Russell's summer seems doomed. He's stuck in small-town Oregon without a movie theater, a baseball park, or a pizza parlor. Then a legend about an old meteorite envelops him—and connects his grandfather's special rock and old map to a nearly blind ex-con who did time for manslaughter. Eventually Russell, along with his new friends Phoebe and Isaac, makes a dangerous trip into the mountains to find the meteorite, rumored to be rare and valuable—and perhaps the same "piece of the sky" discovered by Russell's great-great-great-grandfather. When the dangerous Full Moon Mullins, also on the hunt for the meteorite, overtakes them, the expedition turns into a matter of life or death.

"Set in Oregon, this old-fashioned adventure story has contemporary appeal." —Booklist

When David Patneaude was a youngster, his favorite story was Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island, a tale of adventure, suspense, mystery, and best of all, buried treasure. David never found pirate plunder of his own, but now he digs for a different kind of hidden loot—story ideas. David lives in Woodinville, Washington, with his wife, a junior-high-school librarian. They have three grown children and two grandsons.