Life in Hideout, Alaska, moves as fast as the glaciers that carved its valley location thousands of years ago - slow.  Be location just an hour north of “The Big City” means the more south a person heads from Hideout, the faster life gets. Most adults move to Hideout to hibernate from life while the youth find ways to disrupt that social coma.  Winter’s hibernation that blanketed the town and its people was going to be rudely disrupted today. As with most disturbingly rude things, it was going to start at the local middle school.

 Balto Middle School was named after the dog that helped lead the last of many sled dog team to deliver lifesaving medical serum to the snowed in town of Nome a long time ago.   The school motto of “Leading the Pack”, is carved into a nine-foot-tall wooden statue of Balto that sits in front of the school.  Middle school is full of packs, most of them have left their mark on the back side of the statue.

Mr. Verne’s seventh grade science class was on the football field between the middle school and high school.  The fresh sea of snow surrounded a couple dozen students that were all scattered around Mr. Verne’s ice fishing tent. Each bundled from head to toe, holding cups of hot chocolate and looking for a lead dog to get them back into the warm school. 

Inside the tent, somewhat protected from the elements was a large computer monitor that was displaying the view from the telescope resting next to the tent.  The large telescope was insulated with a pillow secured by silver duct tape.  Several other smaller telescopes wrapped in blankets and duct tape gave groups of students a place to huddle in the arc around Mr. Verne.

 “Class, now look into your telescope’s and see if you can see the outer edge of the comet,” said Mr. Verne in a plume of cold smoke as his breath hit the negative ten-degree air. 

For Mr. Verne, it was hard to keep his excitement inside, this was a once in a lifetime event.  His lifetime had been long enough to know the value of this moment, unlike his students who were just trying to figure out ways to get back into the warm school. 

Jay Verne is in his thirties with a salt and pepper beard. He was busy gazing into his weatherproofed telescope one moment then at the computer monitor the next trying to get the best view for his class. The Aurora Borealis was waving its green and purple scarf over the starry morning sky, which allowed the comet’s blue hue to shine in contrast for naked eye, but in a telescope, you could almost make out the mass of ice and dirt that made up the comet. 

“Come on Mr. V,” chattered a tiny tan faced girl huddled over her hot chocolate steam, “I’m freezing.”  She was in two coats, with the outer coat being way too big for her.  “We’ve seen the stupid comet the last few days already.”

Without taking his eyes off the monitor, Mr. Verne excitedly answered, “Yes Lisa, I know it has been visible for days, but right now it is at its closest point to us and some very smart people say it is going to collide with a micro meteor shower this morning and no one knows exactly what is going to happen.” 

“They must not be too smart, if they can’t figure out what happens when two things collide,” smirked a boy just before letting a snowball fly across the class and into the back of a boy, causing him to spill his hot chocolate.  “See, I coulda told you that was going to happen.”

“Yes Ben, you’re right, they’ve made predictions, but no one has ever seen it happen for real,” casually stated Mr. Verne, still looking at his monitor.  “I do want to hear more of your predictions today at lunch detention when you come in for throwing snowballs.” 

The class erupted in giggles, as Ben smashed the current snowball in his hands instead of throwing it.  He mumbled under his breath as he kicked some snow, “I predict that will suck.”

Lisa dropped her hot chocolate as she started dashing through the deep snow towards the school screaming, “My eye is frozen shut!”

“What a Cheechako,” laughed a boy lying on his back in the snow. “In the two months she’s been up here, I haven’t seen here take off her dad’s pillow coat and everyone knows you don’t hover over the steam of your hot drink.”

“Now Max, don’t you remember your first winter, “said Mr. Verne turning to record something in his log.  “Isn’t that when you earned the nickname “masked mugger” because you wouldn’t take off that black ski mask?” 

Mr. Verne allowed the chuckles to die before using his radio to tell the school that the new girl was coming inside to warm up.  “Now, where were we? Oh, yes. Oak what do you think is going to happen?”

Clearing his throat and adjusting his seal fur mittens, Oak tried to land a thought.  He had been wrapped up in his grandmother’s old stories of how in her village up north on the Arctic Circle, all the kids would hang around out outside scream and whistling at the Aurora Borealis, daring the ghost spirit in the sky to come down and try to cut their heads off, just to have something to do. His mom had started talking about sending up there to get him away from everything in town when his probation was over.

“I think she will call home and ask for her dad to put in for a transfer back to New Mexico,” said Oak.  Over the class’s laughter, a flustered Mr. Verne left his telescope to shooting him, a look that made it even colder outside. “Howie thinks it will cause the comet to break apart and shower the Earth with fragments.”

Oak looked over at his extremely tall best friend next to him who was hiding his face in a nearby telescope, hoping to avoid Mr. Verne’s attention. Oak wasn’t sure why he always dragged his best friend into his trouble, but it seemed to make everything have less of a sting when he wasn’t the only one getting into trouble.  “He even seems to think many of the pieces will land here in Alaska. I think it’ll be like a car going through a swarm of mosquitoes on the road, just a bug massacre.”

“Both are interesting points of view Oak. Actually, not much different than the astrological community. Half think it will provide a nice little light show and the other half thinking it could be way more exciting,” stated Mr. Verne going back to looking at the monitor.  “Question is, are we the mosquitoes?” 

“Aren’t most comets just ice?  Wouldn’t the ice just melt?” asked a girl with fogged up glasses.

Mr. Verne perked up at the hint of an actual subject related question, “Yes Kim, they are, but Hagrid seems to be giving off readings like it may have a rock core.  Just another exciting reason to watch.” 

“Hagrid, what a stupid name for a comet,” snorted Ben. 

Howie pulled himself away from his telescope, “Not really. If you discover a comet, you get to name it and you are going to see a lot more names from great books as Potterheads become scientist.”

“Your wasting your breath big guy,” whispered Oak. “He hasn’t read a book in his life, so he doesn’t even know who Harry Potter is.”

“I do too, they made movies about him.”

“This is awesome,” a giddy Howie chuckled, “I just know I’m going to find a piece of that comet after it explodes.”  He took another peak into the telescope.  “Can we forget about rescuing the Princess and go after the comet pieces instead?”

“We can do both, buddy, now that we know where he has hidden her because of the smell.  We just need to go in and get her.” Oak had become obsessed with saving her and getting the reward in hopes of clearing his name, “Then we can look for your rocks.”

Howie looked like a baby giraffe that couldn’t find its mother. He hated it when Oak put both their lives on the line to clear his name. Getting the Princess wasn’t going to be that easy, “I guess,” said Howie, as a strange feeling of excitement came over him, drawing his gaze into the sky.

“It’s happening class!”  screamed Mr. Verne, causing the boys having a snowball fight to stop; even the girls that had huddled together to use the warmth of gossip, peered up from their hot chocolates. Everyone looked up into the sky as the comet commenced to transform into a Fourth of July sparkler behind the green smoke of the Aurora.  The blue hue of the comet was fading to a purple glow wrapped in the orange and red flames.

Howie was the first to say, “It’s breaking apart,” followed closely by Mr. Verne.  

“Well look at that,” whispered Oak, letting his interest in space be sparked again by the pyrotechnic show. Since his father had disappeared no one had kept his interested fueled and even finally smothered out when a school counselor had helped Oak realized that being an astronaut wasn’t in his career future, due to his poor grades and issues with the law. He was half native and according to Sheriff Brackens, “Natives don’t go to space, they move out to the villages and collect welfare checks.”

Flashes of purple light illuminated the sky, grabbing Oak out of his thoughts just in time to be rocked by a sonic boom. Even the Aurora’s green smoke wave in the area had dissipated leaving a strange hole to the sky.  As the comet entered the atmosphere, cutting through the Aurora, the purple glow matured in the black hole of the Aurora, until it was shrouded by the red flames and several small fireballs surrounding the purple glowing center.  Within seconds most of the smaller satellites of fire had burned out, leaving just the bigger purple fireball on a collision course with the field of observers.

“We need to get out of here,” screamed one of the girls in the gossip group.

“To where?  If that is going to hit us, then we won’t have a time to get far enough away from the blast,” muttered Mr. Verne, not caring that the girls had already started running for the school.  “Everyone just relax. The giant fireball is going to fly right over us and give one hell of a show!”

Oak was first to notice the two fighter jets from the nearby Air Force base bearing down on the fireball, just before they fired.

“See everyone, the Air Force has been watching this morning, as well.”  A calm, but uncertain tone had developed in Mr. Verne’s voice.  Everyone was watching the four missile trails as they approached the purple fireball. It was becoming clear that the purple fireball was too high now to hit the field. If the missiles where going to make contact, it would be several hundred feet directly above the town.  The glow from the comet was now illuminating the whole town and the field was light up like a Friday night football game. 

Right before the missiles impact, everything went dark. The missiles, comet, stars, and even the Aurora had vanished leaving a black void above the class. Oak had just enough time to look at Howie in disbelief, before a massive explosion illuminated the field of students, followed by a shockwave that rudely knocked them all to the ground.

Next Chapter: Chapter 3  The Smelly Princess