Fiction The PACE ROC What would you do Ô S K CONTEXT CLUES What do you think if a rock worth $7 million a ghost town is? landed in your yard? By Roland Smith | Art by Gary Hanna

e live on a farm near the town of Rock Creek. My daddy was born and raised on the farm. So was his daddy and his daddy’s daddy. I guess you could say we’ve been here just about forever, tryin’ to make a go of it. It’s hard, though. Lots of folks have Wgiven up and moved away, sayin’ Rock Creek would be a ghost town soon. Daddy laughed at that. “Ghosts make fine enough neighbors,” he said. “All I ever wanted was this farm and a good family. I’m staying put.” The day the rock fell from outer space, I was feelin’ sorta blue. It was the Thanksgiving holiday and the truck was busted, so we couldn’t go nowhere. Mama and Daddy were worried about money. My sister had a new boyfriend. My twin brother was in our room sleepin’. I moped into the kitchen and found Mama cleanin’ the cupboards out. That’s what she always did when we had money troubles. You don’t bother Ô Mama when she’s cleanin’ the cupboards. I went to my sister’s room. She IDENTIFYING A PROBLEM was on her bed talking on the phone. She told me to git. What does sorta UP I wandered outside to the barn to talk to Daddy, but he was talkin’ to Characters’ Motivation In this story, blue mean? Why CLOSE does Karl feel a family has to make an important decision. his truck. You don’t disturb Daddy when he’s talkin’ to his truck. I walked that way? Think about why they make the choice they do. back outside and called The Dog (that’s his real name). He didn’t come. AMERICANSPIRIT/DREAMSTIME.COM (FARM); DORN1530/SHUTTERSTOCK.COM (GHOST TOWN) (GHOST DORN1530/SHUTTERSTOCK.COM (FARM); AMERICANSPIRIT/DREAMSTIME.COM

10 STORYWORKS STORYWORKS.SCHOLASTIC.COM • DECEMBER 2017 / JANUARY 2018 11 See how it was? Just one of those blue wintery days that go on forever. eople came by every day. Reporters, scientists, people from town. Ô I walked down to the frozen creek where I found The Dog sittin’ under Sometimes they showed up in the middle of the night. “I know it’s kind of AUTHOR’S CRAFT Ô CHARACTER How does the an oak tree starin’ up at a tired raccoon. I grabbed his collar and pulled him Plate,” they’d say. “But we just drove 800 miles to see your meteorite . . . ” author help you away and told him he shouldn’t be chasin’ poor ol’ raccoons. Daddy never complained. He would just smile and take them to the barn, What kind of people are Mama hear what happens We were standin’ there, The Dog and me, when I heard it. where we had put the big rock. And if they seemed hungry, Mama fed them. and Daddy? in the following Boom! Then whump-whump-whump like a flat tire, but louder. Something I started writing a poem about our rock from outer space. lines? passed overhead—like a thundercloud moving a million miles an hour. There’s a space rock in our barn Bam! Thunk-thunk-thunk. that fell to Earth upon our farm. Next came a deep quiet, like the Earth and everything on it was holdin’ I didn’t get very far because Daddy couldn’t seem to make up his mind its breath. I looked down at my hand. I still held The Dog’s collar, but The about what to do with it. We’d find him sittin’ in the barn for hours at a time Dog was no longer in it. He had wiggled loose, and I hadn’t even noticed. just starin’ at the rock all quiet and serious. It weighed 937 pounds and 4 ounces and pretty much everybody wanted y legs were shakin’ so bad I barely made it up the bank. I heard Mama to buy it. Someone offered Daddy 2 million dollars, then someone else offered and Daddy hollerin’ for me, but I was too tongue-tied to holler back. 3 million. Then a man in a big black limousine said he’d pay 5 million. Daddy M Mama was the first to reach me. “What happened?” just smiled. “That’s an awful lot of money, sir, but I think I’ll have to pass.” I still couldn’t seem to talk. I pointed at the brown gash in the snow that Sister and Brother said he was just holdin’ out for a better price. I wasn’t so covered the back field. sure. I had a feelin’ he had something different on his mind. Ô Daddy showed up, huffin’ and puffin’. He looked at me. “You OK?” My sister came along next, shivering, rubber boots up to her bony knees. e did make money selling tiny meteorites. Brother said that when a “What did you do?” meteorite falls, little chunks of rock fly off and scatter all around. He Ô I was still pointing. Daddy stared at the gash layin’ across the field, then he W talked Daddy into buying a couple of metal detectors. We went out FIGURATIVE started following it. We followed a few steps behind. The gash ended at what every day and roamed the farm, picking up buckets of little stars. LANGUAGE looked like a large black rock, half buried in the frozen dirt. About three months after the big rock fell, Daddy called us into the barn. Why does Karl call “Airplane must have broke up,” Daddy said. “Lucky it didn’t hit the house.” Sittin’ on the rock was a little white wooden box with a small slit in the top. the meteorites “little stars”? “Lucky it didn’t hit Karl,” Mama said. She and Daddy stared at me with Brother picked it up and shook it. “It’s empty. And the lid’s nailed shut.” a peculiar look. Suddenly, Daddy picked me up and held me tight like he “That’s right.” Daddy said. Then he turned to us all. “Let’s go for a walk.” hadn’t done since I was a little boy. I didn’t try to wriggle free. We traipsed through the crunchy snow to the back field. “If that meteorite “Space rock,” Brother said. We hadn’t even seen him walk up. He yanked had gone a thousand yards farther,” Daddy said, “it would have landed on the Write your own off one of his mittens with his teeth and pulled a magnet out of his pocket. Johnsons’ place. Two miles north, it would have landed right smack in the question about anything on (Only Brother would have a magnet in his pocket.) He got down on his knees. middle of town.” He shook his head sadly. “That could have been real bad.” these pages! “Don’t touch that,” Mama said. He looked at us all in turn. “But that meteorite fell on our land,” he said. He ignored her and stuck the magnet on the rock. The magnet stood “And now a museum wants to pay us 7 million dollars for it.” straight up like a soldier at attention. “Meteorite,” he said. That was too much money for us to wrap our minds around. Ô “A meteor?” Daddy asked in amazement. “We got two choices,” Daddy said. “We can sell it, or we can keep it.” CHARACTER “Meteor-ite,” Brother corrected him. “Meteors are what you see streaking “We can’t keep it,” Mama said. “I like meeting new people, but we can’t What do these across the sky. When they hit the Earth’s atmosphere, they break up and have them coming here at all hours of the day and night.” details tell you become meteorites. There was a meteor shower last night. That’s why I was up Daddy smiled at her. “I agree. What I propose, if we decide to keep it, is about Brother? so late. I bet I saw a thousand of them.” to move the meteorite into town. This rock has already brought lots of visitors Ô We all looked up at the winter sky. Then Brother pointed to the space to Rock Creek, and they’re still comin’. The mayor said it’s been mighty good CHARACTER’S rock. “What are you going to do with it?” business for the hotel and all the stores. She said they’ll build a little museum MOTIVATION “I’ll have to pull it out,” Daddy said. “I hope it don’t break the tractor.” around our rock and we can go see it anytime we want.” Why does Daddy propose to move Brother chuckled. “I don’t think you’re going to have to worry about the “And we would get nothing?” Sister asked. the meteorite tractor anymore. That meteorite is probably worth a million dollars.” “Rock Creek is broke,” Daddy said. “They can’t afford to pay us.” He into town?

Daddy stared at Brother like he had lost his mind. ISTOCK/GETTY IMAGES (DOG); SHUTTERSTOCK.COM (ALL OTHER PHOTOS) looked at Brother. “How many of those little meteorites have we sold?”

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“Close to 600,” Brother answered. “We have at least twice that many left.” INFORMATIONAL TEXT Ô Daddy looked back at Sister. “You got yourself a car?” INFERENCE How did Karl and “Yes, sir.” his family get a Daddy looked at Mama. “You got yourself some new cupboards?” Treasures From car, cupboards, “They’re beauties,” Mama answered. and a telescope? Daddy looked at Brother. “You got yourself that telescope?” Outer Space Brother nodded. Then Daddy looked at me. “And as soon as summer comes To some, these homely rocks are we’re gonna put an addition on the house?” This moon “A room of my own,” I said. worth a fortune By Tod Olson rock is one of the most valuable “We’ve paid down what we owe on the farm,” Daddy went on. “We’ve kinds of saved money for college. My truck is fixed. The point is that the meteorite has very year, Moon Chunk meteorites. done us a lot of good.” He looked down and kicked at the dirt. Then he looked thousands of Most meteorites are up. “I believe that getting what you need out of something is better than getting rocks from space chunks of asteroids, all that you can out of something.” E fall to Earth. Most which are rocky objects None of us said a word. burn up before they get that float around our “But it’s not just up to me,” he said. “The space rock belongs to the whole through Earth’s atmosphere, solar system. A much Ô family. Here’s what we’re gonna do.” He handed each of us a tiny meteorite and the layer of gases that smaller number are INFERENCE kept one for himself. “Go to the barn one at a time. If you think we surrounds our planet. pieces of the moon What might Karl, should keep the space rock in town, put your meteorite in the box. I’ll go last. But some survive the or Mars. They come in Brother, Sister, If there aren’t five meteorites in there, we’ll sell the big rock, no questions asked.” heat. They crash down in all sizes—from coin-sized and Mama be thinking about Brother went first, then me, Sister, and Mama. Then we sat in the kitchen forests, streets, and yards. pieces to boulders too heavy right now? waiting. Finally, Daddy came in. He set the box down and pried the lid off, then They are known as to lift. Some without lookin’ he reached inside and pulled out the first meteorite. meteorites, and there So how can you tell meteorites “One,” we all said out loud. He reached in again. are thousands of them if a rock is a plain stone have unique “thumbprint” “Two . . . three . . . four . . .” scattered all around the or an alien treasure? Most dents in their Daddy felt around inside the box, pulled his hand out and opened it. globe. Think of meteorites meteorites look more or less surfaces. Ô “Five,” he said quietly. as alien treasures hidden like regular Earth rocks. But THEME Find a sentence There’s a space rock in our barn among the common rocks of meteorites are usually far most valuable meteorites. A Daddy says on this that fell to Earth upon our farm. our planet. heavier than regular rocks 4-pound chunk of the moon page that means the People came from near and far Meteorites their size. They stick to sold in 2012 for $330,000. same thing as these to see our piece of shooting star. from Mars, magnets. They often have But people spend tens of lines. like this one, are In the end we had to free it worth more than unique glittering flecks, thousands of dollars even for because our family didn’t need it. 20 times their grooves, and stripes. small meteorites. ART DIRECTORS & TRIP/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO (MARS METEORITE); DETLEV VAN RAVENSWAAY/SCIENCE SOURCE SOURCE RAVENSWAAY/SCIENCE DIRECTORS & TRIP/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO (MARS METEORITE); DETLEV VAN ART PRESS RM/GETTY IMAGES (THUMBPRINT METEORITE) RAVENSWAAY/PICTURE (MOON ROCK); DETLEV VAN weight in There’s a space rock in our town— gold. Only experts can tell Why? Meteorite collector it stopped the ghosts from coming around. the difference, by Naveen Jain has an answer People come from miles away examining what the to that question. His to see the rock that will always stay. n rocks are made of. collection of space rocks is The rarer the worth more than $8 million. WRITE TO WIN meteorite, the more “You’re holding something Imagine you are Karl. Write a letter to the mayor of Rock Creek, telling her money it’s worth. Only nobody can get to,” he told your decision about the space rock and why you made that choice. Send about 500 rocks from WIRED magazine. “How it to “Rock Contest” by February 1, 2018. Ten winners will each receive a FIND AN the moon or Mars exist many people can say they’ve ACTIVITY on Earth, and they are the touched Mars?” n copy of Cryptid Hunters by Roland Smith. See page 2 for details. ONLINE! CREDITS TK SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

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