I moved a checker. She jumped me. "Crown me," she said again.

"Huh?" I said.

Picture by Colleen Kelley, Age 8

"Where's your mind?" she said. "Not on checkers."

"Oh," I said. "I was thinking about Rocky. About the story you told us. I was wondering if he ever found his roots or even if he ever used the traveling dust. You know." I slid a checker into its spot--but first I checked to make sure I wasn't sacri ficing it needlessly. No sense in senseless slaughter.

"Want me to tell you about the very first time Rocky tried using the traveling dust?" Grandma asked.

"Hey," Grandpa shouted from the kitchen. "Wait for me. I'm on the last layer of making my sandwich."

"Me too," Logan said. "I'm making whatever Grandpa's making."

After we were all settled on the couch, Grandma began.

For a while, Rocky tried to put the traveling dust out of his mind. After all, he wasn't even sure whether he'd dreamed the whole thing, late at night and all. Every time he tried to think back on exactly what had happened, his mind went all fuzzy with campfire smells and moonlight...he certainly wasn't sure he believed in such a thing as traveling dust.

Finally, though, he realized it was bugging him too much. Only thing to do was try the dust and see what happened. The obsidian had told him that he came from a volcano, so he knew that much, at least. He wasn't sure if any volcanoes were erupting in the world right now. But he did remember all the news about Mt. Saint Helens some years back. Rocks have very long memories, you know.

Picture by Nathan Torres, Age 8

Anyway, he said to himself, "If this so-called traveling dust can take me any place, I'll go visit Mt. Saint Helens and see what the rocks around there can tell me about volcanoes."

He decided to wait for a night when the moon was full--just in case. Late that night, when a light breeze blew up, he took a little of the dust from the back and sprinkled it over his head. "I sure wish I could have been there when Mount St. Helens ble w," he said out loud. "Oh well. Let's see if this stuff does anything." He paused and then said in a dramatic whisper, "Take me to Mount St. Helens."

He counted to three.

Nothing happened.

"Just as I thought," Rocky said.

Suddenly, wham! He felt as if he were exploding from the inside out. When he stopped shaking, he was in total and complete darkness. "Great," he said. "The dust that obsidian gave me blew me to bits."

"Hmmmm?" A gravelly voice spoke from somewhere very close.

Picture by Joshua Ratcliff, Age 8

"I'm in bits and I can still hear," Rocky said.

"I don't know about bits," the voice said. "You're on top of me and you don't feel like bits."

"Oops." Rocky scrambled off in the darkness. "Who are you? Where are we? What's going on?"

"I don't know who you are," the voice said, "but I'm one of the rocks inside Mount St. Helens and rumour says that we're all about to take the ride of our lives."

"Huh?" Rocky shivered. Something had worked. "When is this?"

"May 18, 1980, 8:28 in the morning," the voice said cheerfully. "On March 20, we all got the jolt that woke us up. By March 24, we were getting bumped and bounced every minute or so. Steam and ash started hissing out of the mountain, way up there at t he top." The voice paused. "In April, we started constantly rocking and rolling. The magma had started to move.

Picture by Connor Stocking, Age 9

By early May, the magma started pushing to get out. You know how magma can be."

"No," Rocky said faintly. "I don't."

"Well, when it starts pushing, it has to go somewhere. It's been squeezing up through cracks in the mountain. But something new is happening, now. In the last few hours, reports shiver down from the outside every minute or so."

Rocky thought about that. The traveling dust must be able to make things travel not only through space but also time. He'd gone backwards in time. "The biggest thing to ever happen to this mountain is about to hit us," he said solemnly.

"Oh no." The voice was cheerful. "You know how time is to a rock. I don't know exactly how long ago, but--say--maybe 2000 years, cousins of mine went through this."

"Well, it's never happened to me." Rocky shivered again. "I don't know what to do."

"If you really want to become bits," his new friend said, "you could go up with the ash. It's going up 16 miles into the atmosphere and gets to totally block the sun."

"Uh, no..." Suddenly, Rocky felt the most tremendous jolt he'd ever felt in his life. "Hold on!" his friend shouted. "Earthquake a mile down. There goes the magma and gas!"

Rocky reached out, grabbed the rock, and got ready to shoot him skyward. WHUMP. He was flying, all right. But he was flying sideways. "We're going out the north side," he heard his friend yell. "Hang on!"

In a burst of light he was outside, whistling through the air. "What are we doing?" he screamed.

Picture by Stephen Hopfer, Age 7

"Wheeee. We're part of a rock storm!"

For minutes, Rocky couldn't say a thing. All he could do was hang on. When he finally whammed to the ground, he rolled over and groaned. "What's happening?"

He could see the rock beside him, now. "Wasn't it great?" the rock said. "We pulverized everything. We sandblasted that forest to bare rock--mowed the trees down like grass."

"Say," Rocky said. "You're a little cold hearted. What kind of rock are you, anyway? Basalt?"

"Nah," the rock said. "Basalt makes a more fluid, stable magma--the kind that used to flow around here a lot. My cousins and I are all explosive batches of andesite and dacite."

"I..." But Rocky never got to finish his sentence. His mouth was suddenly full of mud.

"Mudflow...mudflow," he heard the rock shout, just before they were both carried off in the hot mass of melted snow and ash.

Rocky rushed by trees, boulders, houses, logging trucks. "Help!" he hollered. "Help! Help! Get me out of here." Instantly, he was whirled away into silence. Apparently the traveling dust had the power to take him back home as quickly as he had left .

"So what happened?" I said. "He was glad he found some other andesite, right?"

"Maybe." Grandma reached over and took a bite out of Grandpa's sandwich. "The thing was, he didn't have time to ask. And he wasn't sure he liked the way his new friend felt about the trees and all. He didn't really think he could be related to someon e so hard-hearted, and he needed some time to think about it all. But sometime, he told himself--in a quieter time--he'd have to go back.