could reach out and touch it. Most of it is smooth and sleek and silvery with no edges or wings or windows like they have on an airplane. Just a glassy round disk with a raised center. The other part is all scratched up and crunched up against the jagged side of the arroyo. It’s bigger than Daddy’s old Ford pickup truck but not much.
“Look
at this thing,” I whisper. “Look at the underbelly.” I point. “It’s a million tiny individual cells, like the thing itself is a living, breathing animal.”
“Or used to be,” Dibs says. “Touch it,” he tells me.
“You touch it!” I snap back at him.
“Not with a ten-foot pole!”
“I can’t believe it’s true,” I whisper.
A real live flying saucer.
Broken and silent in the desert. Nothing but a coffin now. A coffin for Martians. I wonder what their tombstone would read.
HERE LIES THESE MARTIANS
WHO KNOWS WHEN–JULY 5, 1947
FAMILY.
FRIENDS.
PILOTS THROUGH THE STARS.
Maybe even…loved?
They had to be, right? Loved by someone. Somebody real far away. Families who are waiting for them to come home for supper from their mission to Earth. Do they pray, too? Or refuse, too, when God doesn’t care enough to listen? Do they eat spaceman hotcakes and moon dust corn bread? Do they watch the Mars Meteorites beat the Saturn Star Hoppers in spaceball and read comic books about Earthlings from another world with endings the way they should be?
Endings where they come home.
And then I hear it again.
Just one word.
Help.
Like a whisper and a scream all at once. The very same one I heard before.
I grab Dibs by his bony elbow when I hear it. “What was that?” I ask him.
“What was what?”
I hold my breath, searching the desert in every direction and waiting to hear it one more time. But the desert stays silent.
No birds chirping.
No bugs buzzing.
No swishing winds through the branches.
Nothing.
“I don’t hear anything,” Dibs says. “What is it?”
I turn to look at him. “I—I don’t know,” I say.
July 6, 1947—2:07 p.m.
If Dibs is the Jimmy Olsen to my Superman, Graciela Maria Delgado is my Lois Lane.
“Is she looking now?” I ask Dibs, slicking my cowlicks down with as much spit as I can muster.
Dibs stretches his neck. “Nope.”
“How ’bout now?”
Dibs stretches his neck. “Nope.”
After lunch, Dibs and I head to Corona General for a cold pop. Well, he’s there for the Coke. I had another mission in mind.
I sneak a peek, eyeing her between the cans of Campbell’s Tomato Soup and Bush’s Best Pork and Beans. The Corona General Store smells sweet from fresh baked goods and a little bit tart from fruits ripening in the heat. She’s perfect.
Graciela Maria Delgado.
I watch her over the cans. She’s reading a book on a stool next to the cash register while her aunt Beatrice rings up Mrs. Manuela. Gracie’s dark hair is pulled back with a barrette but there is one long strand by her ear that she twists and untwists around her pointer finger, her lips moving as she reads. She’s wearing a sky-blue button-down shirt and jeans with bobby socks and saddle shoes that have a sprinkling of mud on the toes.
I know what book it is without even seeing the cover.
I know it because every Saturday night Dibs and I go to the Roswell library on Third Street while Momma, Daddy, and Baby Kay go visiting in town. My most favorite librarian, Mrs. Bishop, works on Saturdays and always has a very special book ready for me. And each Saturday, I carefully print my name on the card under Gracie Delgado and Mrs. Bishop stamps it with her date stamp and I go on my way.
“She’s reading L. Frank Baum’s Oz series,” she told me weeks ago.
That’s how I know what book it is without even looking. She’s reading number eleven, The Lost Princess of Oz. And I’m on number ten, Rinkitink in Oz.
Gracie’s daddy is a general at the Army Air Force Base in Roswell and they live in a big brick house three blocks off Main on Kentucky Avenue, but she spends her summers at her aunt and uncle’s farm to care for her horse, Betsy Bobbin.
Dibs puts a cheek next to mine, trying to get a look between the cans, and then shakes his head.
“What’s so great about her, anyway?” he asks me.
“What’s not so great about her?” I say.
“Well…” He thinks about it. “I bet she can’t even field a baseball.”
“So?”
He shrugs. “So we need a shortstop.”
“Did you know she has a horse named Betsy Bobbin after a character in a book by her favorite author?”
“What’s the big deal about that?”
“She’s smart.” I shrug. “I like that about her.”
“I’m hungry,” he says. “You think we have enough for a snack? I don’t know if I’m going to make it all the way to dinnertime without some sort of snack.”
“What do you think it’d be like to kiss her?” I wonder out loud.
He turns to me with an ugly scowl stuck on. “Are we getting the Cokes or what? And did you hear what I said? I’m starving.”
I put my hands on my hips. “You had two breakfasts and a lunch already today,” I tell him. “How can you still be hungry?”
He shrugs. “My stomach has a mind of its own and it’s decided it needs more in there to be happy.”
I check my pockets for coins, and he does the same.
“How much do you have?” I ask.
“Let’s see…I’ve got two, four, six, seven cents,” he says, fishing out coins. “And…these, too.” He reaches into the bib of his overalls and pulls out two marbles, an Eddie Stanky baseball card, and an empty Wrigley’s spearmint gum wrapper. “What’ve you got?”
“One nickel and five pennies.” I count from my palm.
I add it up in my head. “I think that’s enough for two Cokes and one pack of chocolate Neccos to share,” I tell him.
“Yeah, except my tongue is tired of chocolate Neccos.”
“How about Cracker Jacks?” I ask. “Your tongue okay with Cracker Jacks?”
He smacks his lips, considering. “Yep, I think both my tongue and my stomach would be happy with Cracker Jacks,” he tells me. “Here.” He pushes the hand with the marbles closer to me. “You can have these and the prize at the bottom, since you’re paying three cents more. Even Steven, okay?”
It’s a solid green one and a real cool clear one with sky-blue swirls.
I start to reach for them and then stop. “Keep ’em,” I say.
“Really?” he asks. “Even Steven?”
“Yep.”
We grab two frosty Cokes from the way back of the cooler and pop the caps off with the opener on the side, grab the box of Cracker Jacks, and head up to the front counter, where Mrs. Delgado is standing in a crisp, flowery dress, fanning herself with a fancy lace hanky. Gracie doesn’t even look up.
“That was some monsoon we had last night,” Mrs. Delgado is saying, smoothing a loose black hair back into place with the others that are already slicked close to her head and twisted tight in a bun that sits right at the back of her neck. “We lost some pieces of roof off our barn from the winds. Mr. Delgado is out there today, nailing up new boards.”
Mrs. Manuela shakes her head. “You know what some people are saying, don’t you?” she asks.
“No, what?” Mrs. Delgado asks.
“Flying saucers,” Mrs. Manuela says.
I drop my Cracker Jacks.
Gracie peers up over the top of her book.
Mrs. Delgado snorts. She smiles like Mrs. Manuela just gave a punch line to a knock-knock joke. “Nonsense,” she says, shaking her head and loading a bag of Gold Medal Flour into a paper sack.
“You know me.” Mrs. Manuela waves a hand in the air. “I’m never one to gossip, but that’s what I’m hearing. The papers have been
reporting an increase in sightings around the U.S. this summer. It’s got people wondering, is all I’m saying.”
Dibs gives me a pointy elbow in my side and raises his eyebrows at me.
“Oh, yes, I’ve read about the sightings,” Mrs. Delgado says.
“You’re not a believer in those Mars men, I gather?” Mrs. Manuela asks her.
“A Martian invasion?” Mrs. Delgado smiles. “I most certainly am not.”
“Uh-huh,” Mrs. Manuela says, and then turns to Dibs and me. “Has your daddy said anything about it?” she asks, staring right at me.
I look at Dibs and then back at her. “Me?” I ask, pointing to my chest.
“Yes….Well, you know it’s none of my business, but I’ve heard your daddy was involved in that incident in California a few years back. Right before he left the military. The Battle of Los Angeles, I think the papers called it?”
“What was that?” Dibs asks.
“It happened February 25 in 1942,” Mrs. Manuela starts. “In the early-morning hours over Redondo Beach, California, everyone awoke to the air raid sirens going off. People fled from their beds to see what was happening.”
“A Martian invasion?” Dibs asks.
“Well, first came a complete blackout over the city,” Mrs. Manuela says. “And then…everyone saw it.”
I swallow. “Saw what?” I ask.
“The lights in the sky,” she says.
“Were they green and blinking like a big fat eyeball?” Dibs asks.
Everyone looks at Dibs.
His cheeks flush and he stares at his bare dirty toes. “I—I was just…I mean, I didn’t know…sorry,” he says. “Go on with your story.”
“Well.” Mrs. Manuela begins again. “You know at that time it hadn’t been three months since the attack on Pearl Harbor, and of course the United States had just joined the fight in Europe, so I imagine that was the first thought…that we were under attack. So the military sent their planes to circle whatever it was that was flying up there, and they responded by land, too, shooting some fourteen hundred antiaircraft rounds into the air at whatever it was flying overhead. At least, that’s what the papers reported.”
The Truth About Martians Page 5