The Space Rock

We live on a farm near the town of Rock Creek. My daddy grew up on the farm. So did his daddy and his daddy’s daddy.

We’ve been here just about forever, tryin’ to make a go of it. It’s hard,  though. Lots of folks have given up and moved away. They say Rock Creek will be a ghost town soon.

Daddy isn’t leaving. “All I ever wanted was this farm and a good family. I’m staying put,” he said.

The day the rock fell from outer space, I was feelin’ sorta blue. It was the Thanksgiving holiday but we couldn’t go nowhere. The truck was busted. We couldn’t fix it because Mama and Daddy were having money troubles.

I was outside when I heard it.

Boom! Then whump-whump-whump like a flat tire, but louder.

Something passed overhead. It was like a thundercloud moving a million miles an hour.

Bam! Thunk-thunk-thunk!

Then it was quiet, like the Earth and everything on it was holdin’ its breath.

I heard Mama and Daddy yellin’ for me. I was too tongue-tied to yell back.

Mama was the first to reach me. “What happened?”

I still couldn’t talk. I pointed at the brown gash covering the back field.

Daddy showed up, huffin’ and puffin’. He looked at me. “You OK?” I was still pointing. Daddy walked over to the gash layin’ across the field and followed it. We were a few steps behind. The gash ended at what looked like a large black rock. It was half buried in the dirt.

“Airplane must have broke up,” Daddy said. “Lucky it didn’t hit the house.”

“Lucky it didn’t hit Karl,” Mama said. She and Daddy stared at me with an odd look. Suddenly, Daddy picked me up and held me tight. He hadn’t done that since I was a little boy.

“Space rock,” my twin brother said. We hadn’t even seen him walk up. He pulled a magnet out of his pocket.

He stuck the magnet on the rock. The magnet stood up like a soldier at attention. “Meteorite,” he said.

“A meteor?” Daddy asked.

“Meteor-ite,” Brother corrected him. “Meteors are what you see shooting across the sky. When they hit Earth’s atmosphere, they break up and become meteorites. There was a meteor shower last night. I bet I saw a thousand of them.”

“What are you going to do with it?” Mama asked Daddy.

“I’ll have to pull it out,” Daddy said. “I hope it don’t break the tractor.”

Brother laughed. “I don’t think you’re going to have to worry about the tractor anymore. That meteorite is probably worth a million dollars.”

Daddy stared at Brother as if he had lost his mind.

The rock weighed 937 pounds. People came by every day to see it. Reporters, scientists, people from town. Some people traveled from other states.

Daddy would just smile and take them to the barn, where we had put the big rock.

Pretty much everybody wanted to buy it. We did make money selling tiny meteorites. But people wanted the whole rock. Someone offered Daddy 2 million dollars for it. Then someone else offered 3 million. A man in a big black limousine said he’d pay 5 million. Daddy just smiled. “That’s a lot of money, sir, but I think I’ll pass.”

About three months after the rock fell, Daddy called us into the barn. Sittin’ on the rock was a little white wooden box with a small slit in the top. Brother picked it up and shook it. “It’s empty. And the lid’s nailed shut.”

“That’s right,” Daddy said. Then he turned to us all. “Let’s go for a walk.”

We followed him to the back field. Then he looked at us. “A museum wants to pay us 7 million dollars for the rock.”

None of us said a word.

“We got two choices,” Daddy said. “We can sell it, or we can keep it.”

“We can’t keep it,” Mama said. “We can’t have people here all the time.”

Daddy smiled. “I agree. But if we decide to keep it, I suggest we move the meteorite into town. This rock is bringin’ lots of visitors to Rock Creek. The mayor said the hotel and the stores are makin’ money from all the guests. She said they’ll build a little museum around our rock.”

“But we would get nothing?” Brother asked.

“Rock Creek is broke,” Daddy said. “They can’t afford to pay us.” He looked at Brother. “How many of those little meteorites have we sold?”

“Close to 600,” Brother answered. “And we have at least that many left.”

Daddy looked at Mama. “You got yourself a new kitchen?”

“I sure did,” Mama answered.

Daddy looked at Brother. “You got yourself that telescope?”

Brother nodded. Then Daddy looked at me. “And as soon as summer comes, we’ll put an addition on the house?”

“A room of my own,” I said.

“We’ve saved money for college,” Daddy said. “My truck is fixed. My point is that the meteorite has done us a lot of good. I believe that getting what you need out of something is better than getting all that you can out of something.

“But it’s not just up to me,” he continued. “Here’s what we’ll do.” He handed each of us a tiny meteorite and kept one for himself. “Go to the barn one at a time. If you want to keep the rock in town, put your meteorite in the box. I’ll go last. If there aren’t four meteorites in there, we’ll sell the rock.”

Brother went first, then me, then Mama. Then we waited in the kitchen. Finally, Daddy came in. He set the box down and pulled the lid off. Then without lookin’ he reached inside and pulled out the first meteorite.

“One,” we said. He reached in again.

“Two . . . three . . .”

Daddy felt around inside the box. He pulled his hand out and opened it.

“Four,” he said quietly.

I wrote a poem about our rock.

There’s a space rock in our barn

that fell to Earth upon our farm.

People came from near and far

to see our piece of shooting star.

In the end we had to free it

because our family didn’t need it.

There’s a space rock in our town—

it stopped the ghosts from coming around.

People come from miles away

to see the rock that will always stay.