Hope

Kelley was the very first person to share her thoughts on Eight Hurricane Maria Stories from Puerto Rico. Kelley's topic, and the gift she gives others, is HOPE, so here's her story:

Before Captain Kelley tore through our azure skies, life on Pnub was all about rocks, rocks, and more rocks. Mining, trading, and collecting rocks was very important. The best people on Pnub were the ones who owned the best rocks, of course.

After she landed, Captain Kelley stole the best rocks from the best people and gave their rocks to the worst people. Then, when the worst people started acting like the best people, the Captain took the best rocks away from everyone! It was a very confusing time for the people of Pnub.

We don't know where Captain Kelley came from or why she did this to us. All we know is that she was terrible. She once made Cobalt Pete cry in front of everyone by calling his rocks worthless. Everyone knew that Cobalt Pete had the best of the best rocks. The people of Pnub all agreed that capturing Captain Kelley would put a stop to this madness.

That was easier said than done. Captain Kelley's ship was very fast. We tried to follow her in the tugboats used to haul rocks, but those were too slow. We'd never be able to catch her that way.
Finally, Sandstone Jill got a really strange idea. What if we dumped the rocks off the tugboats to make them lighter? We tried it, and the tugboats traveled higher up into the sky than they ever had before. But Captain Kelley soared even higher, staying just out of reach.

Hmmm... what if we made tugboats that weren't designed to carry rocks at all? We made the tugboats smaller, sleeker, and speedier. Somewhere along the way, we stopped calling them tugboats and starting calling them ships.

Some of us followed Captain Kelley all the way up to Pnub's moons. These moons had new and interesting rocks that couldn't be found down on the planet. We began mining the moon rocks, but Captain Kelley wouldn't stop bothering us.

She said that she had the best of all rocks, and that we couldn't have this rock because we were too slow and stupid. Then, she took off into the skies and flew to another planet beyond Pnub's moons. We experimented with different moon rocks until we found one that could make our ships go very fast. Some of us chased after Captain Kelley and made it to the next planet.

After careful consideration, we decided to call this planet Pnub II.

Pnub II had rocks, but it had a lot of other things too. It had things that went squawk and things that glowed in the night and things that grew ever taller each year while giving us shade from the sun. And those were just some of the things other than rocks that we found. This too was a very confusing time for the people of Pnub II.

And Captain Kelley still wouldn't leave us alone. She no longer claimed to have the best of all rocks. Instead, she said that she had something that was better than the best of all rocks. The next time she took off, some of us followed her to the next planet.

Rocks are sometimes still important, but life for the people of Pnub, Pnub's moons, Pnub II, and the planets beyond is no longer all about rocks.

We haven't seen Captain Kelley in quite some time, but we keep searching for new worlds. We aren't sure why.

It can't be for greed. We have more than we ever could have imagined.

It can't be for revenge. Captain Kelley was awful, but she never hurt our people.

This thing makes us want to go a little farther, to find something a little better, to keep trying year after year. We don't yet have a name for it.

Perhaps when we find that thing that Captain Kelley promised us, that thing that is better than the best of all rocks, we will know what to call it.