Free Last Message by Shane Peacock Page A

about to reveal its value to them. I made it sound pretty dramatic. I’d figure out a way to tell her the truth later on. I sealed it and wrote her address on the outside of the envelope in my best handwriting. I would ask the concierge for a stamp later.
    I knew I should write to Shirley too. I could almost hear Leon’s squeaky voice telling me that she was the best girl for me. I’d only sent her that one quick text when I arrived. I should ask her how Leon was making out too. I was sure she would be checking on him, and that made me feel good.
    But I never wrote her that email, because when I reached for my cell, I happened to glance down at the open suitcase. Sitting on top of my clothes, dug up from the bottom where they once had been hidden, were the other two manila envelopes and the small white one.
    That was when it occurred to me that in all my excitement I hadn’t even given another thought to the fact that, in essence, I had reached the next level in my assignments. It really seemed to me that no reasonable person could have expected me to have done any more with my first task. Could they?
    I picked up the second envelope and opened it.

NINE
    THE SECOND ENVELOPE
    Dear Adam,
    Congratulations. You did it! I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart. You are a better man than me.
    I almost stopped reading at that point. I set the letter down, feeling terrible guilt. But soon those arguments rose inside me again, telling me that I had done what I could and that there was no turning back. So I read on.
    As I’ve already mentioned, this second task, believe it or not, is even more difficult than the first. I wouldn’t blame you if you simply read what I have to say here and then joined your Mom and Dad for a nice vacation before heading home. You have done enough.
    But if you choose to go on, here is your next challenge.
    During the war, Corsica had seventeen American airbases on it. In fact, they used to call it the “USS Corsica.” But not all of us who flew reconnaissance missions from that Mediterranean island were from overseas. French fliers, who had bravely fought the Nazis for as long as possible, had formed a Free French Air Force and many were stationed near us.
    The problem was, the Americans didn’t like them very much. The Yanks had their way of doing things and, more importantly, they resented that many French had collapsed at the beginning of the war and worked with the Nazis. The Americans didn’t respect their flying abilities either. So the two sides kept their distance and sometimes were even hostile to each other.
    But not me. Maybe it was because I was Canadian, I don’t know. But I thank God today that I wasn’t bitter toward them because my attitude allowed me to befriend the most extraordinary man I ever met. He is at the heart of your second task.
    You will recall that I often read to you from a novel entitled The Little Prince when you were a child. It was always my favorite, and your cousins may have mentioned that I read it to them too. You probably forget the story now, but it is one of the greatest ever written, the tale of a pilot who crashes in a desert and meets a strange little person who appears out of nowhere and changes his life. Le Petit Prince , as it’s known in French, is one of the bestselling novels of all time; the Harry Potter books took a long time to catch up. But there is something that I never told you about that novel. I wanted to keep it a secret, which fits the book’s air of mystery. I knew the incredible man who wrote it.
    I met him in Corsica. His name was Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, or as his friends knew him, “St. Ex.” He was a legend in France, even before he wrote the book. You wouldn’t have thought that if you’d met him. He was a big man, very tall and a bit chubby, who walked with a lazy, loping gait and had a little turned-up Mickey Mouse nose and sleepy black eyes with lids that