Defenders of Destiny, book one, the Discovery of Astrolaris

Joseph couldn’t wait to see his mom’s face when he showed her the spearhead. As they pulled down their long tree lined gravel driveway, he saw Percy come out from under the porch. With a couple of barks and his tail wagging furiously, he ran to greet them. Joseph could see his mom look out the kitchen window. She came out onto the porch as Joseph came bounding up the steps.

  “I see by your face that you must have met with success,” she observed, smiling.

  Joseph pulled the spearhead from his pocket as if performing a magic act, “Ta da…”

  “Wow, that is an interesting geode,” his mother responded, a little bit teasingly.

  “It’s an ancient Indian spearhead!” Joseph exclaimed. “But that is nothing; wait till you see what else we found,” he declared, as he handed the spearhead to her.

  She turned the spearhead over, noticing how beautiful it was. “What else did you find that could top this?”

  “We found a giant metal meteorite-thing...from space!” he burst out.

  “It’s the ‘thing’ part of your description that intrigues me,” she said with interest.

  Standing at the bottom of the front porch steps, holding the bucket of broken geodes, Dad explained: “We don’t really know what it is but it is at the bottom of an impact crater.”

  “We are going back out there with the backhoe to dig it up and bring it home!” exclaimed Joseph.

  “Not till I’ve had a meal, a couple hours rest, and a hot shower. Oh yeah, and a kiss,” proposed Thomas, as he leaned over toward his wife, Sophia.

  “I think you ought to start with the shower, everything else can wait till after,” she countered, as she bent down to look at the bucket of geodes. “You too,” she directed, looking at Joseph.”

  “Where is Sharianna?” asked Dad.

  “She’s sleeping over at Kim’s house. She couldn’t wait to show off her new clothes from our little shopping expedition,” Mom replied with a smile, as she thought of the great deals they had found at the factory stores.

  Weeks before, when Joseph and Dad were planning their trip to the desert, Mom suggested that they make it a father and son camping trip while the girls went to Park City for an adventure among the many shops and art galleries. Sharianna enjoyed the outdoors and loved to go camping, but digging holes out in the hot desert simply did not sound as fun as shopping along the streets of the old silver mining town.