Born to Fly (10 page)

I nodded excitedly and he spun up the flywheel and fired the engine over. The twelve cylinders pounded together in rhythm like a blazing boogie-woogie band and I smiled. It was the most wonderful sound I had ever heard. It shook your whole body, like the P-40 was just as anxious as we were to get off the ground and into the sky.

A moment later, the mighty fighter taxied out, S-turning toward the head of the runway. I popped my head up to see—and I was instantly splattered in the face with oil.

“Watch it.” The lieutenant dragged me back down into the cockpit. “She’s been blowing a little oil out of her stacks.”

“Now
you tell me.” I coughed and spit out the oil, then wiped off my goggles. I looked over as we passed a T-6 trainer plane. The T-6 pilot did a double take and I realized that from his viewpoint, with me in the cockpit, it probably looked like Lieutenant Peppel had two heads. I quickly ducked back down.

“Power up,” Lieutenant Peppel called out, and the engine started to scream. He stepped on the brakes with all his strength. Like a hound dog fighting his leash to chase the fox, the Warhawk tried to shake loose its brakes, eager to be airborne. “Here we go.” Lieutenant Peppel released the
brakes and had to stand on the rudder to keep us straight as the Warhawk tore off down the runway and carried us into the sky.

In a matter of minutes, we were over Geneseo, the Warhawk’s massive propeller cutting through the clouds with ease as the lieutenant dipped and turned. Surrounded by the pillows of white, I felt like I was in heaven.

I had to yell to be heard over the engine. “What about your machine guns?”

“There’s a trigger on the stick,” the lieutenant hollered back. “But no bullets on account of this here being a trainer.”

I reached down for a tempting red lever by my leg.

“Don’t touch that!”

“What is it?” I asked.

“That’s the bomb release.”

“Flour?” I asked.

He nodded. “For target practice.”

We made a high pass over the bay. I peered out the window. This was real. Me. In a P-40 Warhawk! If Dad could have seen me then, he wouldn’t have believed it. I barely believed it myself.

“You really love flying, don’t you?” the lieutenant said.

I nodded.

“Me too. Ever since I was no taller ’n you,” he said. “The world seems gosh darn perfect from up here. All them houses in a row. Rivers bent around hills and trees all pretty much where they oughta be. Everything seems to fit
together. When I’m flyin’ in the clouds sometimes, it’s hard to figure there’s a war going on out there with folks trying to shoot our guys down.”

“Yeah. Like my dad.” I kind of dropped my head and the lieutenant wrapped his arms a little tighter around me.

“Sorry, Peach-pit. I forgot about your dad. He’s a pilot?”

“The best. He taught me everything I know.”

The lieutenant spoke close to my ear. “Ya know, kid, someday, if I have a daughter, I hope she loves flying as much as you.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he said.

“Thanks,” I told him. He was a pretty nice guy, even if his takeoffs weren’t near as smooth as Dad’s. I almost felt sorry for siccing Margaret on him.

“Say, do you think your sister might like to go up for a ride? I could probably sneak her up in one of them old Kitty Hawks.”

But before I could answer, my eye caught the outline of something black below the surface of the water in the bay. Oh my gosh, that was it! The sub!

“Lieutenant! Lieutenant! Look! Down in the bay.”

“What?” he said.

“Tilt the wings!” I hollered.

He tilted the wings to see. “What is it? I don’t see anything.”

I looked down at the water, but of course by then it was gone. “Forget it,” I said.

Then the lieutenant checked his watch and the setting sun and said, “We’d better get back. I’m not cleared for night flying.”

I bit my lip and nodded okay. I guess it was gonna be up to Kenji and me to catch that spy sub.

It was Friday at noon when Kenji met me behind the oak tree in the playground. We firmed up our plans while we gobbled down our brown-bag lunches.

“We’re all set for tonight,” he said. “I got us four rocket flares, two Roman candles—”

“I saw the sub again,” I interrupted him.

“What? When?”

“Lieutenant Peppel took me up in his Warhawk. That’s when I spotted it in the bay,” I said.

“Did
he
see it?”

Before I could answer, I noticed that crooked-toothed Farley Peck was making a beeline our way.
“Shhh
. We got company.”

Farley walked right up to me and shoved me against the tree. “You dirty d-d-double-crossers. Where is he?”

“Who?” I asked.

“Who do you think, Birdbrain? My father.”

“He’s not in the tree house?” Kenji said.

With his other hand, Farley grabbed Kenji by the shirt. “Don’t play dumb. Who did you t-t-tell?”

Across the playground, Principal Hartwig smelled trouble and started to head over.

I tried to loosen Farley’s grip. “No one.”

“He’s probably just fishing or hiding out from the shore patrol or something,” Kenji said, trying to pry himself free.

“If anything happens to him, you t-t-two are as good as d-d-dead,” Farley stuttered.

Suddenly the strong hand of Principal Hartwig collared Farley. “What seems to be the problem?” The principal looked to me and Kenji for the answer.

“Nothing, Mr. Hartwig,” I said.

Farley let go of Kenji. “Yeah, nothing.”

“Good. Then how about you do your ‘nothing’ over there, Farley?”

“All right,” he said. But before he was led away, Farley, with a deadly stare, whispered to us, “I better find him.”

When I got home after school, Mom was dressed in a gray and white dress, standing over a pot of stew and trying to fasten a nurse’s cap on her head.

“Red Cross tonight?” I asked.

“Mm-hmm,” she answered. It seemed like Mom was volunteering for everything. She never used to, but Margaret said she was probably just keeping busy to keep her mind off Dad being gone.

“By the way, I’ve gotta go down to the bay and collect some stuff for school,” I mentioned matter-of-factly

“Not tonight,” Mom said. “You’re watching Alvin, remember?”

That was when my stomach sank into my shoes. I had
completely forgotten. “But, Mom! Can’t Margaret do it? It’s really important.”

“Of course it is,” she said, not really meaning it.

“No, I mean it. The fate of our country depends on it.”

“I’m sure it does. But you’ll have to work the ‘fate of our country’ out with Margaret. I have to help out at the hospital in half an hour.” She took off her apron and handed me the spoon. “And keep stirring this.”

As I took over stirring the stew, my little brother Alvin walked in.

“Reporting for duty,” he said, saluting.

“Alvin!” Mom shrieked.

Alvin had given himself a crew cut with Margaret’s scissors.

“When’s Dad coming home?”

I’d sat Alvin down on the kitchen stool and was trying to even out his hair as best I could.

“Soon. Real soon,” I told him.

“Are you sure?”

“He promised he would, didn’t he?”

Alvin itched away some hair clippings that were dangling from the end of his nose. “Timmy Collins’s dad isn’t coming home. He died.”

I stopped cutting. I had heard about Mr. Collins the day before. I petted Alvin’s head. “I know.”

“Timmy said his dad promised him he would come home.”

I knelt down. “Hey. Remember how I told you last year, you could only climb in my bed if ten monsters came in your room?”

“Uh-huh.”

“You can climb in my bed anytime you want. Okay?”

“Okay.” He smiled. “All done, sir?”

I saluted him. “You’re ready for duty, Private.”

He tucked Mom’s wooden spoon against his shoulder like a rifle and marched off to play in the backyard.

As soon as I got Alvin’s hair clippings cleaned up, I hurried upstairs to the bedroom, where I found Margaret packing pajamas in her pillowcase for a slumber party. Was there anything dumber than Margaret and her girlfriends stuffing themselves with burnt popcorn and grape Nehi, playing records and giggling until all hours of the night about boys who were never gonna ask them out for a date anyway? I mapped out my strategy. Should I play up the close, unbreakable bond, which, Dad said, “only two sisters could ever know”?

Uh-uh. With no time to waste, I went right for the throat. “So. Friday night and no date again, huh?”

“Get lost, twerp.”

There it was. Big-sisterly love in all its glory It was time to spark her dull-witted interest. “Remember that cute lieutenant who was here a few weeks ago?”

Margaret played dumb, which wasn’t hard. “Which one?”

“Um. The one who saw you in your bra.”

Margaret walloped me in the face with her pillow. “What do you want this time?”

Maybe she wasn’t so dumb. We could practically read each other’s minds. “Just watch Alvin for me tonight.”

“Forget it. I watched him last week,” she said.

“Please. He’ll go to bed early,” I promised her. “Just have your party here.”

“Why should I?”

“Because I’ve got a direct communication line to the lieutenant. He’s very interested.”

“Well, who said
I’m
interested?” Margaret said.

I dangled her pillow and flannel pajamas. “A slumber party on a Friday night? That pretty much says it all.”

“Get lost,” she said.

Maybe I had overplayed my hand? I glanced at her stack of icky
True Romance
magazines. The cover of one declared: “Confessions of a Jealous Lover!” That gave me an idea. I decided to try a new tactic.

“Of course, if you’re not interested, I’m sure Betsy Brightwell could squeeze him onto her dance card.”

Betsy had been a thorn in Margaret’s side ever since fifth grade. Margaret had fallen hard for Billy Ackerman. She had spent that whole year doing everything she could think of to get Billy’s attention. Every day, on the way to school, she would walk slowly in front of him, dropping her books, her handkerchief, even her lunch—anything that might provide an opportunity for her to flutter her eyelashes and ensnare him with her charms. But every time, Billy would
just walk past her, chewing gum and obliviously tossing his baseball into his mitt. In desperation, Margaret had planned an elaborate “surprise” birthday party for herself. Billy ignored the invitation she’d sent him, and as the day grew near, Betsy volunteered to talk to him. She promised Margaret she knew a surefire way to get him to come to the party. The night of the party, to everyone’s surprise, Billy indeed showed up—with the backstabbing Betsy on his arm, and a new leather mitt from Betsy’s dad’s hardware store stuffed in his jacket pocket.

“You wouldn’t dare,” Margaret said to me, fuming.

“Just try me.” The thought of Betsy swooping in to snatch the lieutenant sent Margaret over the edge.

“Okay, okay. I’ll do it. But if there’s any trouble with Alvin, you’re taking the blame.”

I handed her back her pillow. “Deal.”

An hour later, Kenji and I were walking along the south shore of the bay with an armful of fireworks and his Graflex camera.

“I figure our best shot is if we split up and light the bay from both sides.” He handed me two Roman candles. “Take these and when I flash twice with my flashlight, light ’em.”

“What about the noise?”

“I think these ones only flare.”

“You
think?”
I said. I guess it had finally hit me that this wasn’t some game. We were really gonna try and catch a spy. “Kenji?”

“Huh?”

“What’s gonna happen if this works?” I asked.

“Then we get a picture of the spy sub.”

“Yeah, but
then
what? Something tells me spies don’t generally like having their picture taken.”

Kenji swallowed hard. Then he tapped his fist against my shoulder to buck me up. “Hey. You want to get your dad home, don’t you?”

I nodded.

“Just take your flashlight and signal me when you find a good spot,” he said.

“Okay,” I said, and headed for the north shore.

I was somewhere along the north shore, fumbling around in the grass for a dry spot to plant the flares, when I stepped through some brush and
thwump!
I tripped and fell flat on my face. I looked back and saw my ankle caught in a twist of boat line. When I pulled the line out of the sand and followed it, it led me to Father Krauss’s boat. The boat was lying upside down in some weeds. I checked the hull for damage, but it seemed okay. So I crouched down to flip it over. I got a good grip on the rim. “One, two, three.” I hoisted one side of the rowboat, and then
fwap!
A lifeless human arm plopped out.

“Ahhh!” I shrieked.

It was Mr. Peck, Farley’s dad. His face and body were all pale and bloated with seawater. He was dead. I gasped for air but I was too frozen to scream out again. My arms went
limp and I accidentally dropped the boat back onto Mr. Peck’s dead, outstretched arm.

“Ahhh!” I screamed out again. I flashed my light across the bay to signal Kenji. I waited a moment until I saw his flashlight blink on and off, which let me know that he was coming. But it was a long way from him to me. And I didn’t feel like staying there and keeping dead Mr. Peck company. I slowly backed away from the body. That was when I bumped right into something large and very
alive
.

I spun around. Oh God! In front of me was a towering man, dressed all in black, with a knit mask pulled over his face. But I could see his eyes. They were dark and empty, like a shark’s. He grabbed me, lifting my feet off the ground, and covered my mouth so that I couldn’t scream.