StephenCrystal

Stephen looked down at just the right moment to see the bright shinny object that glittered like an orange diamond. When he dug it up out of the dirt, he saw that it only looked orange in the setting sun. When he turned around with it in his hand, it looked like a colorless glass. A diamond? It was as large as his fist so it couldn't be a diamond; even at eight years old Stephen knew that. Well, it was some kind of crystal.

Excited, Stephen yelled out, "Look what I found." When Mario and Billy came over and saw the big glass rock, Billy grabbed for it, but Stephen quickly put it into his pocket. "It's mine,” he said, “It's my treasure.”

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Two years later, Stephan waved good-by to his cousins, aunts and uncles. They were supposed to leave right after dinner, but the sky was dark before they finally pulled away for home. Stephen had been working with his new drawing program on his computer when they arrived, but he turned his computer off and closed his bedroom door when he heard his cousins yelling downstairs. Besides, it wouldn’t be polite to ignore company, even if it was just his cousins.

As he ran up the stairs now, he thought about how much he liked to draw. He was in a gifted art class in school. He felt proud, but worried. I think I want to be an artist, but what if I don’t? What if I want to be something else, like an scientist or architect or something?

At the top of the stairs, he turned left then opened his bedroom door.

"Oh, no."

His room was in a shambles. One of his cousin’s had turned his computer on. Lucky it was protected with a password. But his bed was messed up like someone had been jumping on it and his monopoly game had been thrown off the shelf. The box was open and the board and money was scattered all over the floor.

"I am going to get who ever did this." he said angrily. "Dad, mom," He called down the stairs, "Someone got into my games and messed up my room."

"You should have locked your door when you saw they were here." His father called up.

"I didn't think I needed to lock it just because some company was coming over." Stephen said and stomped his foot hard. He felt angry.

He went back into his bedroom to sit and frown at the mess. His five cousins could get real wild sometimes. He shrugged. Guess its up to me to pick it up.

He lifted the box for the monopoly game and then picked up the board off the floor. That was when he let out a real yell. "My crystal. My best treasure!"

His crystal lay broken in splinters on the floor. One small chunk, the size of a plumb, remained, the rest of his crystal was shattered into long pieces.

Instead of crying, Stephen pounded on his bed and pillow to let the anger out. Can't undo it now. Can’t put the pieces back together. It hurt real bad that his crystal was broken. He felt like crying.

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After a while he went into the bathroom to put his pajamas on. When he came out of the bathroom, he sat on the side of the bed kicking his feet. He put his head in his hands and squeezed his eyes shut and, "I'll get over it. God, please help me feel better." The upset still didn't want to go away. His stomach was still sick about his crystal. He looked down at the floor and saw his night light reflecting on the glass splinters that used to be his crystal. He was about to get up and turn the light off when he noticed something strange about the splinter pieces laying on the floor.

Ten long splinters lay on the floor along with some tiny pieces like broken glass. But there was something odd about their arrangement. Something is wrong with the way they are laying, but what? He asked himself.

He put his hand down and picked one of the slivers up. The sharp point slid into the end of his finger and blood came trickling out. Better get a bandage on it. He threw the piece back down on the floor and went downstairs to get a band-aid.

While his mother put the bandage on his finger, he thought again of the odd arrangement in which the crystals were laying. I must have been mistaken. As soon as his mother was done, he said goodnight to his mom and dad and hurried back upstairs with a handful of cookies and a glass of milk.

When he pushed through the door and looked at the crystal splinters laying on the floor, he was so surprised he put his milk and cookies down on the dresser and forgot about them.

"How can this be?" he spoke out loud into his room. All the crystal splinters were pointing in one direction.

He got down on his knees to look closer at the splinters. It's true. Even the piece he had thrown down after cutting his finger was pointed the same way. It still had a spot of blood on it. All ten splinters were angled in the same direction. North?

But that is impossible. Glass is not magnetic. Neither is any other mineral that looks like a crystal. Stephen had learned that much about minerals in school.

He tried a simple experiment. He took a pencil and moved the point of one of the glass splinters at right angel to the rest. When he lifted up the pencil, he watched in amazement as the tiny needle of a splinter moved back into place. As if it wanted to point north like all the other pieces.

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Wow. I have a real mystery. I can't wait to tell Mr. Nelson, my science teacher. Then he remembered that tomorrow was Saturday, no school. That means I will need to puzzle this out myself.

Well, the first question to ask is? “Are they really pointing north?” No, not really, north was towards the corner of his bedroom. The splinters were pointing to the window of his room as if they wanted to fly out. He walked over to the window and looked out as far as he could through the cold glass. Nothing there but empty fields covered in grass and weeds.

So what is could be causing the glass splinters point in one direction. Something must be out there. It is too dark to investigate right now, Stephen thought, but I will check it out first thing in the morning.

Before he went to bed, Stephen walked over to his book shelf and pulled down his field guide to minerals. With pieces broke off he could better determine the shape of the individual crystals. He knew that all minerals that made up a rock or crystal grew in certain shapes and patterns.

The book was small so he carried it to the table and got his magnifying glass before he knelt down next to the array of splinters on the floor. He checked which kind of angle shapes made up the crystal. Looked like a dipyramid shape, a pyramid on top and a pyramid on the bottom. This information might help pin point what kind of mineral made up the crystal. He flipped through the book looking for every mineral that was clear like glass. Then checked all their properties, but couldn't find anything that said glass or quartz could act like a magnet.

Satisfied he had a real mystery to solve, Stephen put the book back on the shelf. In bed, sleep didn't come right away because he was excited about what he might find in the morning. Then, just as he was about to go to sleep, a horrible thought caught at him. What if my mom comes in and cleans my bedroom before I wake up? All my evidence would be gone.

He jumped out of bed and grabbed his digital camera from the drawer. He took five pictures of the splinters laying on the floor, just in case. And wrote a note on loose leaf paper he dropped to the floor on top of the crystal pieces that said, "Do not clean." Then he put the only large piece he had left, so small it fit in his hand, into his pajama pocket for safe keeping.

Only then did he climb into bed to sleep. But sleep didn't come easy. His mind kept thinking about what force could be pulling the crystal pieces in one direction. Nothing on this earth, I'll bet.

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The next morning, the first thing he did after he woke up was to check the crystal splinters.

"Yes," he yelled. "They are laying in the same direction as last night."

He quickly put on his shirt an pants then put the remaining crystal piece in his right jean pocket and the small splinters in the left. He remembered to grab a tablet of paper as he ran out his bedroom door. A scientist needs to keep a record of what happens. Also the paper would keep the tiny splinters from getting lost in the weeds during the test.

Excited, he hurried down the stairs and out the back door.

"Steph, put on your coat." His mother yelled. "Where are you going so early?"

"Just to check something," he answered as he came back inside to grab his coat, threw his arms in to the sleeves, then ran out the back door and into the alley.

He stopped at the edge of the field, out of breath. What if something here is dangerous? He looked around. It was just an empty field, over grown with dried out yellow and brown weeds. A few spots of snow still lay on the ground, but mostly the snow was melted.

Stephen stomped on some of the weeds so he could lay the first piece of paper down on the ground. He then set one of the splinters on it. Next, he stepped across the field in five giant steps and put another piece of paper down with a splinter on it. By the time he was done, there were four pieces of white paper arraigned like a cross laying in the field.

Now it is time to check out the test. He walked back to all four sections and checked. Every piece was pointing towards the center. Stephen felt so proud. He picked up a stick and stuck it into the ground to mark the middle.

"Bulls eye." He said as he pushed the stick in. The crystal in his right pocket felt slightly warm so he reached in with his right hand and pulled it out to look at it. Seems ok.

He was so busy looking at his crystal, he didn't see the door that opened next to him until he looked up.

Then he gave a shout of surprise as he dropped the crystal back into his pocket.

A single door frame stood right next to him. It looked like a cartoon door. He'd never seen a door frame with nothing behind it before.

Stephen did what any curious person would do with a strange door frame standing in front of him, he stepped inside.

As soon as he entered he saw a long white hall and a strange person walking towards him. The figure stopped walking as if puzzled and motioned for Stephen to follow.

Stephen hesitated. Whoever this person was, it didn't look like anyone he had ever seen before. It had no hair, big black eyes, almost no mouth and very white skin. It didn't look normal. But the person was wearing jeans and a shirt. Well, that's sort of normal, isn't it? So, with only a slight pause, he decided to follow.

But suddenly, he felt scared because when he turned around, his house, the weeds and even the blue sky had all disappeared, as if someone had closed the door. He was standing inside a long white hallway leading away to where? Sort of like at the doctors office. The strange person had disappeared from view.

Oh, there it is again. Am I supposed to follow the person around the corner. Ok, why not? But the person was now walking towards him and shaking its head and moving his hands.

Then the figure stopped in front of Stephen and said, in a squeaky voice, "I am sorry. This is a mistake. You don't belong."

"But…but where am I?" Stephen said.

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Suddenly the crystal in his pocket felt more than warm, it felt hot; so, he pulled it out. It was shinning as if it had a light inside.

"Ah," said the figure, as if that explained everything.

As Stephen looked down in surprise at the glowing crystal, he said, "What is this place? Why did my crystal light up?"

The person sighed. "You are inside our habitat ship."

He must have seen that Stephen was still puzzled because he added, "Our time ship. We call it a habitat because it also serves as our living quarters."

"But who are you?'

The figure sighed again. Stephen could see its chest heave when it sighed just like his father did sometimes.

"My name is Joseph, Joe for short. Come. I will explain."

So Stephen followed Joseph down the white hall. They entered a large room with partitions separating desks and computers. Small rooms led off from the larger one. In the large room, Stephen could see a lot of people wearing different colored skin and hair and he almost laughed at how silly it looked, but didn't. The people were working hard at the computers and maybe they would get mad if he laughed. One person was wearing white cloths but his skin was cobalt blue. Stephen knew that must be a mistake, no one has blue skin. Another person looked normal, but his face looked like Stephen's second grade teacher except for the real big ears.

A lot of people were working at laboratory tables, doing experiments, he supposed. As they walked by one section with a large glass tank, Stephen had to stop and watch. A big tube with pink beads was squirting out into the air above the tank. Fish were jumping up from the water to grab the pink beads. Must be feeding time.

Joe nodded at Stephen.

"Wow! This place must have a hundred computers." Stephen exclaimed.

Like a city of computers, but they weren’t like his computer at home. Joe stopped at one large computer screen so Stephen could watch the person (who's skin looked yellow) talk into the computer. He was talking to it like Kirk on Star Trek. They stopped at another computer screen that had a close up view of Mars, but this Mars had a figure in a space suit walking on it's surface. So it couldn’t be Mars, could it?

"Yes, it is Mars," the person, a normal looking human, who was sitting in front of the screen said.

"But how did you know I wanted to know that?"

The person smiled at him and then went back to looking at the screen.

Stephen followed Joe back to a small half enclosure where there was a long wall filled with computer screens of all sizes. A lot of people were sitting at the computers and talking to them in low voices.

Joe walked up to one person, normal except he had green skin and orange hair, who turned from the screen.

"Please let me see your crystal?" Joe said.

Stephan handed over his crystal to Joe. It was still glowing. Joe gave it to the green person in front of the large computer screen. The person lay the crystal down on a pad in front of the screen then a lot of letters and numbers began scrolling down the screen. They heard a soft beep and the screen stopped. The person turned and looked at Joe. They stood looking at each other for a minute. Stephan imagined they might be speaking mind to mind.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After Joe spoke, he knew he was right, they had been talking about his crystal.

Joe said, "This crystal belongs to one of our field workers who has been gone for a very long time."

He handed the crystal back to Stephan and said, Please tell me where you found it."

"That's easy. In an dug up field. After the city tore down a burnt up house and garage us kids were playing around in the dirt. I looked down, and found the crystal."

"Was it in this neighborhood?"

"Yah, here on Theodore."

Joe looked very sad for a minute. Then said, "You are very young." He frowned and it made his face look silly with his big eyes and small mouth. Then Joe said, "Do you know if the 1968 riots spread into this neighborhood?"

"My dad talks about the riots all the time. He was just a kid, but he saw the National Guard march right down Warren."

"Is it true that the riots harmed people with dark skin?"

"Yah, sure."

"I see."

"Could you please tell me what you see?"

"Yes, we owe you an explanation. You see the field worker was wearing dark skin."

Stephen gave Joe a puzzled look.

Joe explained further. "We are from earth's future. We are here to study your society. We have been here for a while. Our field workers can get permission to go into different time periods. We disguise ourselves like the period we visit so we don't scare anyone.

Joe hung his head and his eyes looked very sad. "We now suspect that our worker is lost to us forever. He will never rejoin us in the ship."

"How can you be so sure." Stephen whispered because he felt sorry for Joe who looked very sad now.

"The crystal you found was his signature."

"Signature? Stephen thought for a minute, then smiled. "I understand. Each person has their name put in the crystal so that when they get here, the door will open. Our government can do that with finger prints."

"Yes, his imprint was inside your crystal."

Joe seemed overwhelmed by his grief. Stephen couldn't help adding, "I am sorry." And handed the crystal out to Joe, "I guess you can have it back."

Joe shook his head, "There is no need now. We have removed our field worker's signature from the crystal. "You may keep it."

Stephen looked down and the crystal was cold now. The light was gone too. "Thanks."

"I will lead you out now. Please follow me."

Stephen followed Joe who still looked sad. Maybe the man who died was a very good friend. It wasn't a good time to speak so he followed Joe back to the door quietly and without comment.

"Good-by Stephan. Keep studying hard. One day you may be the one who designs a ship such as this one, a time ship. Joe smiled a big, sad grin then gave Stephen a slight push out the door frame.

Suddenly, Joe and the whole ship disappeared as if it had never been there at all. Stephen looked around and searched the ground for evidence that the time ship was still there. Nothing. He walked over to the pieces of paper and checked his test again. This time when he moved a crystal splinter, it didn't move back. Now Stephen felt sad. The magnet effect was gone.

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He walked away from the field, down the alley and back to his house. No one will ever believe me. He tried to tell his mother. He said, “Mom guess where I was. Mom just moved her eye up as if she was sort of interested.

Stephen blurted out, “I went into the field next door to the house and went into a space ship, no, a time ship, and met people working and studying us and….”

Suddenly, he run down with words because he could see that his mother was grinning as if he was playing with her again.

“No, really. Really.”

Stephen stopped because knew better then to push the truth on his parents when they weren’t ready to hear it. He had learned that lesson long ago. Now he was stuck with knowing something that no one else in the world knew, and he couldn’t tell anyone.

Stephen looked down at the one crystal piece in his hand. Determined to keep it safe, he went upstairs and put it in his secret hideout behind the wall. The next time one of his cousins came over they’d never find it.

Every once in a while, as he grew up, he would walk over to the field, stand in the same middle spot, and wave hello to the empty air. As the flew by with study he sometimes thought he might have dreamt the whole thing up.

One day, when he was grown up and going to Wayne State University, he decided to redecorate his bed room. He found the piece of crystal in his old hideout. This time he showed it to the science instructor at the college. The instructor knew a mineralogist who checked it out too. The mineralogist was astounded when he looked at it with his magnifier. Then he did tests on it.

Stephen learned that his crystal fragment was made up of arrangements of minerals never found on earth before. A photo of his crystal was put in the field book on rocks and minerals. The new type of mineral was named, StephenCrystal in his honor. Stephen remembered, but didn’t tell anyone about the crystal. He knew that no one would ever find another sample of Stephencrystal in the ground. Not unless, someone from the future dropped another one.

The End

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