Ellie's POV
"Start playing well" Joel said as I tried to play the guitar
" I suck"
"But no, you just need to form calluses first"
"Maybe so" I looked at my fingers
Joel bragged that he had a nice present for my birthday
"Okay, then I'll start guessing" I said
"Maybe you want to spoil the surprise?" Joel asked
"Is it a dinosaur?"
"No"
"Is it a convertible?"
"Ellie, you'll never guess"
"All right, then"
We walked in silence
"Okay, but is it an elephant?"
"Ellie, please..."
"How about a bunch of kittens?"
"You mean a litter?"
"What is a litter?"
"A bunch of kittens"
"Why don't you just call it a bunch of kittens?"
"I don't know"
"Okay, watch your step," Joel said, pushing me onto the water below us and starting to laugh.
"Hey! What the fuck?"
"You should see your face right now" He continued to laugh.
"What if I drown?"
"You won't drown."
"Keep laughing old man" I said as I got out of the water.
As I got out of the water, Joel and I spotted a deer.
"Ellie look!"
"It looks like a" I said
"WOW"
Then I pushed it into the water and laughed.
"What does it look like?"
"Refreshing" He replied
As we moved forward, we came to a huge statue of a T-Rex.
"LOOK JOEL! A DINOSAUR!"
"Yes, that's what it looks like," He replied
I began to climb up it
"Ellie, where are you going?"
"I'm climbing a dinosaur!"
"I know, but don't kill yourself by falling from up there"
"I'M ON A FUCKING DINOSAUR!"
"Come on, now get down from there"
We moved on and came to what looked like a museum
'Wyoming Museum' it said on a plaque
"How did you find this place?"
"Maria told me about this museum, I thought you would like it"
"Exactly"
We kept walking around the museum seeing fossils and other dinosaur statues. We got to the second floor, where there were things about space. I had actually told Joel about my passion for space and the fact that I wanted to be an astronaut.
We sat in a replica of the space shuttle.
"Wait" Joel said
"If you want to go to space, you're going to need one of these." He added, pointing to some of the helmets on display.
So I picked one up and put it on
"Look at all these buttons" I said, pointing to the command console
"Happy birthday Ellie"
"What is this?"
"Something that cost me a bit of trouble to find"
He handed me a cassette tape and I put it in the player
"Close your eyes, it will be worth it," He said
I did as he told me and pressed play.
"I take off in 10 minutes and 10 seconds"
I looked at Joel with the biggest smile in the world.
"10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1. We have liftoff! Apollo 11 is taking off. All engines are running. 32 minutes past the hour, liftoff of Apollo 11."
I could only imagine what it felt like, the Shuttle shaking and the force of the launch into space. It was incredible.
Then we turned away and kept walking around the museum. We found a spray-painted message.
'I killed for them'
As we continued walking we found a note
'I killed for them. We found a boy here. We picked him up and tried to get him to talk'
"I hope he's okay" I thought
Then we saw the Firefly logo on a wall and another spray-painted message.
'Liars'
It could have been Phil who wrote it.
"Come on, now let's go before it gets dark" Joel said
"Okay" I replied
As we got on the horse I gave the note to Joel.
"What do you want me to do with it"
"It's about a guy, and there was a Firefly logo. What if it's him?"
Joel looked down and sighed
"Ellie- We already talked about it, it's gone- I'm sorry"
I held back my tears
"I miss him"
"Me too"