Boomer of Verde Valley

There weren't always dragons in the Valley. In fact, I remember exploring these same trails and mountains when I was just a child with my two brothers and friends, from early morning until it would start to get dark. Our mother always told us that idle hands were the devil's workshop. She told me that it was some bible verse, but I wasn't one that really paid much attention to any of that.

But, growing up in the Verde Valley of Arizona was always an adventure. My brothers and I always loved summer vacation from school. Because it meant that we would have endless hours outdoors exploring the many trails and mountain gulleys near our home either together as the three musketeers, or with friends for the ultimate explorer's adventures.

"Crystal! Come on!" whined Melissa, my best friend from 3rd grade to date.

"Give me a second," I said, as I continued to examine the rock in my hand.

I was always the straggler. I loved going on these trail hikes because I personally loved seeing the many colors and textures of the mountain rock walls, and enjoyed examining all of the rocks that would fall or roll from the top of the gulleys.

Today was an exceptionally humid day for us. Normally, during June is would be getting warmer, but it was rarely humid. We were known for our dry heat. In fact, we have our grandparents that would come from Missouri during the summer because it was so dry. In fact, they were staying with us now... which is one of the reasons that Melissa and I decided to go do a walk-about. She had done a paper in school about Australian explorers in her English class right before school got out for the summer. And, so we decided that because Australia's outback was similar to our climate... we would pretend that we were Australian Explorers today.

"Besides mate, Av a go at trying to relax!" I exclaimed, attempting to put the Australian flair back in the mood while continuing to examine the rock in my hand.

Melissa stopped walking, turned to me with her hand on her hip, and rolled her eyes at me. "What's that you got there?" she asked with the worst Australian accent she could muster.

I giggled. "A rock silly!" I said with exasperation in my voice at her accent.

She walked back to me to take a closer look. It was a rather large rock, bigger than my hand, and was oval in shape. It was dark purple and pink, with what looked like a limestone vein going down the middle but all around the rock. It looked almost like a seam of some sort. There were flecks of some kind of material in the dark purple, that made it sparkle. And, this is what caught my attention to the rock, to begin with when I walked past it. I'm not sure if the sun had bounced off of my canteen and hit the rock so that it sparkled or what it was. But, it was almost magical how it sparkled when I first picked it up.

"Wow! She's a beauty that one," Melissa said again, with her bad Australian accent. I rolled my eyes at her attempt. "Ok, I'll knock it off," she said pulling off her hat and fanning herself.

I went back to examining the rock and looking around to see if there were any others like it so that I try to find its origin when I got back home.

"Melissa, it's just so weird that I don't see any other rocks like it. Do you?" I asked. She took a moment and looked down at the ground. "Nope," she said almost bored.

Just then, the rock in my hand started to glow and started humming a high-pitched but sweet melody. The sparkles started to lift off of the rock and started to move around us like fairy dust.

At the same time, I saw a huge winged shadow that looked to be flying toward us.

"Aaaahhh!!" screamed Melissa, looking up. "What is that!" she screamed pointing up at the sky.

I looked up just as it flew over the top of the mountain gulley that we were in. The rock that I was holding started to hum even louder and started to get hot in my hand, and I was forced to drop it or get burned.

What is going on?!? I thought to myself.

"Rrroooooaaaaarrrrr!!"