A Speedeet & Wilar Story

It started, as most things did, with Speedeet having an idea.

“Wilar.” He appeared at the gate with a plastic bag and an expression that Wilar had learned to treat as a warning. “You know how vinegar and baking soda does make dat explosion thing?”

Wilar looked up from his book. “It’s not an explosion. It’s a chemical reaction. Carbon dioxide gas is released when an acid meets a base, creating—”

“Right, right.” Speedeet wave through the gate. “De explosion thing. Come.”

They set up in the backyard — Speedeet’s backyard, because Wilar’s mother had already banned three of Speedeet’s previous experiments from her property, and the ban still had several months to run.

The supplies were laid out on an old crate: one bottle of white vinegar, one box of baking soda, a funnel, several empty bottles of varying sizes, and a piece of cardboard that Speedeet had drawn a rocket on.

“We making a rocket,” Speedeet announced.

Wilar looked at the cardboard. Then at the bottles. Then back at Speedeet. “This is not how rockets work.”

“This is how MY rocket works.”

“What is the rocket supposed to do?”

Speedeet pointed upward. “Go up.”

“And come down where?”

This question had not been part of the original plan. Speedeet thought about it. “Away,” he said finally.

Wilar opened his notebook.

The first attempt involved a small bottle, a modest amount of vinegar and baking soda, and a cork Speedeet had saved from something his mother threw out. The cork went sideways. It hit the fence. The fence was fine. The cork was not found.

“Bigger,” Speedeet said.

“I don’t think bigger is the correct variable to adjust,” Wilar said. But he was already writing down the results of attempt one, because once an experiment had begun, Wilar’s scientific nature would not allow him to stop documenting it.

The second attempt involved a larger bottle and considerably more baking soda. The cork went upward this time — genuinely upward — approximately two feet, then struck Speedeet directly on the forehead.

Speedeet sat down.

“Are you okay?” Wilar asked.

“I see stars,” Speedeet said, with what seemed like genuine wonder. “Little ones.”

“That’s concerning.”

“No, it’s nice.”

Wilar wrote: Subject reports visual phenomena. Experiment paused.

They sat in the backyard for a while. A lizard crossed the top of the fence with great confidence and disappeared. From the road, Miss Dolly could be heard explaining something to someone at considerable volume.

“I think,” Wilar said carefully, “that the rocket concept requires further planning before the next trial.”

“I agree,” Speedeet said. He was still sitting on the ground. “I think the cork need to be longer.”

“I think the entire approach needs to be longer.”

“Dat’s what I said.”

“You said the cork.”

“De cork is PART of de approach.”

They argued about this for ten minutes. The lizard came back, looked at them, and left again.

Eventually Speedeet stood up, brushed off his shorts, and studied the cardboard rocket with fresh eyes. He had drawn it with a red marker and given it a face — two eyes and a grim, determined mouth.

“What we gon call it?” he asked.

Wilar considered. “We haven’t successfully launched it yet.”

“Still need a name. Every rocket have a name.”

Wilar looked at the rocket. At the backyard. At the two craters in the grass where the baking soda foam had landed.

“Pike Street One,” he said.

Speedeet nodded slowly. “Pike Street One.” He picked up the marker and wrote it on the cardboard, large and slightly crooked.

“Tomorrow,” he said. “We try again tomorrow. Different cork.”

“Different everything,” Wilar said.

“Different cork,” Speedeet said firmly.

They packed up the supplies. The foam was already drying in the grass. Somewhere above the rooftops, a real plane crossed the sky — smooth and silver and going exactly where it intended.

Speedeet watched it until it disappeared.

“One day,” he said.

“You need physics first,” Wilar said.

“I have YOU. Dat’s basically physics.”

Wilar thought about this longer than necessary.

“That,” he said finally, “is the nicest thing you have ever said to me.”

“Don’t get used to it,” Speedeet said. “Less go. I hungry.”

— De End —

Speedeet & Wilar live on Pike Street, Kitty, Georgetown, Guyana. They are twelve years old and will try again tomorrow.