Heroes

Author's Note: I wrote this trying to follow up on my "A Thousand Words"  [E] story. I think this piece is lacking something, but I can't figure out what.

Heroes

         It’s strange, the ways we choose our heroes.

         As a kid, I attended a small private school. It only taught up to the eighth grade; it was not a high school. As such, those eighth graders were the penultimate rulers of the playground. Younger children aspired to reach that lofty height, but not for the status. It was for the teacher. Perhaps every school has the same, one teacher who stands out, whose students truly adore him. He was ours.

         This teacher possessed the rarest of gifts. He could take the energy of relentless kids like us, harness it, direct it. He made learning fun. He showed us The Last of the Mohicans and Gettysburg for history class. We saw videos of the Challenger accident, of President Nixon’s resignation speech. We built catapults and models of the solar system for science projects.

         It wasn’t all work; every recess he quarterbacked football on the field behind the classroom. We took field trips to Disneyland and Washington, D.C. He coached our basketball team. But the one thing everyone looked forward to most, the highlight of the year, was the rocket launch. It was another science project. We had to construct a model rocket, which we’d launch from the aforementioned field. Grades were assigned, but for the life of me I can’t remember how—not that we cared. He’d given us a dream assignment.

         Launch day brought quite the assortment of rockets to that field. There was the smart kid with the multi-stage one that would go a thousand feet up. There were rockets that used parachutes, ones that would glide on little wings, and ones that would flutter down on propeller blades. There were trick ones that would spin on ascent, making a spiral smoke trail. Mine was a simple basic model, but I was as excited as the rest.

          The launches went well enough. A few fizzled. A couple crashed. But the highlight we’d been waiting for came last. One of the students had brought a rocket with a hollow capsule in the nose. He’d also brought a tiny female hamster to ride in it. It was all arranged; the parachute would bring the entire capsule down. We’d fallen in love with the idea. Here we had our own little astronaut.

         Tension grew as the moment approached. A grave council decided on a doubled countdown for this one. T-minus ten…three…two…one. The teacher mashed the button, but nothing happened. Misfire. The troubleshooting crew was called in, rushing in to examine the problem. The electrical leads had been misplaced; the motor never received the current. They fixed it, hurried out of the way. The countdown resumed.

         The audience crossed their fingers, held their breath. The shuttle leaped from the pad, carrying its precious cargo upward on a pillar of smoke. For a second, it climbed flawlessly. But then, it began to tilt. The motor was too small; it couldn’t lift the weight. We watched in fascination as it tipped, arcing over. It continued its parabolic path, plowing back into the field it had escaped not seconds before. The parachute never even had a chance to fire.

         I suppose it was over quickly. I couldn’t bring myself to go over and see the wreck, but I saw the reactions of those who could. We’d been prepared for this, too, just in case. The tiny coffin was produced, constructed of popsicle sticks and brown paint, a cross sketched on the cover in chalk. We laid our small pioneer inside, glued it shut. We even held a service, reading a few verses before burying her in a shallow hole hastily dug in the earth.

         She’d never had a chance, never a choice, our little martyr. She was volunteered, plucked out of the pet shop, sacrificed in the name of science. She didn’t even have a marker for her grave, buried in spot long since forgotten. But she carried our longings on her little shoulders, took the trip we never would.

         It’s strange, the ways we choose our heroes. She was ours.