So You Want to Be a Jedi?

by Adam Gidwitz

  I know, this test seems cruel. So many things to keep track of! But when you’re being chased by a raging elephoth—or worse, fighting a Sith Lord—you’ve got to keep track of many things at once. And stay peaceful, sensitive, and patient through it all.

  I warned you. Being a Jedi ain’t easy.

  “GOOD, GOOD,” Yoda whispers. “The Force you should feel, flowing in you and out of you, like breath. Calm. Yes. Through the Force, things you will see. Other places. The future…the past…old friends long gone…”

  Your legs are crossed, your eyes closed. You are outside his small house. The air is hot and wet. You are breathing. Listening to Yoda and breathing.

  “But beware these visions you must. Control the future you cannot. It shifts. We can try to change it, but we are small, and sometimes we push one way, and the future, another way it goes.”

  The jungle feels silent. It doesn’t sound silent. It feels silent.

  “Never understood this did Vader.”

  Your eyes fly open.

  “Calm…” says Yoda. “Breathe you must, and listen.”

  You close your eyes again.

  “Vader saw the future, but try to control it he did. Anger he felt, and fear. Led him to the dark side. Quick way. Easy way. But not good way.”

  Yoda chuckles. You don’t know why. You open your eyes and glance at his gnarled, withered body. His smile is as serene as the double sunset of Tatooine.

  “Story heard I once,” he says. “From my master. True or not, I do not know. But good story. Listen you will.”

  Yoda closes his eyes, inhales slowly, and begins.

  “There was once a Jedi named K’ungfu.

  “Wise was K’ungfu, and strong. But at this time, none was wiser or stronger than the great Jedi Master Chuang.

  “One day, heard did K’ungfu that Master Chuang’s apprentice had died.

  “So Master K’ungfu sent a messenger to Chuang, his condolences to give.

  “But when arrived the messenger did, found he the Great Jedi—laughing! With his friends, he was. Playing music, singing, joking. There, the body of Chuang’s apprentice lay, and laugh Chuang did!

  “Upset the messenger was. ‘Is this,’ he asked, ‘how behaves a great Jedi when his apprentice dies?’

  “To the messenger the Great Jedi replied, ‘Beat my head should I? Tear my clothes should I? Weep and wail in the streets should I? Moved, the Force has. It was in the form of my apprentice. Now, different my apprentice looks. Still. Quiet. Soon, part of the ground will he be. Should I be angry? Is my apprentice less pleased, being a different part of the Force? Being trees growing, or the sea dancing and roaring in the wind? If he is pleased, why should I cry? And if I should change,’ the Great Jedi went on, ‘if my back should hunch, if my hair should fall out, if my skin should sag like a sack—or worse, if my elbow turns into a rooster, and my knee a cat—cry should I then? No. I shall wonder at the miraculous changes the Force has wrought. Choose, I do not, what happens to me, or to my apprentice. So cry I do not. Better to sing, it is.’

  “Returned, did the messenger, to Master K’ungfu. When related had the messenger what the Great Jedi had said, K’ungfu closed his eyes. ‘Of course,’ he said, smiling and nodding. ‘Much to learn have I.’”

  Yoda stops speaking.

  In that moment, something comes into your head. A vision. An awful vision. Your eyes fly open. Yoda is staring at you curiously.

  “Han!” you cry. “Leia!”

  Yoda’s face falls.

  “I see them!” And you do. They are in pain.

  They are being tortured. Leia is screaming, her eyes bulging from her head. Han is straining, his back arched, his neck on the verge of snapping.

  “The future you see,” Yoda murmurs. “A future.”

  “I’ve got to help them!” you cry.

  Yoda shakes his head. “Hear me you do not.”

  “I’ve got to go to them! I’ve got to save them!”

  Yoda pauses. “Decide you must how to serve them best. If you leave now, help them you could. But likely you would destroy all that they have worked for, all for which they have fought and suffered. The cause. The Rebellion. Their battle against the Emperor. All would be lost. But saved could they be.”

  You stare at the tiny Jedi Master. Your eyes are wild.

  The silence dies in the jungle, replaced by a riot of sound.

  LESSON PI:

  TOUGH CHOICES

  When I gave you the multiple choice test a few lessons ago, I said that Jedi don’t act hypothetically. I told you that you couldn’t choose between sitting with your friend, or helping the new kid, or sitting with the lonely girl. You had to do them all.

  Which was true.

  But there are times, rare times, when you cannot do everything. When you have to choose between two bad options. Bad options like:

  1) letting your friends suffer and perhaps die; and

  2) saving them, but not being skilled enough to face Vader and not strong enough to resist the dark side. Which would result in dooming the galaxy to slavery for the next few hundred years. That’s a tough choice.

  But there are more mundane examples of the same conundrum. For example, you are going on vacation with your best friend. You’re going somewhere awesome, like an amusement park or the mountains. It is going to be the best trip of your life, and of your best friend’s life.

  But you are also trying to change schools, to go somewhere with better academics and more interesting teachers. And the entrance exam has just been scheduled for during your trip.

  What do you do?

  Do you let your friend down, and take the exam?

  Or do you give up on your dream of this new school, and go on vacation with your pal?

  There is no right answer.

  But the choices you make will shape you.

  And they may shape history, too.

  IT IS NIGHT. The X-wing’s lights glow faintly against the gloom of the swamp. R2-D2 checks the readings on various panels. He is whirring like a silverfinch. He has no love for Dagobah. You are loading your belongings into the cargo hold.

  Yoda’s wrinkled face looks pained. “Luke, please! Complete the training you must!”

  You shake your head. The vision refuses to leave you.

  Your best friends—in terrible pain. Weeping. Screaming.

  “You must not go!” Yoda insists. The deep shadows of night envelop his small form.

  “They’ll die if I don’t.”

  Suddenly, another voice answers you. Rich and kind and understanding.

  Ben’s voice. “You don’t know that, Luke.”

  You turn, and see him. He is standing beside Yoda. He shimmers.

  “Ben!” you cry. “Are you…Aren’t you…?”

  Obi-Wan Kenobi smiles. “I am still a part of the Force. You have, through your training, learned to see me.”

  You stare, drinking in the sight of your first master, your friend.

  “Please, Luke,” he says. “Please listen to Yoda.”

  Your shoulders hunch. He doesn’t understand. He’s just like Yoda. “I can help them! I can feel the Force!”

  “But you cannot control it. More importantly, you cannot control your feelings.” Ben’s eyes are anxious—you can see that, even through their otherworldly shimmer. He goes on. “This is a dangerous time for you. You will be tempted by the dark side.”

  “Yes!” Yoda agrees. “Listen to Obi-Wan! Remember your failure at the cave!”

  “But I’ve learned so much since then.”

  Ben’s voice is rasping and low. “Luke, it is you the Emperor wants. That’s why he makes your friends suffer.”

  You stop. You think about that. The Emperor wants you? A strange mixture of fear and—and something else—is shifting, taking shape, in your heart.

  Yoda and Obi-Wan watch you.

  “Luke,” Ben says. “I don’t want to lose you the way I lost Vader.”

  You look into his old, sad eye
s. You feel that something in your heart start to fade. To be replaced by love for the old man who trained you and gave his life for you. You look to Yoda. Yoda, for whom there is no distinction between a mouse and you and a spaceship. Who has devoted his life to training Jedi so that they may help others. Yoda, who had so much patience, when you had none.

  “You won’t lose me,” you say to them. “I promise.”

  “Stopped they must be,” Yoda says. “On this all depends. If you choose the quick and easy path, as Vader did, you will fall under his control, and an agent of evil you will become.”

  “If you choose to face Vader,” Ben says, “you must do it alone. I cannot help you.”

  You nod. “I understand. Artoo, fire up the converters.”

  The little droid whistles happily.

  “Luke!” Ben says desperately. “Don’t give in to pride, fear, hatred. They lead to the dark side!”

  You climb onto the wing of your fighter, and then put a leg into the cockpit.

  “Strong is Vader,” Yoda intones. “Mind what you have learned. Help you it can.”

  “I will.” You slide into the pilot’s seat. “And I’ll return to finish my training. I promise.” But already you’re thinking of something else. Of Han and Leia. Of the Emperor. Of Vader.

  You flip a switch. The cockpit hatch begins to close.

  Outside the ship, Yoda says quietly to Ben, “Told you I did. Now, matters are worse.”

  “That boy is our last hope,” Ben replies.

  As your ship lifts into the sky, Yoda follows it with his gaze. “No…” he says at last. “There is another.”

  THE MILLENNIUM FALCON screams out of the atmosphere of Hoth, heading straight for a Star Destroyer.

  This is less like a mouse running at a tiger, and more like a lame rabbit with one bad eye running at a tiger.

  Leia, crouched over Han Solo’s shoulder, mutters, “Uh, Han…?”

  He ignores her. “Chewie, prepare to make the jump to lightspeed.”

  C-3PO, who has been trying to get Han’s attention since the hangar in the rebel base, tries again. “But, sir!”

  Two laser blasts erupt from the destroyer and whizz past the Falcon’s hull. Four small Imperial fighters—TIEs—detach from a nearby formation and head directly for Solo’s ship.

  The tiger has buddies. Hardly seems fair.

  “They’re coming…” Leia murmurs.

  Han just grins. “Yeah? Watch this.”

  He throws the lightspeed thruster down and turns to watch the stars go blazing by as the ship jumps into hyperspace.

  But the stars do not go blazing by. They hang there, limp and static.

  “Watch what?”

  Han throws the thruster again. Nothing.

  Very quietly, he says, “I think we’re in trouble.”

  “If I may say so,” C-3PO cuts in, “I noticed earlier that the hyperdrive motivator has been damaged. It’s impossible to go to lightspeed!”

  “We’re in trouble!” Han shouts.

  Explosions rock the ship as the four TIE fighters close in. Han grabs the steering column, turns the Falcon sharply, and guns it.

  But the TIE fighters are hard on their backs. Behind the fighters, the Imperial Star Destroyer lumbers after them all, cannons blazing.

  Han jumps from the captain’s seat. “Take it!” he shouts at Leia.

  “What?”

  He ignores her and runs to the mechanical port, where Chewbacca is already yanking at wires and crying in confusion. (Which sounds like “Arrrrraaaaragh!”)

  Leia watches the steering column veer left.

  “Hey!” Han calls.

  So the princess slides into the seat. She pushes hard left, exaggerating the turn.

  “HEY!” Han cries, as he crashes into Chewbacca, and a cascade of sparks rain down on his scruffy head.

  The TIE fighters bank and follow Leia’s course, their lasers exploding all around the pirate ship.

  Leia dips.

  Han’s head hits the ceiling. “Hey!”

  The fighters follow.

  Leia pulls up.

  Han is thrown to the ground. “Hey!”

  Leia smiles.

  The Falcon rises, and rises, and rises—and then jolts violently.

  “Arrrarraaraaragh!”

  “That wasn’t a laser!” Han barks. “We hit something!”

  He mutters about “women pilots” and sprints back to the cockpit. “What are you doing princ—” He stops mid sentence. He sees what she sees.

  “Asteroid field!” Leia announces grimly.

  Indeed, stretching out before them as far as anyone can see are a million space rocks—some large, some small, some the size of tiny moons. A good two-thirds of them are large enough to destroy a spaceship like the Falcon on impact.

  “Oh, boy,” Han mutters. He slides into the pilot’s seat, relieving Leia of her duties—which she performed more than admirably, it should be said, for the TIE fighters are now some distance behind—and stares at the death trap that stretches out before them.

  The rocks hang there, deadly and silent.

  The TIE fighters are closing in.

  Han pushes forward on the steering column.

  “Wait!” Leia says. “You’re not going into the asteroid field?”

  Han grins. “They’d be crazy to follow us.”

  Chewie, appearing in the doorway of the cockpit, sees his captain’s course and howls.

  Leia puts her head near Han’s and whispers furiously: “You don’t have to do this to impress me!”

  “Sir!” C-3PO chirrups frantically. “The odds of successfully navigating an asteroid field are approximately 3,720 to 1!”

  As if to demonstrate the droid’s point, the first of the pursuing TIE fighters meets an asteroid head-on. It explodes.

  Han grits his teeth. “Never tell me the odds….”

  Asteroids twirl and dance around them like some chaotic cosmic ballet. Someone who appreciates the beauty of the Force might enjoy watching the passing, spinning, whirling space boulders that hurtle past the Falcon. Han, Leia, Chewie, and C-3PO, on the other hand, are trying not to soil their pants. Except that Chewie and C-3PO don’t wear pants.

  Behind them, a second fighter collides with an asteroid, becoming a fiery, ephemeral grave.

  “Well, Princess,” Han sighs, “you said you wanted to be around when I made a mistake. This could be it.”

  “I take it back!” cries Leia. A small asteroid bounces off their hull with a sickening crunch. “I take it back!”

  Beneath them, one of the enormous asteroids floats by, silent and inexorable as death. Han looks down at it. “I’m going to take us closer to one of the big ones.”

  “Closer?!” Leia and C-3PO and Chewie all cry at once, though Chewie’s “Closer?!” actually sounds like “Aaararararagh?!”

  The Millennium Falcon dives, and the TIE fighters follow. Soon, they are zipping over the craterous surface of the moon-sized asteroid, the TIE fighters in pursuit. The Falcon roars over a star-blue cliff edge and then dives into a canyon. The fighters follow, close behind, firing off an occasional potshot as they try to follow Han’s reckless course.

  “Oh, this is suicide!” C-3PO screams.

  And then, it’s over.

  The canyon, that is. Nothing but a blue stone wall. “Hold on!” Han shouts, far too late. The Falcon rises straight up. The passengers go flying. The ship’s belly is scraping the asteroid’s blue stone. Han is wrestling with the controls, trying to pull up higher, higher, into the black sky above.

  Below them, the two TIE fighters slam into the wall and explode.

  C-3PO and Leia pull themselves to their feet, and then grip the walls again. The Falcon is now doing a slow flip. They both slide up the walls until they are plastered against the ceiling, and then slide down to the floor again.

  Leia, on her knees, says, “I love it when you drive.”

  “There,” Han says. “That looks pretty good.”

&n
bsp; “What looks good?”

  C-3PO, sitting on the floor, says, “I have not registered a single good thing about this situation, sir. Of all the situations I have been in, which number some eight million, three hundred thou—”

  “Aaarararagh,” says Chewbacca. Which means, roughly translated, “Shut up.”

  The Falcon is heading back toward the asteroid now. On the surface there is a small black cave.

  Han is heading straight for it.

  Leia says, “No.”

  Han says, “Yup.”

  “I hope you know what you’re doing,” she mutters.

  “Yeah,” Han replies. “Me, too.”

  A moment later, the Millennium Falcon disappears into the cave on the face of the asteroid.

  LESSON RHO:

  NAVIGATING AN ASTEROID FIELD

  This next test needs to be done in a room that belongs to you, because you need to get that room messy. Put objects all over the floor. Toys, books, pillows, whatever. If you’re outside, maybe you can use stones, twigs, and book bags.

  Now, stand on one leg. Breathe. Feel your breath pass from your nose, down your throat, into your stomach, down your rooted leg, and into the ground.

  When you feel fully rooted, start hopping. Hop from one end of the room to the other, without touching anything, including the strewn objects.

  Whether you’re in an asteroid field or the jungle on Dagobah, as a Jedi you must feel what is around you, must take it into your mind, and respond to it as if it were a part of your very body. According to Yoda, after all, it is.

  If this test is easy, try it with your eyes closed.

  IN THE ASTEROID, it is as dark as the insides of a tauntaun. It doesn’t smell quite as bad, though.

  A tunnel, just large enough for the Falcon, winds into the core of the blue space stone.

  Han follows it. Slowly.

  “What are we doing here?” Leia whispers.

  “Ararrraaaragh,” Chewie says. Which means the same thing.

  “We need a safe place for repairs. Can’t face those Star Destroyers again with no hyperdrive motivator.”

  The ship wends deeper and deeper into the asteroid. It is like entering a new world. A new world where there is no light, no sound—no sensations at all.