“Well, I mean most of the time I’m no one. And to be someone in here…” He lifts up the book. “Well, it’s pretty neat, is all I’m saying.”
“Boys!” Momma calls. “The others are here and we’re almost ready to leave for Mr. Butte’s farm. You better hurry up if you want breakfast first!”
I stretch my neck to see past Grammy Hildago’s curtains. The dirt drive below is filling up fast. Mr. Lord’s pickup is parked out front next to Mr. Butte’s rusted Chevy, with Diego’s Lupe, Spuds’s Bazooka, and Gracie’s Betsy Bobbin tied to the porch post. Mr. and Mrs. Delgado’s Chevrolet Fleetmaster is off to the side, and Mac Brazel’s shiny new truck sits in the open pasture.
“Good morning!” Mrs. Manuela calls, ringing the bell on her bicycle as she pedals up the drive.
“Good morning, Mrs. Manuela!” Momma calls back through the screen door.
I lie back on my pillow and smile.
“What if they made this story into a movie on the big screen in Roswell?” Dibs says to me, pulling the covers back. “It’d be even better than Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe. Because it’d be me and you saving humankind and Moontiankind, too…together. Pledging Strength, Courage, and Justice. Just like Superman does for the city of Metropolis. We’ll be the ones to do it for the town of Corona.”
“Yeah, but Flash Gordon and Superman really are superheroes. I only write about ’em.”
“You do more than that, and you’ve even got the card to prove it, too,” he says. “And I’m your trusty sidekick. You said it yourself.”
“Dibs, anyone could have gotten that card,” I tell him. “Even you if I had taken the marbles and you got the prize at the bottom.”
“Yeah, but that’s not the way it happened,” he says. “Things happen for a reason, Mylo. That’s the way the universe works. And it anointed you, not me or anyone else. And yes, it was through a Cracker Jack box, but still, it means something. The universe doesn’t make mistakes about anything.”
“Who says?”
“People,” he tells me. “And they don’t make that kind of thing up.”
I laugh.
“Hey.” He sniffs the air just like Clark Kent does when he smells a rabbit hiding in the brush. “You get a whiff of that?” He flips the quilt back and comes to sit on the edge of my bed in a bright white, brand-new pair of Fruit of the Looms Momma got him from the Montgomery Ward’s in Roswell, which are still two sizes too big. “I think I smell chorizo and eggs this morning.”
I push my covers back, too. “Yeah, I smell it.”
“Ready?”
I grab my jeans from the floor and dust the dirt from yesterday’s chores off the knees.
The Superhero Club Membership Card falls out of the back pocket, and Dibs reaches down to pick it up.
“See?” He examines it. “Here it is again. It keeps coming back to remind you.”
I smile. “You think?”
“For sure,” he says. “No matter what you say, I know you have the power.”
“Yeah, but technically, I didn’t save anyone,” I say, pulling one leg on and then the other. “Moon Shadow did all the work, really.”
He stays quiet then while he pulls a long-sleeve T-shirt over his head.
“You sure did too save someone,” he mumbles.
“Who?” I ask, pulling on a plaid button-down.
He hesitates again.
“Me,” he whispers.
I stop messing with my buttons then and stare at him.
“And Daddy too,” he adds.
Skinny Dibs with teeth ten times the size of his mouth standing like a skeleton with the skin still on half naked in gigantic underwear that he has to give a good yank to once in a while to keep it from slipping off his hips.
“What?”
He grabs his overalls from the floor, too.
“Maybe you can’t be everyone’s hero,” he says softly, pulling the legs on and buckling up at the shoulders. “But you’re mine.”
I stand there blinking at him until he’s finally done with the buckles. When he looks up, I can see two big drops balanced right on his bottom lashes. They make two perfect lines down his cheeks, along his neck, and down the front of the bib on his overalls. Then my eyes feel like they’re going to start, and the last thing I want is to let Dibson Tiberius Butte see two perfect lines down me. So I punch him in the arm instead, and he almost falls right over.
“Boys!” Momma calls again.
“Come on,” I say. “If we get all the chores done, we’ll have time to play a game out back before lunch.”
“Gracie sure is shaping up to be a good third baseman, huh?”
“Yep,” I say.
“Better than your momma.” He giggles behind his hand.
I roll my eyes to the ceiling. “Way better,” I say. “But don’t tell her I said that. With your daddy in left field and mine on first base, we’re getting mighty close to having a full team.”
“Still need a center fielder.”
I nod.
“How about Eunice Snodgrass?”
“No way,” I tell him.
He laughs. “Daddy’s taking me to watch game seven of the World Series on the televisions in the window of the True Value in Roswell later this afternoon.”
“Maybe you can use this when we play today,” I say, pulling up the mattress and grabbing Obie’s glove out from under it.
“That…” Dibs points. “That’s the lump I’ve been sleeping on all this time?”
I toss it to him, and he catches it with the tips of his fingers. “You’re going to let me use it?” he asks, staring at it with wide eyes and caressing the smooth leather.
“Nope,” I tell him. “It’s for keeps.”
“No way!”
“Yep.”
“For real?” he asks, wiping his nose with the back of his hand.
“For real,” I tell him.
“Boys!” Momma calls again from the kitchen. “Breakfast!”
I watch him slip his fingers into the glove and smack the center of it with one tiny duke. A fine mist of red dirt glistens in the sun streaming through the dusty lace curtains that slow dance to the cool fall breeze blowing in the window.
“I won’t miss one catch with this!”
Dibs darts out of the room and down the stairs, hollering for Momma. “Mrs. Affinito! Mrs. Affinito!” he calls. “Look what Mylo gave me!”
There’s really only one very important thing to know about Dibson Tiberius Butte and nothing else really matters:
He’s my very best friend in the whole entire universe.
I pull Shortstop out from under my pillow and breathe him in at the top of his head, smelling the oil from your leather catcher’s mitt and the dirt from the pitcher’s mound that we built together out back…
And I remember when Moon Shadow put her headband in my hand and how it felt between my fingers and how I learned about new beginnings. There were a lot of those this summer.
Good ones, too.
I peer at the boy in the mirror above the dresser.
He’s different somehow.
I hold my arms up like a saguaro cactus. Still not much happening there, but I have counted four wisps on my lip. Not exactly enough for a comb, but at least there’s hope.
I set Shortstop down against the pillow on the bed. He looks back at me with his one good eye while the other hangs by a thread.
Just the way you left him.
I learned a lot about new beginings this past summer, Obie, but also about endings.
And the truth is there really isn’t any such thing as endings.
I know now that your story will never have a true end.
Because you’re my brother.
And you always will be.
No new beginning will ever change that.
ROSWELL DECLASSIFIED
Do you enjoy the mystery of cryptozoology, the study of unknown creatures, as much as I do? Well, fellow cryptozoologists, The Truth About Martians is based on facts and eyewitness reports of one very special UFO (unidentified flying object) sighting that happened in 1947. Let’s explore the mystery together.
I was so excited to travel to New Mexico to personally investigate the story of a mysterious crash that happened in the dark of night in Corona, a small desert town just north of Roswell, during the summer of 1947. Whatever it was that fell to Earth is still being debated even today, both in Roswell and around the world. One of the reasons so many people continue to talk about this particular sighting is that it was the first and only time in history that the U.S. government reported they had captured a flying saucer. The story was on the front page of many newspapers, and at the time, this report shocked the entire world. The Roswell radio station and the military base were flooded with calls from around the globe demanding more information about the extraterrestrial spacecraft found in the desert.
Soon after, the U.S. government changed their story and reported that the materials found in the field were really just a part of a simple military weather balloon, a device used to measure atmospheric conditions. They said it had all been a big mistake.
The story died. The phone calls stopped.
It would be the last time an official would speak of the incident.
Until they did.
Years later, the world began to take an interest again in whatever crashed out on the Foster ranch. It started in 1978 when one very important witness, Major Jesse Marcel, the Head Information Officer and the first man from the Army Air Force Base in Roswell assigned to investigate the crash back in 1947, broke his silence and shared his truth with the world. He first began to tell close friends, and then later the media, that the pieces he gathered in the desert that day were not pieces of a downed weather balloon at all, but a kind of metal he had never seen before.
During my time in Corona and Roswell, I met a lot of wonderful people. Some believed that what crashed in the desert was a real flying disk, while others thought it was just a story. Whether you believe it or not, these are the facts:
A man named Mac Brazel, a ranch hand working at the Foster ranch in Corona, New Mexico, found hundreds of strange metal pieces spread across his field one summer morning. The mysterious pieces were of a strange material, some of them engraved with odd purple symbols, similar to Egyptian hieroglyphics. Mac wasn’t sure what to do about the mess in his field. After calling out both the Roswell sheriff and the Roswell fire department, they agreed that Mac should call the Roswell Army Air Force base to look at the pieces and decide what to do with them. Mac called the base, and Major Jesse Marcel was sent to investigate. The major drove out to the Foster ranch, gathered some of the pieces, and brought them back to the base.
After the military examined the strange metal, the base commander ordered a press release, stating that the U.S. government had captured a flying disk. As Major Marcel tells it, the military soon changed its mind about what the public should know about the discovered extraterrestrial materials. They said it was all a big mistake—it had only been a broken-up weather balloon found in the field that day. Immediately after, hundreds of military men surrounded the crash site and removed every piece of debris they could find, including what some say was a crashed disk. In the following days, Major Marcel was asked to pose for photos holding up flimsy material from a broken weather balloon for the newspaper, to prove the first story about a flying saucer was an error. Major Marcel would later say the materials he was photographed holding were not what he had recovered in the debris field.
Some of the children in Corona and Roswell also came forward to say that they had seen the strange metal with purple markings. Frankie Rowe, the daughter of the fire chief in Roswell, and Jesse Marcel Jr., Major Marcel’s son, both said they had touched the mysterious pieces. They also told stories about the people in town being pressured by the military not to speak of the incident as a matter of national security. Other witnesses claimed to have seen the actual disk, and a few even said they saw the mysterious creatures themselves. There have been retired military officers who have come forward years later to say that some of the creatures actually survived and were brought to a secure base to be studied.
Back in 1947, there seemed to be a lot of UFO sightings, both before and after the Roswell crash. Some believe it was because of the nuclear bomb detonation that was happening on Earth at the time. In fact, the 509th Bomb Group in Roswell was the base responsible for the two bombs dropped in Japan at the end of World War II, and they had also done a lot of bomb testing in the desert. At the time, the government didn’t believe the nuclear materials would harm our planet or the planets in our solar system, but we now know that’s not true. It’s believed by some people that advanced beings from other worlds may have understood the damage we were causing the universe and traveled to Earth to see what we were up to.
President Truman was the first president to have to deal with UFOs publicly. During his presidency, many government agencies were formed, including the CIA and the NIA, to control what they thought should be secret information. Additional government projects were formed to investigate what was happening in our skies, including Project Sign (1947), Project Grudge (1949), and Project Blue Book (1952). In the 1950s, a top-secret air force base called Area 51 was formed to create and test secret new aircraft. Some say that this is where the military brought the Roswell disk to study it and learn about their advanced technology. It is the opinion of a select few that this may have been how we learned to create the technology that we use today.
And we know that the government continues to search our skies, after the U.S. Department of Defense revealed a long-secret government program in 2017 called the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program. This project, which cost $22 million, ran from 2007 to 2012 and investigated UFO sightings. The Department of Defense also shared a video of one secret sighting, as U.S. military pilots attempted to identify it.
They couldn’t.
Stories of strange creatures, advanced flying disks, and the possibility of life on other planets continue to intrigue and excite us—including the mysterious crash that happened in Corona, New Mexico, during the summer of 1947. Whatever it was made a big impact on the world, and yet still remains a mystery. Was it a downed weather balloon property of the U.S. military? Was it a spaceship filled with small beings from another world?
You’ll have to decide for yourself.
If you want to learn more about the Roswell incident, you can find additional details, witness interviews, government documents, and the original newspaper articles by visiting the International UFO Museum and Research Center in Roswell at roswellufomuseum.com/about-us or the National Archives at archives.gov/research/military/air-force/ufos.html. To learn more about our history of using atomic weapons, visit the National Museum of Nuclear Science and History at nuclearmuseum.org.
And if you’re interested in more extraterrestrial adventures, there are many wonderful fictional stories based on the Roswell incident. Some of my favorites include the television show Roswell and Steven Spielberg’s miniseries Taken, and J. J. Abrams’s movie Super 8 has a reference to the Roswell crash.
I am so grateful to have been given the opportunity to write with Crown Books for Young Readers. I have met so many amazing people and learned so much along this journey. Thank you to you all, including the dedicated teachers, the enthusiastic librarians, the passionate booksellers, and especially the kids I have had the privilege to meet. I’ve loved the opportunity to connect with each of you to talk about the amazing power of story. This has been a dream come true for me, and I am thankful to everyone who has been a part of the adventure.
Laurie McLean, superagen
t with Fuse Literary. Many thanks for your patience and guidance and for always being just a phone call away.
Emily Easton, Samantha Gentry, Kathy Dunn, and all the wonderful people at Penguin Random House. Thank you for your support, enthusiasm, dedication, and commitment to sharing my stories with so many. It’s such a privilege for me to be a part of your team.
Kelly Easton, author, teacher, friend. Thank you for sharing your expertise, guidance, and encouragement. You have been an incredible mentor for me along this journey.
My family and friends, it has meant the world to me to see your excitement, love, and support as I pursue this new writerly life. Thank you for your kindness.
And last, Tobin, my very own little superhero. You continue to shape and inspire me to find the courage to reach in directions I never thought I would. You are what I’m most grateful for every single day.
Melissa Savage is the author of Lemons and a child and family therapist. Even though she’s never actually seen a Bigfoot or a Martian in person, Melissa loves to learn and write about the mystery of cryptozoology for children. She lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota. You can follow Melissa on Twitter at @melissadsavage, and visit her at melissadsavage.com.
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The Truth About Martians Page 24