Veronica And The Volcano

“No! Help!” Veronica cried, thrashing her arms and legs. “Mom! Dad!! Elyse!!!” She awoke, expecting to find herself forty feet high near one of the most dangerous volcanoes on earth, but her pillow was too fluffy and her blanket too warm. She could hear her sister Elyse snoring somewhere nearby. “Oh, thank goodness,” she sighed. “It was only a dream.” She pulled the soft blanket over her head, but something sharp poked her in the back. Her heavy eyes opened to a haze of white moongleam.  “Veronica, wake up! It’s time to go,” the voice was familiar but faraway. Her eyes widened, and she saw herself as she was, dangling in the trees of a cool summer night, the pearl fields of Mount Mystery a day’s walk away. “Which is real?” she croaked. “Sleepyhead, we have to GO!” Maddy repeated, poking her again with a marshmallow stick.  “I think … I think … I had a bad dream,” Veronica said. “Yeah, you think?” Maddy said plainly. “I’ve been trying to wake you. What happened?” “I—thought—it—was—real,” Veronica sai

The bone-white eye of a low-slung moon stared the Captain in the face. He held the flickering torch close. Maddy and Veronica leaned in, the firefly-light dancing in their eyes. He began:  It was a land of dragons and redwoods, of towering ferns and boulder-sized diamonds. The People of Wood filled the cosmos. Their starships filled the universe, and they landed right here in the Cloud Forest. They roamed the forests for thousands of years with no concept of “private property” or even of “my.” They lived as naked as they were born, and as naked as they would die. Everything and nothing was theirs. They believed in the dream force: the reality that lies behind all things, a world they could touch only in their dreams. They believed everything you see—the entire observable universe—was a mere shadow of a dream.  They believed there were those among them—the Dreamers—who dreamt, even while awake. They believed space and time bent to these Dreamers, that the whole universe existed simply to make their d

Veronica’s dad reeled in another good-sized trout from the pale blue waters. He called for the girls, but they did not answer. “Hey Captain,” he said. “Have you seen them?” The Captain looked around, checked his watch, then stared into the not-quite dark. “They could be anywhere.” “Veronica! Maddy! Veronica! Maddy!” the two fathers called in every direction. “VERONICA! MADDY!” But Veronica and Maddy could not hear their fathers’ cries. The girls walked deeper into the forest. Somewhere in the distance, a wild animal howled. “Hey, Maddy,” Veronica said, her hands full of firewood. “Which way is camp?” “Umm … right over … there?” She pointed uncertainly. Every direction looked exactly the same. She listened for the rush of the waterfall, but heard only more howls, now closer than before. “It has to be somewhere,” she said. “We didn’t go that far, did we?” She peered through the trunks for any movement, any light, any sign of the campsite at all. “There!” she shouted. “The light! That’s it!”

Veronica, Maddy, and their fathers stepped out in single file onto the narrow steel bridge. From her perch, Veronica could see the tops of the highest trees poking through the marshmallow clouds. At the center of the bridge, the clouds parted, revealing a lush green forest below. Towering redwoods gave way to old-growth fig, cedar, and teak.  They continued along the bridge to the small volcano on the other side, emerging onto a mossy glen. A crystal-clear stream meandered through the glen and down the slope. Mount Mystery loomed in the distance. “We’re almost there,” the Captain said. “Just follow the stream down, and you’ll find the campsite. And don’t worry, this volcano’s extinct.” Extinct. Veronica had heard that word at least twice before. Once, in science class, describing the ancient volcano at the center of her own hometown, and again, from her father, describing the volcano that would eventually destroy Babeltown. Together they descended with the stream into the forest, moss drapes deafening ev

The high steel bridge crossed a fluffy white sea. “We’ll take it over the clouds,” the Captain said to the girls. “I was no older than you when I crossed this bridge for the first time. The campsite is just on the other side, down the small volcano. Let’s break here and catch our breath, before the final push.”  Hungry from the hike, the girls scavenged in their packs. Veronica retrieved a granola bar and Maddy an apple. Together, they rested on some nearby rocks, gazing at scarlet wildflowers as birdsong filled the air. Veronica heard footsteps. Two hikers approached from the south, a silver-haired man and a blonde-haired boy. The man seemed to be at least seventy years old and the boy no older than twelve. “Howdee!” yelled the old timer in a thin, high voice. “On the way to Mystery, too?” “Yes, sir!” the Captain said. “Made our way over Magma Pass. How about you?” “From New Lava City, thank goodness,” the old man said, with a nod to the angry northern sky. “It’s my grandson’s first time. He has this cr

Beyond the tunnel, a four-lane highway stretched across a level plain. Veronica’s dad checked the rearview mirror for the cloud. “Well, that was a little close,” he said. “Girls, you can use the iPad if you like. We’ll be in the Cloud Forest in no time.” Now, on a wide, flat road, Veronica was happy to have something to take her mind off the drive. She and Maddy played on the iPad, building—of all things—their own virtual volcanoes in their favorite app, LavaCraft. With each passing mile, the world became more normal, the sun brighter, the sky less full of menace, as if the hellish scene unfolding sixty miles to the west had never happened at all. Veronica and Maddy watched the birds land lazily on the wildflowers and chatted about the pearls they hoped to find on the far side of Mount Mystery. For the first time since the Pass, the lava car slowed, then turned sharply at an unmarked intersection. The smooth highway transformed into bone-crunching dirt road. Higher and higher the car climbed, bumping along th

The sky turned black as the pyroclastic cloud chased them across the Pass. A sea of fire glowed incandescent behind the angry cloud. Elbows of lightning crisscrossed its murderous face. “Faster, faster!” Veronica screamed. The speedometer crossed one hundred miles per hour. “It’s getting closer,” she groaned. Veronica’s dad checked the screen. The cloud was 750 degrees and moving 150 feet per second. He opened a red safety cover on the dashboard, exposing a silver toggle labeled “Boosters.” He flipped the switch. The car rocketed across the tundra at 180 miles per hour. With one eye on the rearview mirror, he watched as the ash cloud disappeared into the distance. “Well, that was a little close,” he admitted. “But we’re safe now—we’ll be out of here in no time.” The car continued rocketing down the road, putting ever more distance between themselves and the cloud. “There! Look there!” he shouted. “Wolf Creek! The way out!” Wolf Creek marked the end of the plateau and the eastern boundary of the Magma Skyway.

“Girls, look!” the captain said, tapping the passenger-side window. Veronica glanced up from her iPad just long enough to read the sign. MAGMA SKYWAY Open June to September Enter at Your Own Risk! “Why’s it only open in the summer?” Maddy asked. “Too much snow,” the Captain said. “Over twenty feet a year! No snowplow dares work this high. The snow comes in October and stays until May—unless the lava melts it sooner, of course.” “There won’t be any lava today,” Veronica’s dad said. “We’ll be over the Pass in no time. For now, enjoy the view. Just let me know if you see anything weird.”  “What do you mean ‘weird’?” Veronica asked. He didn’t answer. He swiped the car’s screen, displaying a colorful map of the surrounding ground. Green patches denoted normal temperatures, yellow above 120 degrees, orange above 500 degrees, and red above 1000 degrees. “I’ve never seen the screen so yellow,” Veronica said. The Captain glanced at the newfangled screen exactly once, focusing his attention wholly on the road.&nbs

“It’s not much further,” called the Captain to the girls, who dawdled behind him chatting and kicking stones. They passed one abandoned shell of a house after another, until finally the Captain stopped. “It’s just through that door,” he said, his voice soft and solemn. “But this isn’t a grave?” Veronica said. The house looked much like every other house, but one thing stood out—the door. Or more precisely, the double doors. Two bronze doors—worn, weathered, and covered in a moss of rust—seemed to tell a story. But what story? Veronica was not so sure. Carvings of two bronze angels faced each other, floating over a bubbling lake. A diamond-shaped knob jutted out of each door, daring entry. “Is this a tomb?” Veronica’s father asked, but the Captain said nothing. He dug in his pocket for a large skeleton key and placed it in the keyhole. The lock screeched like fingernails on a chalkboard. Both girls pushed, but the door would not budge. The two men pressed their shoulders to it, opening the door just enough for

Veronica looked out the window, daydreaming with her elbow on the door and her head in her hand. Maddy fiddled with the iPad, unaware of the towering city rolling into view just ahead of her. Veronica’s eyes rose above the clouds. “Daddy, does it really touch the sky?” she asked. The clouds hiding the city’s peak parted—answering her—with an emphatic yes. Babeltown, a once-proud city of thousands, looked more like a brightly colored painting in which all the colors had run together. Some of the houses were narrow, others wide, together covering the mountain in a twisted freeform pile stretching to the heavens. Thousands of windows looked out in every direction like so many eyes peering down upon the valley below. “I thought for sure this place would have burned,” Veronica’s dad marveled. He parked the car next to a walking path and switched off the ignition. “Okay,” he said, “everyone … out! The old house, if it’s still there, should be right up that hill. And if there’s time,” he added, with a wink to the Ca

Packed and ready, the lava car rolled out of the driveway at 9:00 a.m. sharp. If all went according to plan, the four adventurers would arrive at the Cloud Forest in plenty of time to set up camp. Ten minutes into the drive, Veronica’s dad read the sign on the edge of the road: Town of Crater Lake, 1 Mile. “Hey Captain, I need to stop. You didn’t bring any matches, did you?” “No,” the Captain said, frowning. “I can start a proper fire.” Veronica’s dad let the snipe pass. He braked hard and swerved into a strip mall on the outskirts of town, parking in front of Magma Mart. “I’ll only be a minute,” he said to the Captain. “Veronica, you come with me." Magma Mart was sandwiched smack dab in the middle of Veronica’s two favorite sources of sweets in the world: The Ice Creamery on the left and The Village Bakery on the right. All three businesses were owned by the same man. Veronica called him “Coach,” as did everyone in town. He coached at least a half-dozen teams, from girls’ softball to high school football. “D

Veronica opened her eyes to the sight of her sweet sister sliding into bed next to her. “You look like a lion,” she said, as Elyse’s golden hair swept up like a wispy mane.  Elyse blinked her blue eyes at Veronica. “TV, please?” she squeaked in her five-year-old voice. Veronica reached for the remote control and turned on Elyse’s favorite show, the one starring a curious monkey. While normally she would have liked nothing more than to cuddle and watch TV in bed with her sister, today she had more important things to do.  Veronica poked Maddy, who was still snoring away on a sleeping bag next to the bed. Grumbling, Maddy pulled the fluffy bag up over her head. Veronica kept prodding her, until she finally got up. They dressed in the clothes they had laid out the night before, and ran downstairs to the kitchen, where they encountered Veronica’s mother. Veronica carried her backpack. “Mom? What are you doing up?” Veronica asked. She looked at her daughter as if she wanted to cry. “Veronica, are you sur

“Daddy, look!” Veronica said excitedly, staring out the living room window. The blue skies and yellow sun had turned black. Birds of every color flew in one direction, away from the volcano. Fiery lava gushed out in giant arcs from the volcano’s peak, as ghostly steam rings stretched for miles into the wild, ash-flaked sky. Veronica grabbed the family iPad from an end table. Two years ago, for the third-grade science fair, she had set up sensors all around her yard to measure earthquakes. Her father monitored the sensors on an iPad app that showed something like an X-ray of the volcano, how much lava might pour out, and even the temperature of the lava and the ground. The app was also connected to sensors placed by other hobby scientists on other volcanoes, including the largest active volcano of all, Mount Mystery. Her screen told her this lava was hot—more than 1,500 degrees—hotter than an oven. The app showed a web of different-colored lava tubes deep underground, carrying molten lava all around the vol

By the next day, Veronica had made her plan. She would climb Mount Mystery, take her best friend, Maddy, and leave tomorrow. But first, she would need her dad to help get ready, her mom to say yes, and Maddy’s parents to let her go. Fortunately, Maddy happened to be sleeping over at Veronica’s house that very night. All in a day’s work, she thought. Veronica found her dad in the garage, lying on his back, his feet protruding out from under the car. “Is it ready yet?” she asked sweetly. “Veronica, you can’t just jump in a car and drive to Mount Mystery,” he said in a muffled voice. “It takes preparation. It takes time. Everything needs to be perfect. Now, can you please hand me that tube?” She grabbed a large metal hose on the garage wall and pressed it into his blindly grasping hand. “Here you go,” she said. “Whatcha doin’ anyway?” “Just filling the ice tire tank,” he said. “I’m not about to get stuck on Magma Pass without ice tires—not again anyhow.” Listen to the award-winning volcanic podcast!

In another lifetime, in a land of lava and love, there lived a young girl named Veronica. Veronica had brown hair and beautiful hazel eyes. She wore a strand of pearls every day, even to bed, because her middle name was Pearl. Veronica had a mom and dad, who loved her very much, and a little sister, Elyse, who loved to play. She was, in fact, a perfectly ordinary girl, except for one very important thing—Veronica lived on a volcano. “Lava bomb!” Veronica called brightly from the passenger seat, as her father backed the lava car out of the garage. She heard the telltale shriek and saw the orange glow. A flaming boulder, about the size of a school desk, streaked through the summer sky. She pressed the red button in the center of the dashboard—a button clearly marked lava shield.  The lava bomb struck with the force of a lightning bolt. Showers of incandescent stones hailed down upon them, as if from a volcanic thundercloud. ...  Listen to the Award-Winning Volcanic Podcast!