The Icarus Project LAURA QUIMBY Amulet Books New York
1 The Myth of My Mom The computer screen glowed in my dark bedroom like a moon Mom was late logging on to video-conference with me My mom was totally into ancient civilizations Mayans Incans Egyptians Greeks Romans She even liked Vikings Her latest expedition had taken her to the jungles of South America She had told me that in the jungle nothing dries that everything stays wet She said even the moonlight felt damp on her skin as if she had been bathing in milk I counted out six gel pens and formed a rainbow of color on my desk My notebook was opened to a crisp white page marked with pale blue lines I uncapped the purple pen and held it loosely in my hand The inky tip bled onto the paper paper leaving tiny purple stains Purple was a serious color It was the color of royalty the anchor of the rainbow that held the other colors up in the sky Steadfast and reliable purple didn’t fool around
Dad once told me that NASA had spent years trying to make a pen with ink that flowed in zero gravity The Russians took two seconds to figure out the problem They called it the pencil I’m not sure if that story was really true but I thought it was funny I also realized that if I were on an expedition in a steamy jungle where the ink never dried all my notes on every wing beat or tiger prowl or bird squawk would end up as a smeared mess So I had loaded up on colored pencils In defense of NASA pencil sharpeners are nonexistent when you are knee-deep in the starry sky What if one day I dropped the sharpener in the undergrowth of the Amazon floor or it floated away in the black pit of outer space It would be pretty much impossible to find a pencil sharpener in the deserts of Luxor So I practiced sharpening my colored pencils with a Swiss Army knife that I found buried in the junk drawer next to the phone in the kitchen But I’d never used the knife before so I cut my thumb and left an incriminating incriminating trail of blood drops all over the pile of Chinese take out menus crammed inside of the drawer Dad confiscated the knife I had Dad to thank for the jumbo pack of colored pens that were now laid out before me on my desk I liked to record my observations in vibrant color All scientists scientists need a thing a specialty they can talk about like an expert Mom’s thing was dead people and no not creepy zombie dead people but ancient dead civilizations and their dried-up bones She was an anthropologist Since I couldn’t excavate my bedroom floor my specialty was colors at least
