"We do not ask for what useful purpose the birds do sing, for song is their pleasure since they were created for singing. Similarly we ought not to ask why the human mind troubles to fathom the secrets of the heavens..."
-Johannes Kepler
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"Okay, Mr. Witwicky, you're up!"
Carina watched as her cousin Sam took his backpack up to the front of the room. He moved behind a desk and opened his backpack, dumping it's contents onto the desk.
"Sorry, I've got a lot of stuff."
Carina winced when she saw their grandfather's glasses, the ones she loaned him for the project, came tumbling out. She was never going to let him borrow anything ever again.
"For my family geno-"
Sam was abruptly cut off when Trent DeMarco shot a rubberband at him, hitting him in the neck.
Carina shoved Trent's chair with her foot just as their history teacher, Mr. Hosney stood from his desk. "Who did-Who did that?" He was met with the laughter of the class. "People...responsibility."
Trent turned around when Mr. Hosney sat back down at his desk. "Can I help you with something, Lainez?"
Carina rolled her eyes. "You could do a better job at acting like an actual thinking, feeling human being."
Trent narrowed his eyes at Carina before taking his girlfriend, Mikaela's hand and facing the front of the classroom once again. Carina resisted the urge to crumple up a piece of paper and launch it at the back of his head.
Sam moved behind the podium at the front of the room. "Um, so for my family genealogy report, I decided to do it on my great great grandfather, who was a famous man, Captain Archibald Witwicky. He was a very famous explorer, in fact-"
Sam shuffled with the things on the desk in front of him until he found what he was looking for.
"He was one of the first to explore the Arctic Circle. Which is a big deal." He finished as he opened the old piece of paper he had pulled off the desk. It was an old, hand drawn map of the Arctic Circle. Carina knew that the map had belonged to their great great grandfather and had been passed down, like all the other things on the table, some of it to Sam and some of it to Carina.
"In 1897, he took 41 brave sailors into the Arctic Shelf...So that's the story right?" Sam set the map down and pointed to the table where he had emptied his backpack. "And here we have some of the basic instruments and tools used 19th century seamen."
The last word emitted a giggle from the rest of the people in their class, making Carina shake her head and sigh in annoyance. Was she in a classroom filled with five year olds?
"This here is the quadrant, which you can get for eighty bucks. It's all for sale by the way." He shuffled around with the things. "Like the sextant, here. "
Another round of giggling made Mr. Hosney lifted up his quiet sign which was shaped like a stop sign.
"Fifty bucks for this, which is a bargain."
He set down the sextant and picked up the glasses. "These are pretty cool. These are my grandfather's glasses. I haven't quite gotten them appraised yet, but they've seen many cool things."
Carina sat up in her seat when Sam mentioned the appraising. He had asked his parents if he was allowed to sell some of their great great grandfather's belongings to raise money to get his first car, but he had never asked her if he could sell the glasses, most likely because he knew her answer would have been no.
"Are you going to sell me his liver?" Mr. Hosney asked dryly. "Mr. Witwicky, this isn't show and tell, this is the eleventh grade. I don't think your grandfather would be particularly proud of what you're doing-"
"I know, I'm sorry." Sam cut him off. "This is all going toward my car fund. You can tell your folks, it's on ebay. I take , cold hard cash works too. The compass make a-a great gift from Columbus Day."
Mr. Hosney rolled his eyes and buried his head in his hands. "Sam!"
"Sorry." Sam quickly straighten back up. "Um, unfortunately, my great great grandfather, the genius that he was-" Sam lifted up several yellowed pieces of paper with strange symbols on them. "Wound up going blind and crazy in a psycho ward, drawing these strange symbols and babbling on about some giant iceman that he thought he discovered. "
The bell rang, cutting Sam off and announcing that the school say was finally over.
Carina shoved her notebooks in her backpack as Mr. Hosney stood up. "Okay, might be a pop quiz tomorrow, might not be. Sleep in fear tonight."
Carina was halfway to the door when she heard Sam trying to convince some of their classmates to buy some of their grandfather's belongings. She would have marched up to him and taken the glasses and journal that belonged to her, but she knew that no one would buy them from Sam. The market for old seamen instruments from a crazy captain wasn't in sixteen or seventeen years olds.
Carina moved to her locker and stashed her history textbook inside before closed it. She walked to the door as she turned her cellphone back on. Once the Apple logo faded away, her phone buzzed several times, alerting her to several new text messages.
All of them were from her best friend Graham Roberts.
Most of them were of him asking is she was up for doing something over the weekend. She locked her phone, reminding herself to reply to him later. As she walked out of the school building, she saw her uncle parked in his trademark green car.
"Hey uncle Ron." She smiled as she climbed over the car door and settled in the back seat.
"How was your day?" Ron asked, looking in his review mirror so her could see Carina.
Carina slipped her backpack off and set it down to her left. "It was good. Just a normal Friday."
"Nothing interesting to report?"
Carina shook her head. "Nope."
Carina watched as kids flooded out of the school, all of them excited for their weekend plans. it wasn't long before Carina saw Sam racing toward the car.
"Yes!"
Carina didn't have enough time to prepare herself to catch Sam's backpack before he threw it at her.
"Hey, watch it!"
"Sorry." Sam opened the door and climbed in the car next to his dad.
"So?" Ron asked, looking at his son.
"A minus, but it's an A though." Sam said as he slammed the door shut and waved the paper in his dad's face.
"W-Wait I can't see."
Ron took the paper and read it. "It's an A."
Carina reached forward and grabbed the paper.
"So I'm good?" Sam asked hopefully.
"Yeah, you're good."
Carina read over the rubric from the assignment and was shocked to read that Sam had in fact gotten an A. She folded the paper and shoved it into Sam's backpack. While she put the paper in his backpack, she shifted through it until she found her grandfather's journal and glasses. She transferred them to her own backpack.
"So are we going today or are we waiting until the weekend?" She asked as Ron started driving.
"We better be going today." Sam looked to his dad. "We are going today, right?"
Ron chuckled. "Carina can go whenever she wants, she's got the money to pay for her own."
"Dad!"
"Calm down, Samuel." Ron looked to his son fr a brief moment before looking back to the road. "I've got a special surprise for you."
Carina pulled her grandfather's journal from her backpack and began flipping through it. She has flipped through it about a million times before when she was growing up. She traced the strange symbols with her finger, just like she had done as a child.
She wondered what they meant, and why they had been so important to her grandfather that he wrote them in heavy, thick black ink in the margins of his journal. It was true that he had went crazy, causing him to be committed. It was because of him that the concern for mental illness became prominent in their family, but no Witwicky since him had shown any symptoms of mental illness.
But something had happened during her grandfather's journey that caused him to suffer a mental break. But no one knew what that was. People don't just suffer from metal breaks, there's always a catalyst, something that drastically changes which there person can't handle.
Carina knew whatever happened must have been earth shattering because her grandfather was a genius of his generation. He was literally one to go down in the history books, as a great man and as someone who lost his sanity for his craft.
The movement of the car turning made Carina look up from the journal. She noticed that her uncle was pulling into the parking lot of a Porsche dealership. Confused, Carina put the journal back into her backpack and zipped it shut as she sat up in the seat.
"No." Sam looked around in disbelief at the car lot. "No. No. No. No. No!" Sam was on the edge of his seat. "Dad! Oh you gotta be kidding me."
"Yeah I am." Ron smiled. "You're not getting a Porsche." He started laughing as he pulled out of the Porsche dealership and turned down a side road.
Carina couldn't help but let out a short laugh, which was quickly silenced by Sam as he whirled around in his seat and narrowed his eyes at her.
"Sorry." She muttered, breaking eye contact as she tried to keep from laughing more.
"You think that's funny?" Sam looked at his dad.
"Yeah I think that's funny."
"What's wrong with you?"
"You really thought I was getting you a Porsche? For your first car?" Ron asked as he pulled into the used car dealership that was half a block away from the Porsche dealership.
"I don't want to talk to your for the rest of the day."
"What? It was a practical joke!"
"It wasn't a funny joke."
Carina couldn't help but laugh as Ron pulled into a vacant spot at the car dealership. Sam once again gave her a dirty look, but it only made her laugh harder.
Ron turned the car off and climbed out. Sam let out a huff as he opened the car door, Carina composed herself before following Sam and closing the car door behind her.
"Here?" Sam asked when he looked around the lot. "You said half a car, not half a piece of crap, dad!"
"When I was your age, I would have been happy with four wheels and an engine." Ron replied.
"Didn't you and my dad rebuild your first car, uncle Ron?" Carina asked as Sam looked a few cars they passed.
"We sure did." Ron smiled as he thought back. "It was good bonding time for us." Ron looked at the two teenagers. "Maybe I should make you two split on a junker and make you rebuild it."
"I would love to rebuild a car from scratch, but the only thing Sam knows about cars is how to turn one on."
Sam caught up with them, interrupting his father's response to Carina. "Let me explain something to you, okay? Have you ever seen 40 year old virgin?"
Ron nodded. "Yeah."
"That's what this is." Sam said gesturing to an old car to their left. He turned to their right. "And this is 50 year old virgin." He turned back to his dad. "You want me to live that life?"
"No sacrifice-"
"Yeah, no victory." Sam finished. "I got it dad, the old Witwicky motto."
"Gentleman, lady." A man approached the three right as Ron and Sam were finishing their discussion. "Bobby Bolivia." He shook Ron's hand. "Like the country, except without the runs." he let out a short laugh. "How can I help you?"
"Well my son and niece here are looking to buy their first cars." Ron said proudly, wrapping an arm around Sam.
"And you've come to see me?" Bobby Bolivia pointed to himself.
"Had to." Sam said dryly, earning a scolding look from Ron.
"That practically makes us family." Bobby Bolivia smiled as he offered his hand to Sam. "Uncle Bobby B, baby. Uncle Bobby B!"
"Sam."
Sam shook Bobby B's hand before the salesman turned to Carina.
"Carina." She smiled as she shook his hand.
"Well come on then." Bobby B led the three out into the lot. "Sam, Carina, your first enchilada of freedom awaits under one of those hoods. Let me tell you something kids, the driver don't pick the car, the car picks the driver. It's a mystical bond between man-or woman- and machine."
Carina couldn't see Sam's facial expression from where she was standing, but he must have been giving Bobby B a unmoved look.
"Son, I'm a lotta of things, but a liars not one of them."
"Mm."
"Especially not in front of my mammy." He pointed to a house across a side road. "That's my mammy. Hey mammy!"
When Bobby B yelled and waved for his mother, he was met with her flipping him off.
"Ohh, don't be like that! If I had a rock, I would bust yo' head, bitch."
The statement made Carina tilted her head in confusion.
Bobby B turned back to the trio. "She deaf, you know?" He laughed uncomfortably.
"Right, well." Carina looked to a row of cars. "I'm going to go look over here." She pointed as she moved.
"And I'm going this way." Sam pointed in the opposite direction.
Carina had been hoping that Bobby B would have followed after Sam, so she could get away from the strange vibe she was getting from him, but she sighed when she saw he was following her. Luckily, Ron seemed to be trailing close behind him.
Carina walked up and down the first few aisles of cars she came across. She looked at each car she passed until she saw one on the on the end of the row near the street they turned off of to get to the dealership.
She hadn't seen it when they pulled up.
It was one that she was sure she recognized. The faded turquoise paint job was a little hard to see, and the car's whole body was covered in mud and dirt, but she knew that it was.
"Is this what I think it is?" She questioned as closed the distance between her and the car.
"A Thunderbird?" Bobby B questioned to himself as he followed her. "I think I would remember having a Thunderbird." He turned over his shoulder. "Manny!"
"What?" A mechanic from the shop poked his head around one of the cars he was working on.
"What is this? Where did this car come from?"
"I don't know, boss! I've never seen it! That's loco!" Manny yelled back, clearly eager to get back to what he was doing.
"Don't go Ricky Ricardo on me, Manny! Find out!"
Carina ran her hand along the hood, her fingers picking up the dirt as she walked around it, revealing the bright turquoise color underneath. She opened the driver's door and sat in the front seat.
Even though the car was old, it looked like it had been kept in excellent shape. All it really needed was a wash and a good waxing. That being said, what was it doing in a car lot like this? It was a collector's item, one of those big ticket cars that you could count on seeing at a antique car show. Carina silently wondered if Bobby B knew what kind of money he could get for a Thunderbird of any year.
"How much for it?"
Bobby B took a walk around the car, looking at it before he circled back around to Carina."Five thousand."
Carina's shoulders slumped in defeat. "I can't go anything over four."
"I've got it covered." Ron said quickly, cutting off Bobby B from saying anything.
Carina looked at her uncle. "But you told Sam no more than four."
Ron shrugged. "You got straight A's and you were ready to pay for yours completely." He paused. "And your dad had an '85 for his first car."
Carina gave her uncle a confused look. "He did? That was the one you and him rebuilt?"
Ron nodded. "I guess good taste runs in the family."
"I'll get y'all the paperwork going." Bobby B said as he walked away.
"Are you sure, uncle Ron?" Carina said as she got out of the car. "I'm sure I can find something else."
"You're a good kid." Ron said as he wrapped an arm around Carina's shoulders. "You've been through hell the last few years and it's good to finally see you come out of you shell a little bit. And besides...it's like fate or something that you chose this one."
Carina laughed. "Remember, Bobby B says the car chooses the driver." She teased.
"Ah, right. How could I forget the wise words of uncle Bobby B?"
The sound of a car door opening made the two look up to see Sam climbing into a car parked near the front.
"I better go see what your cousin is doing."
Carina nodded. "Probably, before he breaks something."
She watched as he uncle moved across the lot to where Sam was getting into a yellow car with black racing stripes.
Carina sat back in the driver's seat and ran her hand over the steering wheel.
Her father's first car had been a Thunderbird?
With such a classic car, she thought that he would have mentioned it as least once or twice.
She ran her hand over the dashboard, picking up particles of dust with her hand. It was clear to her that the car was going to need a deep clean to get rid of the dust, but she knew she could get the car cleaned and waxed in a weekend, and luckily for her, she had no plans.
Carina wiped the dust on her jeans as she reached up for the sun vizor. As she pulled it down. A set of keys fell into her lap.
Carina picked up the keys and turned them over in her hand. It was a simple set of car keys attached to a Thunderbird leather key fob. She traced her thumb over the Thunderbird symbol.
"Fate or something, huh?"
As she mulled over her uncle's words, she climbed out of the Thunderbird and closed the door behind her. Just noticed Sam climbing out of the car he had been sitting in. When he closed the driver door, the passenger door flung open and slammed into Bobby B's leg. He rubbed his leg as he closed the door. She could see that he was saying something to Manny, but couldn't hear exactly what he said.
Just as Carina was about to walk over to see what was, a loud, high pitched sound made Carina cover her ears with her hands. As the sound got louder and more high pitched, Carina leaned over, trying to block the sound. She let out a loud gasp when the windows of the cars next to her blew out, spraying shatter glass all over her.
As quickly as the noise began, it ended.
Carina straightened, brushing the glass shard from her hair. A quick survey around the lot made Carina realize that the windows of all the cars in the lot had been shatter...except her Thunderbird and the striped car that Sam had been looking at.
Bobby B turned whirled back around to Sam and Ron. "Four thousand!" He yelled, holding up four fingers.
