The Mapmaker and the Ghost(3)
Goldenrod and Charla had always loved maps. They found an indescribable thrill in seeing all the possibilities of places to go laid out in front of them on a page, like they could be reached at any time. They loved maps that showed mountain ranges and valleys, and those that showed names of capitals and cities. They even loved the ones that told you which state produced the most sugar snap peas.
One day the previous year, while they were browsing the library for a book of maps they maybe hadn’t come across before, Charla found a biography that was haphazardly shelved in that section. It was for two explorers named Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, who, a long time ago, went on a three-year adventure across most of the western United States, making maps and discovering loads and loads of plants and animals that no one had ever known existed, and even getting accidentally shot in the leg while being mistaken for an elk by a nearsighted fellow explorer (well, one of them did anyway—Lewis). Before Lewis and Clark, no one knew that there was land past the Rocky Mountains (which seemed preposterous to Goldenrod and Charla, who actually lived on some of that very land).
From that day forward, Goldenrod and Charla made great plans to be the next Lewis and Clark: explorers, adventurers, and mapmakers. Goldenrod particularly felt a kindred spirit in Meriwether Lewis, in part because he had had to deal with a name as equally ridiculous as her own; Charla was happy to take on the Clark role. Since Lewis and Clark called their crew the Corps of Discovery, Charla and Goldenrod had picked a name for themselves that they thought sounded just as mighty: the Legendary Adventurers. They decided that, along the way, they might have to add some more crew members, perhaps a Sacagawea type, who was the intelligent Native American woman who had been the Discovery Corps’s guide and translator. For just then, though, they felt the Legendary Adventurers could flourish in the very capable hands of its two leaders.
The girls spent months training for their adventures. In case they ever needed to hide from a hostile animal, they practiced camouflage techniques, using everything from makeup to mud to stealth moves to blend in with their surroundings. In case they were ever captured by enemies, they practiced interrogation and deception techniques, learning the most effective ways to mislead their captors under pressure by acting out different scenarios and taking turns playing the roles of Legendary Adventurer vs. Formidable Foe. And, of course, they continually honed their map-drawing skills by getting their parents to enlist them in art classes at the Y.
There was only one real glitch in their grand plans: neither Goldenrod nor Charla could think of a single area in the mile-wide radius around Goldenrod’s house that called for discovery because, unfortunately, that was exactly as far as Goldenrod was allowed to go without adult supervision. This was definitely one of the drawbacks to being eleven (ten, at the time).
They had had one possible breakthrough: the previous August, Charla’s mom had mentioned offhand that they might go camping in the fall and had told Goldenrod that she would be welcome to come if they did. Both Goldenrod and Charla agreed that this was excellent news. Camping meant a forest and trees—in other words, undeveloped land—and that was exactly the type of land that needed exploration.
They eagerly waited for Charla’s mom to mention the camping trip again, and in the meantime started collecting some of the supplies they thought they might need. Goldenrod asked for a compass for her eleventh birthday, and Charla asked for The Encyclopedia of North American Flora and Fauna for hers.
But in late November, instead of mentioning what was to be the great important camping trip that would change the American landscape forever, Charla’s mom announced that her job was moving the family to another state. By February, they were gone.
And now Goldenrod was left alone to look sadly at her books of maps and her beautiful, unused compass sitting in its case on her desk. She sighed and stared out of her second-story window, where she could see her mother in her straw hat and gardening gloves. Mrs. Moram was a very small woman with short, blond hair and tan olive skin that made a perfect contrast to all the bright flowers she was working against. She was joyously bent over her garden now, probably excited that her beloved dahlias and, eventually, goldenrods would soon be in full bloom. My name could have been Dahlia, Goldenrod thought to herself. So much better …
BANG! CLACK! WHACK! She was shaken from her grumpy thoughts by the rooftop sounds of her father, a scientist who had taken a week off to pursue one of his favorite pastimes: fixing rain gutters.
And from downstairs came the beeps and wails of Birch’s video game.
It seemed like everyone in the world was having a great time … except Goldenrod.
But then again, wallowing is not a good trait for a Legendary Adventurer to have, she thought. In fact, she was almost certain that Meriwether Lewis would never have wallowed had he ever been eleven years old and grounded.
Goldenrod took out a pencil and a fresh sheet of grid paper and, looking out the window again, started to sketch a map of her mother’s garden. Chrysanthemums next to the rosebushes next to the magnolia tree. A ring of soon-to-be-blooming goldenrods surrounding it all—a ring that her mother had to take very special care of because her daughter’s namesake flowers were the kind that would absolutely run rampant and take over the whole garden if they weren’t carefully monitored.
Suddenly, as Goldenrod squinted out at the flowers, one of those brilliant a-ha ideas hit her as sharply as the sun’s rays. What if her project for the summer was to make a map of Pilmilton? Not just any map, though. The most accurate map in the world. Every house, every tree, every shrub. Okay, so maybe it wouldn’t be as grand or as long an expedition as the one Lewis and Clark went on, and maybe she would discover nothing new at all. But then again … maybe she would. And then she could take the best map and sketches of any new specimens she discovered and mail them to Charla. That way, she could still be like her longdistance Clark. Yes!