The Last Hunter - Descent - Jeremy Robinson [4]
“Are there any G.I. Joes we haven’t melted?” he asks.
“A few.”
“Let’s go!” Justin dashes from the dining room and takes the stairs two at a time. “C’mon!” he shouts from the top.
“Go ahead,” mom says. “He has to go home in an hour. Mass starts at six in the morning.”
Saturday morning mass is something I never understood. It’s a sacred time. Not mass, mind you. Saturday mornings. A bowl of Cocoa Pebbles starts the morning. Starvengers, Gaiking, Robotech and more, followed by Creature Double Feature, which promises at least one Godzilla movie, fills my day until noon. It is a TV line-up so good that I am sure God skips mass for it too.
“May I be excused?” I ask with a sigh.
Dad chuckles. It’s the kind of chuckle that’s a substitute for calling someone stupid. I’ve heard the laugh enough to recognize the sound. “You don’t need to ask after we told you to go.”
I brush some of my long blond hair, which has garnered more than a few Einstein taunts, out of my face. Mom and Dad wear unreadable smiles. Like they know something I don’t. I hate that feeling—I’ve felt it every day of my life—so I slide off the chair, pick up the large, but light, volcano box and march it upstairs. When I hear mother giggle—just like the kids at school used to—a tear forms in my eye.
I’m such a wimp. No, wimp isn’t the word. That’s like calling someone a chicken. Means they’re afraid to fight—which also describes me—but that isn’t what I mean. Crybaby. That’s the word. One laugh from my mother and I’m all weepy. Of course, the laugh combined with the silly present confirms that they don’t take me seriously. And if they don’t take me seriously, they’ll never notice I’m not a kid anymore—if you ignore the fact that I’m about to bury a bunch of action figures in a miniature volcano—and that means they’ll never reveal the mysteries surrounding my birth. I’m not sure why the day I was born interests me so much. You don’t hear other kids asking about when they were born. But there is something in me, something raw, which longs to know more.
As I near the top of the stairs I wipe my eyes dry and focus on the soft rug lining the stairs. It feels squishy beneath my socks. I find it comforting. Through the banister rungs I see Justin hunkering over a fishing lure case filled with odd toys. I scuff my feet, sliding sock against rug. I walk like that all the way to the bedroom doorway.
“Put out your hand,” I say.
Justin does.
I reach out a single finger and touch it to Justin’s palm. A tiny blue arch of electricity zaps between us with a sharp crack. Justin yelps and flinches away, knocking over the box of toys. “Hey!” he shouts and then moves to retaliate with a finger flick.
I put the volcano box between us and raise an eyebrow.
Justin pauses. “Ugh, fine. Oh! I almost forgot.” He fishes into his pants pocket and pulls out a clear blue cassette tape. Then he closes the door. “My cousin made this for me. Said my mom wouldn’t let me listen to it.”
He puts the cassette into the shoebox sized tape-deck and hits play. Loud music, unlike anything I’ve heard before, fills the room.
I place the volcano box on the floor and let Justin tear into it. I sit down on the bed hearing the music, but not really listening. My eyes turn to the wall, where a five foot by five foot poster of Antarctica is tacked up. I’ve marked all the active United States bases—McMurdo, Amundsen-Scott, Palmer, Siple, Willard—as well as some of the larger foreign stations. A bright green circle marks one of the few bases that no longer functions: Clark. Snow and ice buried the site within a year of my birth. How does something like that happen? Even on Antarctica. Just another one of the mysteries no one seems to know anything about.
Though I haven’t been there since shortly after my birth, I miss the place. I’ve become an expert on the continent and hope to return when I’m old enough. There are so many interesting aspects of Antarctica I long to explore. The founder of Clark Station, Dr. Merrill Clark, is my personal hero.