by Linda Urban
A movie star? Max’s stomach got the lumpy-oatmeal feeling again. He remembered the Big Buckaroo. And his conversation with Glenn. And how he was going to have to choose one explorer and leave out the rest. And he remembered a couple of other things too, even though he didn’t want to.
“Is there something wrong?” asked Mom.
Max shook his head. Then he nodded. “How do you make a difficult decision?”
“That depends,” said Mom. “What kind of difficult decision?”
Max told Mom about his explorers and how awesome they all were and how choosing one felt like saying the others weren’t as good.
“Hmm,” said Mom. Even though she and Dad did not live together anymore, they still did some stuff the same, like making a hmm sound when they were thinking hard about important things. “When I have that kind of difficult decision, I make a list.”
Max was not surprised. Mom loved lists. The refrigerator always had two or three long yellow list papers stuck to it. Grocery Lists and Errand Lists and Don’t Forget Lists.
Mom pulled her yellow list-making paper out from under a stack of scrapbooks. “I write down all the good and bad things about each of my options. For example, I’ve been trying to figure out where to stop for dinner on our way to Pennsylvania.” She showed Max a page. There were restaurant names across the top. Under each name were notes about how far away it was and what kind of food it had and how much fun it would be to eat there.
“Which one did you choose?” asked Max.
“Well, each one had good points, but I wasn’t sure what the deciding factor was … until just now.” Mom circled the restaurant that had FUN written in big capital letters. “I had fun taking photos with you. I think for this trip, fun wins. What do you think?”
“I think I’d like to borrow some of that paper,” said Max.
Max went to his bedroom. He turned to a fresh page in Mom’s yellow list-making pad. At the top, he wrote all the explorers’ names. Underneath, he listed their Feats Accomplished and Discoveries Made. He wrote down the cool things they did and the obstacles they overcame and how well they met their goals.
They were all pretty much the same. All of the explorers had cool facts and discoveries and feats. And all of them had reached their goals. Except Ernest Shackleton.
Shackleton’s first big goal was to reach the South Pole before anyone else. But he didn’t.
His second big goal was to walk across Antarctica, but he didn’t do that, either. In fact, Shackleton’s try at walking across Antarctica almost got him and his crew killed. Their ship got crushed by ice and they didn’t have enough food or warm clothes and they almost froze.
Which was when Shackleton picked just a couple of guys and they got in a lifeboat and went looking for help. They paddled through ice storms and walked for days and climbed an ice mountain and had to slide down a huge snow cliff and could hardly take another step when they finally found a bunch of whaling guys. And then Shackleton went back with the whaling guys and rescued the rest of his crew. And nobody died. And nobody got left behind.
Max felt his spine tingle. He felt his toes tap.
He knew Ernest Shackleton was the right explorer for his Inspiration Celebration speech.
And he knew something else, too.
Chapter
Five
Max ran back into the kitchen. “I have an announcement,” he said.
Mom set down her list-making pen. She gave Max her full attention. This made it a little harder for him to make his announcement, but he did it anyway.
“We can’t leave Dad behind,” said Max. “We have to bring him on our road trip.”
Mom stayed quiet. Max stayed quiet too. Then Mom said, “Oh, kiddo. Have you been worrying about this all day?”
Max thought about it. He did not think he had been worrying about it, but maybe, someplace in his stomach, he had been.
“Sit.” Mom pulled Max’s chair up close to hers and patted it. Max sat. “You know Dad and I can’t really go on vacation together anymore, right?”
Max didn’t want to know, but he did. They had talked about this sort of thing when Dad had first moved out of the house and into a room at Grandma’s. They had talked about it again when Dad had gotten his own apartment and when Max first went to spend the weekends there.
“It’s one of those things that you guys aren’t very good at anymore,” said Max.
“That’s true,” said Mom. “But you know what is also true? We are both very, very good at loving you. We want you to do fun things, even when one of us can’t be there to do them with you.”
“Like how when I’m with Dad, you want me to eat pizza and walk Ms. Tibbet’s basset hounds?”
“I especially want you to walk basset hounds,” said Mom.
“And Dad wants me and you to go see Great-Great-Aunt Victory and …”
“And Bronco Burt’s Wild West arcade and the Big Buckaroo,” said Mom. “Okay?”
“Okay,” said Max. But he still did not feel all-the-way okay.
“Is there something else you want to talk about?” asked Mom.
Max nodded. There was something else … someone else. Someone handsome.
“What’s so great about the Big Buckaroo?” said Max.
“The Big Buckaroo? What’s not great?” Mom counted on her fingers. “Tall. Fast. Wild. Loopy.”
Max understood why it might be good for a movie-star guy to be tall and fast and maybe even wild. But loopy?
“Wait. I have a picture.” Mom sifted through the stacks of books and papers and craft supplies and pulled out a small red scrapbook. She put it in front of Max and opened it to the first page. There was a photograph of a girl with sproingy ponytails standing next to a painting of a cartoon horse. The horse had a sign on it that said HOLD IT, PARDNER! YOU MUST BE THIS TALL TO SADDLE UP!
“The Big Buckaroo is a horse?” said Max.
“Nope.” Mom turned the page. There was a photo of the same girl sitting in a bright blue seat with a bright blue bar across her lap. Next to the photo was a postcard of a tall, fast, wild, loopy roller coaster!
“The Big Buckaroo was the first roller coaster I ever went on,” said Mom.
Max looked at the picture of the girl. “That’s you?” he said. Max knew that Mom used to be a kid, but most of the time he forgot. Most of the time, Mom seemed like she must always have been exactly the same as she was now.
“That’s me,” said Mom. “I was eight years old. And look—” She flipped back to the first photo. “I wasn’t really tall enough to ride.”
The girl in the photo was standing on her tiptoes, making her just tall enough to reach the measuring line on the sign. “You cheated!” said Max.
“I guess I did.” Mom laughed.
“Do you think I’m as big as you were?” asked Max.
“In some ways, pal, you are a much bigger kid than I ever had to be.” The way she said it made Max feel like he was a lot older than nine.
“Will you take a picture of me with the Big Buckaroo?” asked Max.
“Absolutely,” said Mom. “Will you take one of me?”
Max nodded. He would take one of them together. “Can we send my picture to Dad?”
“Of course,” said Mom. “And you’ll see him, the same as always, the next weekend. Okay?”
Max thought about that. It was okay. Even Shackleton had to go away from his crew in order to come back and get them, right? That’s what Max would do. He and Mom would go off and have their adventure and then Max would come home and tell Dad all about it.
That gave Max one more great idea.
He pulled out his scrapbook page. He found his black marker. Above the picture of himself and Mom, he drew one large thought bubble with two tiny bubble trails coming out of each of their heads. Inside the bubble he wrote, Adventure, here we come!
Chapter
One
Max’s spine tingled. His toes tapped. Only two more speakers, and then Mrs. Maloof would c
all him to the front of the room to read his speech.
Even though it was only the dress rehearsal for the Inspiration Celebration, Max was super excited. His Shackleton costume was perfect. His speech was perfect. Everything was perfect. The only thing that was not perfect was waiting his turn.
“Are you nervous?” asked Glenn. He was staring at Max’s tapping toes.
“Explorers don’t get nervous,” said Max. He patted the name badge Mom had stitched onto his winter parka: MAXELTON, ANTARCTIC EXPLORER. He was wearing a pair of furry mittens he had found in the basement and some furry boots, too. The boots were Mom’s and kind of big and they made him walk funny, but Max did not mind. He figured that Antarctic explorers probably walked pretty funny themselves when they were trudging through the deep, deep snow.
Nope. Max was not nervous at all. But he was a little hot in his explorer gear. He unzipped his parka and put his mittens in his pocket with his speech. He waited. Only two more speakers.
At the front of the room, Zuri Gabriel was telling about Anna Pavlova, a ballerina from Russia who was such a good dancer that people named a dessert after her. Zuri did a tiptoe spin and held her speech paper high, so she had to tilt her head up to read it. “This summer I am going to have a ballet recital in my Uncle Teshome’s garage.”
That was the last line of her speech, Max knew. The line where she was supposed to say what sort of thing her biography person had inspired her to do. Mrs. Maloof called it the Declaration of Inspiration. Max’s was Someday, I am going to be a great explorer, just like Ernest Shackleton.
Zuri spun again. The whole class applauded.
“Wow,” said Warren.
“Wow,” agreed Max.
“I’m going to moonwalk off stage,” said Glenn, who was not applauding because he was holding his astronaut helmet with both hands. The helmet was part of an official astronaut suit that Glenn’s mom had bought at an official gift shop from an official space museum. His name badge said GLENN because that was also the last name of the official astronaut Glenn’s speech was about.
“Thank you, Zuri,” said Mrs. Maloof. She said it in her best speaking voice because she was rehearsing too. In a dress rehearsal, everything was supposed to be exactly like it would be at the real performance. “Next, we will hear from Warren Sistrunk, who has selected Jacques Cousteau as his subject.”
Max gave Warren a thumbs-up, because that was the kind of friends they were. He watched Warren walk to the front of the classroom. He was wearing a black turtleneck and a red knit cap and square swimming goggles. On his back he had a pretend oxygen tank that he and his dad had made out of a plastic soda bottle and some tubing.
Warren pretended to take a breath from his oxygen tank. “The most inspiring biography I read during Biography Month was called Manfish,” he said. Warren sounded great. And his Declaration of Inspiration sounded even greater: “At camp this summer, I’m going to learn the backstroke.” When his speech was over, Warren pretended to swim off stage.
“Wow,” said Max. Now that Zuri had spun and Warren had swum, Max thought he should do something cool at the end of his speech too. Maybe he could pretend to walk through a blizzard? Or mush some invisible sled dogs?
“Thank you, Warren,” said Mrs. Maloof. Her voice was sounding speechier with every introduction. “Next, Max LeRoy will tell us about the polar explorer Ernest Shackleton.”
Finally! Max leaped from his seat. He zipped up his parka and put on his furry mittens and quick-walked to the front of the room as fast as his furry boots would let him. He knew his speech so well, he hardly had to look at his paper. “The best biography I read this month was about Ernest Shackleton,” said Max. “He was an awesome explorer who tried to cross Artantica—” Wait. Did he just say …
“Art-ANTICA?” someone repeated. The class laughed.
Max’s face turned red. His feet burned in his furry boots. “I mean … Artantica.” Argggh! He said it again! The class laughed even harder.
“That word is a tricky one,” said Mrs. Maloof. She did not say it in her dress-rehearsal voice. She said it in her gentle voice, which made everyone stop laughing. “Isn’t it, class?”
Probably Max’s class was nodding, but Max did not know that for sure. He was not looking at the class. He was looking at his speech. The word Antarctica stuck out, tall and mean and icy.
“Would you like to start over?” asked Mrs. Maloof.
Max did not want to start over. He did not want to risk saying Artantica again.
He unzipped his parka.
He read the rest of his speech so fast, he forgot to say his Declaration of Inspiration.
When it was over, he walked back to his desk like a regular kid in too-big boots.
Chapter
Two
When Max got home from school, Mom was in the kitchen. The table was even messier than it had been during their crafting afternoon. But now, instead of scrapbook pages and glitter glue, the table was covered with maps and guidebooks and stacks of yellow list-making paper.
“Hey there, Max,” said Mom. “How was school?”
Max shrugged.
Mom tapped a yellow list with her no-budge, no-smudge ink pen. “I’m going to the market tomorrow after your Inspiration Celebration. Are there any last-minute things you need for our trip?”
Max shrugged again. There were a lot of minutes between now and after school tomorrow. How was he supposed to know if he needed any last-minute things when it wasn’t the last minute yet?
“Okay,” said Mom. She made another mark on her paper. “Let me know if that changes. By the time you get home from school, I want to be ready to hit the road. I’d like to do as much driving as I can before it gets dark.”
Max knew Mom did not like driving in strange places in the super-dark night. And this gave him an idea. “We don’t have to go to the Inspiration Celebration,” he said. “We could skip school tomorrow and start our road trip in the morning.”
“That’s sweet of you, buddy. But I wouldn’t want to miss the Celebration. I’ve seen how excited you are about your speech.”
Max did not feel sweet. And he did not feel excited. He felt like someone who would rather skip school than risk saying Artantica again. He shrugged a third time, even though Mom hadn’t asked him any questions.
Mom looked at him the way he had seen her look at her having-a-hard-day patients. “You look like a kid who could use a snack.” She lifted another yellow list. Underneath was a tin of homemade cookies. “I made them for the trip, but we should probably test them now. Chocolate chip,” she said. “Cookie of champions.”
“I’m not a champion,” said Max.
“That’s right,” said Mom. “I forgot. You are an explorer. Well, I guess I’ll just have to be the champion today.” She took a cookie from the tin and bit into it. The chips looked melty and warm. “So,” said Mom, “what do explorers have for a snack?”
The Spine-Tingling Book said Shackleton had packed lots of food for his journey, but when his ship sank and the food ran out, he and his crew had to eat whatever they could hunt. “Seal stew, mostly,” said Max. “But I’m not an explorer, either.”
“You’re not?” Mom set down her cookie. “Did something happen at school today?”
Max did not want to say what happened, but he said it anyway. “I made a mistake during the dress rehearsal. I said Artantica.”
“Artantica, huh?” asked Mom. “Tricky word. Were you nervous?”
Max did not think he had been nervous before giving his speech. And he did not think he had been nervous when he’d said Artantica the first time. But he was nervous now. The dress rehearsal was supposed to be exactly like the real speech. What if he said Artantica during the real Inspiration Celebration? What if everyone laughed again?
“Do champions get nervous?” asked Max.
“Oh, sure,” said Mom. “But we have a secret trick for dealing with it.”
Max liked tricks. And he really liked secrets. “Is i
t super-secret?”
“Semi-super-secret,” said Mom. “I’m pretty sure I could share it with you.”
Max sat down beside Mom. He gave her his full attention.
“Okay,” said Mom. “Step one: Take a deep breath.”
Max inhaled deep.
“Step two: Let it out as slowly as you can.”
Max let out his breath as slowly as he could—Pfffuuuuuuuuh!—while Mom counted. One. Two. Three. Four.
“Pretty good,” said Mom, “for an explorer.” She had a sparkly smile in her eyes, like she got when she challenged Max to a game of checkers. “Champions, of course, can hold their breath for a lot longer.”
“Are you sure about that?” Max made sparkly challenge eyes too.
“Only one way to find out. Ready?” asked Mom.
“Ready!” said Max.
Max and Mom each took a deep breath.
Max let his breath out slow, slow, slowly. Pfffuuuuuuuh.
Mom let her breath out slow, slow, slowly. Pfffuuuuuuuh.
They ran out of air at the exact same time.
“Rematch?” asked Mom.
“You’re on,” said Max.
Max and Mom took another deep breath.
Max let his breath out just a little. Pffuh.
Mom let her breath out just a little. Pffuh.
Then Max. Pffuh.
Then Mom. Pffuh.
Then Max. Pffuh.
Then Mom put her face very close to Max’s and crossed her eyes. Max burst out laughing.
“I won!” said Mom.
“No fair!” said Max, but he kept laughing anyway.
“Feel better?” asked Mom.
Max thought about it. He did feel better. Mostly. “What do champions do if they get nervous in the middle of a speech? You can’t breathe deep in the middle of a speech.”
“Hmmmm,” said Mom. “How about this? I’ll sit in the front row. If you get nervous, you can give me a sign and I’ll breathe deep for you.”
“You think that will work?” asked Max.
“I think that you’re going to do so well that you won’t even need me. But if you do, I’ll be there.” She crossed her eyes again. “By the way, what was that word?”
