Amelia Earhart: Lady Lindy (8 page)

“These two are visible,” Pidge pointed out.

“True,” Meelie said, twirling that blade of grass.

She was silent for a moment more.

“Boy,” she said finally, “what's your name?”

“Felix. Felix Robbins. And that's my sister, Maisie, who's fallen in love with your dog.”

“Felix,” Meelie repeated.

“Robbins,” Felix said again. “And Maisie Robbins.”

“Well, Felix Robbins, we want to keep you,” Meelie said.

Pidge shrieked with delight and clapped her hands together.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you!” she shouted, hugging her sister around the waist.

“That's great,” Felix said. “Thanks. I guess.”

Actually, he felt a little weird, like he was a prisoner or something. Felix thought of Geronimo, forced to sign autographs and have his picture taken while he was a prisoner of war.

“Did you see Geronimo at the fair in St. Louis?” Felix asked Meelie, because she seemed to be the one in charge.

Meelie frowned. “Who said we were at the fair in St. Louis?” she asked him.

“Uh . . . you said it, didn't you?” Felix stammered.

Thankfully, Pidge said, “We did see him! Papa bought one of his hats! And Mama said to stop spending money and Papa said you only get to the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition once in a lifetime and you have to enjoy it and then he said, ‘Amy, stop sounding like your father,' which is our grandfather and he disapproves of almost everything Papa does.”

“That's enough, Pidge,” Meelie said sternly, and went back to studying Felix.

“You like fishing?” Meelie asked him finally.

“I never tried,” he said.

“You've never gone fishing?” Pidge said in disbelief. “Why, we always go fishing, don't we, Meelie? We go almost every day and we catch perch, and Mama cleans them up and dips them in eggs and cornmeal and fries them with potatoes and Meelie always eats a bowl of radishes with that dinner but of course she eats radishes with
everything
. You love radishes, don't you, Meelie?”

Felix listened in wonder. Pidge could talk without taking a breath longer than anybody he knew.

“Do you like adventures?” Meelie asked, like it was a dare.

That got Maisie's attention.

“We have adventures you wouldn't even believe,” Maisie told her.

“Oh yeah?” Meelie said.

“She built a roller coaster and rode it off the roof,” Pidge said, excited and proud. “And she didn't even die! She just tore her dress and got a bruise on her face and split her lip—”

“I got kidnapped by a gorilla,” Maisie said.

“You did
not
,” Meelie said dismissively.

“And I survived a fire at sea and—”

Pidge pointed a finger at Maisie and grinned.

“You're funny,” she said. “You're a storyteller, which is different than a liar, but not much.”

“It's true!” Maisie insisted.

“Our mother was the first woman to climb Pike's Peak,” Meelie said, placing her hands in her hips. “In 1890.”

“Which is a real adventure, and a real accomplishment,” Pidge said. “And Pike's Peak is in Colorado, and it's more than a fourteen-thousand-foot-high climb.”

“Wow,” Felix said, impressed. “That's something.”

Meelie chewed on the blade of grass and studied Maisie.

“Let's go fishing,” she said at last.

By the time Maisie and Felix and Meelie and Pidge and James Ferocious made it to the banks of the Des Moines River, Maisie and Felix had learned practically everything about them from Pidge. Except who they were and why one of them should get the airplane compass.

“We were both born in Atchison, Kansas,” Pidge told them. “Meelie's two years older than me and our grandfather Otis is a lawyer and our father is a lawyer but not such a good one, we are practically in financial ruin,” Pidge said with a dramatic sigh.

“Grandfather Otis does not approve of many things we do,” Meelie added. “He wants us to wear dresses instead of bloomers. He wants Father to get a better job.”

“He didn't even want us to go to the World's Fair in St. Louie,” Pidge said. “He said it was a waste of money!”

“When really it was the most wonderful experience of all of our lives,” Meelie added dreamily. “We stayed with our Otis grandparents back in Atchison for a whole year while our parents set up the house here in Des Moines. We were finally reunited last year,” she added happily.

Before Felix could comment, Pidge started up again. “Our mother teaches us at home so we get to play all the time and make up games and go fishing.”

“I'm exceedingly fond of reading,” Meelie said. “Pidge is not so fond of it.”

“So am I!” Felix said.

“Have you read a hundred books?” Pidge asked him. “'Cause Meelie has.”

“I also keep a scrapbook of newspaper clippings,” Meelie continued. “I collect stories about women who got successful doing men's things, like directing movies or working in advertising or running businesses or even mechanical engineering. Or even,” she added, “being a lawyer!”

“Our mother's a lawyer,” Maisie said.

Meelie stopped walking and scowled at Maisie. “She is not!”

“Yes, she is. She works at Fishbaum and Fishbaum,” Maisie said.

“Hmm,” Meelie said, and started walking again.

“Is she successful, though?” Pidge asked. “Like Grandfather Otis? Or more like Father?”

“I think somewhere in between,” Maisie said.

The Des Moines River appeared over the next hill, wide and glistening in the sunlight.

Meelie led them to the spot she said was best to catch perch, and without hesitation took worms from a can she'd brought along and stuck them on the fishhooks at the end of each line.

“If we catch enough for dinner, Mama will fry them up for us,” she said, handing first Maisie and then Felix a fishing pole.

“There's nothing like fried perch,” Pidge said happily.

Meelie unfolded a handkerchief and set it on the grass.

“Snacks,” she said, pointing to the red radishes there.

“Meelie loves radishes! I told you so!” Pidge said.

Felix wrinkled his nose at the radishes and the worms wiggling at the end of the lines and the smell of wet dirt and river water that filled the air. Maybe Maisie thought this was the most perfect place in the world, but Felix wasn't so sure.

He watched as Pidge took her thumb and pressed the line right above the reel against the fishing pole. Then she flipped something on the reel. And without letting go of the line, she pulled the pole back and cast out.

Felix watched as first Meelie's, then Pidge's line seemed to fly far out over the river. They reeled them in just enough to keep the line snug.

“Why are you two just standing there?” Meelie asked Maisie and Felix.

Slowly, Maisie tried to imitate what Pidge and Meelie had done, but her line flopped like a cooked noodle and fell right at her feet instead of anywhere near the river.

Felix didn't even get that far. When he pulled the pole back, the line dropped behind him, too.

Meelie laughed, hard.

“Just keep practicing,” she said.

Maisie's face set with determination. She tried again and again until finally, triumphantly, her line dropped into the water.

“There,” she said, satisfied.

Felix tried just as many times, but the line tangled or drooped or went nowhere at all.

And everyone, including Maisie, ignored him.

Maybe, Felix thought, if he stood on one of the rocks in the shallow part of the river, when his line didn't cast far enough, it would still drop into the water at least.

“So,” he said, trying to sound casual, “I'm going down there to fish.”

The three girls kept their eyes on the water and their own lines, waiting for a nip or tug.

“Yup,” Felix said. “I'll be down on those rocks.”

“I got one!” Maisie shrieked as her line bent into an arc.

Meelie grinned and guided her, telling her to stay calm and do this and that. Felix had stopped listening and instead made his way down the embankment to the river. There, he stepped onto the first rock, surprised by how slippery it was.

Well,
he thought,
it
is
in the water. Of course it's slippery
.

Slippery, and too round to stand on, he decided. He took a tiny jump onto the next rock.

“Yikes!” Felix screamed. This rock was not only slippery, it was more slippery than the first one.

Felix struggled to keep his balance and not drop the fishing pole at the same time.

But he failed at both.

The pole dropped with a splash into the river.

And Felix's feet slipped out from beneath him, sending him into the water with an even bigger splash and a loud grunt.

The weight of his clothes and his shoes kept him from popping back up, and Felix found himself fighting to get to the surface. The water was murky. Slimy, green weeds surrounded him and wrapped their long tentacle-like arms around his legs. There really were a lot of fish in this river, Felix realized as lumpy, brown fish and tiny silver ones swam by.

Pushing upward with all his might, Felix finally broke the surface of the water.

But once he did, he saw that the current was much faster than it appeared from the land and he was being rapidly swept downriver. In the distance, he saw Maisie, Meelie, and Pidge, unaware that he was even gone and growing smaller and more distant by the second.

“Help!” he called to them, but his voice was gobbled up by the roar of water somewhere ahead.

Felix tried to grab on to a rock that jutted from the water, but he moved past it too fast.

“Help?” he tried again, even though he couldn't even see the girls anymore.

His feet kicked against the weeds and muck below, while his arms dog-paddled to keep his head above the water.

What in the world is that sound?
Felix wondered as the roar became louder and nearer.

He craned his neck, but all he could see was more river up ahead.

The water around him started to get frothy. And, he realized, it was swirling like the water in a whirlpool.

Felix blinked.

“Help!” he called again, now moving his arms and legs even faster in an attempt to fight the current.

The current that was pulling him straight into the fastest-moving rapids Felix had ever seen.

That roar was the rapids rushing and swirling.

And no matter how hard Felix fought, the rapids were winning.

FIRST FLIGHT

T
he rapids grabbed on to Felix and threw him around hard. He felt like laundry in the washing machine getting bounced and tossed, the water everywhere, churning all around him. He knocked into rocks. He banged against pieces of wood floating past. Holding his breath for so long made his chest ache and burn.

Just when he thought he had to give up, that his lungs would burst if he didn't get air, the rapids lifted Felix up and spat him out.

He landed in shallow water, on his back, with a thud.

Gasping, Felix let his exhausted body sink into the muddy bottom. The river water, calm now, spilled over him in gentle ripples. But the sound of the rapids still roared in Felix's ears, mixing with the sounds of his own panting.

A pigtailed shadow fell over him.

“What are you doing all the way down here?” Meelie demanded.

Felix could only shake his head and swallow more air.

“Don't tell me you don't know how to swim, either?” Meelie asked, disgusted.

“I. Can. Swim,” Felix managed to get out.

Meelie looked past him, toward the thundering rapids. Then her gaze settled back on Felix, her eyes widening.

“Did you just go down Dead Man's Leap?” she asked.

Perfect name for it,
Felix thought as he nodded his reply.

“You must be the bravest boy in the world,” Meelie said, plopping down in the mud and water right next to him. “I admire bravery,” she said. “Like my mother climbing Pike's Peak.”

If he could have found his voice, Felix might have told Meelie that it was stupidity, not bravery, that brought him to Dead Man's Leap. And sheer luck that got him through those rapids.

“Someday I'm going to do something brave and the whole world will know about it,” Meelie said.

She was maybe the most confident person Felix had ever met. Even more sure of herself than Bitsy Beal. And kind of a braggart, too. But she was so cute with those freckles and that big, toothy smile, that Felix almost didn't mind her boasting.

Meelie leaned close to him, like she was about to tell him a secret.

“Do you think you almost died in there?” she asked, her voice soft.

“Felt. Like. It.”

Meelie's eyes sparkled. “Someday I'll do something brave and almost die, and then I'll tell everyone how I survived.”

Felix took a big breath. Finally, he seemed to have enough air in his lungs.

“Did you catch any perch?” he asked, his voice hoarse.

“We did!” Meelie said. “Lots!”

She stood, reaching her hand down to help Felix to his feet.

He let her pull him up out of the muck, and held on to her as they walked along the river, his knees still shaking from his time in Dead Man's Leap.

“This,” Meelie announced, “is our museum.”

Maisie sighed, unimpressed.

In three large jars on a table at the end of the porch were bugs of some kind. She and Felix had been in Des Moines for almost a month and the perfect Midwestern life Maisie had envied when they first arrived had grown dull. Sometimes, Meelie hitched James Ferocious to a doll carriage and made him walk around the neighborhood, Pidge running ahead of him with bones to keep him moving. Sometimes, they went fishing for perch. Sometimes, they played elaborate games that Meelie invented. There was nothing wrong with any of that, but there wasn't anything especially exciting, either.

“These are very rare moths,” Meelie said in a hushed voice. “Luna. Regal. Cecropia.”

Felix let out a low whistle. “Cool,” he said.

Meelie smiled at him. With her shiny, white teeth and all those freckles, Felix thought she was one of the cutest girls he'd ever met. He didn't know many girls as brave or adventurous as Meelie. She didn't hesitate to put a worm on a hook or pick up a garter snake and examine it closely.
Let's try!
seemed to be her favorite thing to say. And she read everything. At night, she came into the shed with a flashlight and books for her and Felix and they lay side by side reading while Maisie grumbled about wanting to go to sleep.

“I bet you found those yourself, didn't you, Meelie?” Felix asked admiringly.

Maisie rolled her eyes. “It's not such a big deal to find moths,” she said. She'd seen dozens of them sticking to the screen door almost every night.

“It's a big deal to find these three kinds,” Meelie said.

“Right,” Maisie said, “they're very rare.”

“They are!” Pidge said. “Meelie looked them up in the encyclopedia and it said in there that these are very rare moths.”

“I think they're . . .” Felix struggled for an adjective that Meelie would like. “Impressive!” he said.

Just then, Meelie's mother called to them from the kitchen. She had no idea that Maisie and Felix slept in the shed every night and assumed they were neighborhood kids. All she ever said was how glad she was that Meelie and Pidge had made some friends.

The four children walked through the big parlor with its fancy couch and chairs. The couch had lace doilies on the back that Meelie called “antimacassars.”
Fancy word for doilies,
Maisie had said, and Meelie explained that “macassar” was a pomade men wore in their hair and
anti
macassars kept the stuff off the upholstery. Now, every time they walked into the parlor Felix said that word to himself.

It was so much cooler in the house that Maisie would have been happy to stay indoors. But Meelie liked being outside, so outside they stayed. If Pidge complained she was hot and wanted to go inside, Meelie scolded her. “Pidge, it's summer! You'll wish we could play outside once winter comes and then it will be too late!” Through the dining room with its heavily polished table, was a large vase of fresh flowers in the center flanked by heavy silver candlesticks, and a high china cupboard filled with fancy dishes and serving pieces.

Then into the kitchen, where Meelie and Pidge's mother stood over a freshly plucked chicken.

She didn't look up when they entered, but started to talk to them right away.

“I was just about to cut up this chicken and I realized what a good science lesson it would be to have you watch.”

Meelie and Pidge stood on either side of their mother, peering at the chicken with wide-eyed curiosity. But Maisie and Felix held back. The kitchen smelled mostly of the apple pie Meelie and Pidge's mother had just baked, but behind the apple and cinnamon smell came the faint odor of blood.
That chicken has just been killed,
Felix thought with disgust.

“Look how beautifully her little lungs fit above her little heart,” their mother said as if she were looking at a piece of art. “Isn't she lovely?”

“Yes, Mama!” Pidge said enthusiastically. “She's a beauty!”

“Does our heart fit over our lungs like that, Mama?” Meelie asked, pressing her hand to her chest.

Her mother nodded, pleased. “Exactly, Meelie. Who knew we could learn so much from Sunday's supper?”

“Speaking of Sunday . . . ,” Meelie began.

Her mother pretended to look confused. “Tomorrow? That Sunday?”

“Don't tease!” Meelie said.

“What's happening tomorrow?” Maisie asked.
Maybe something interesting,
she hoped.

“Something really, really great,” Pidge said, grinning.

“We're going to the state fair!” Meelie announced happily. “Mama, can we take Felix and Maisie with us?”

“I don't see why not,” her mother said.

The state fair?
Maisie thought. She imagined pigs and cows and pie-eating contests, none of which sounded the least bit interesting.

Felix loved the fair. He loved all the animals with their big, blue ribbons. He loved all the farmers with their vegetables—corn and giant tomatoes and deep orange carrots with the greens still on. He loved the women standing proudly beside their homemade pies, a dizzying array of lattice and double crusts, berries and cherries and custards, streusel toppings, and shiny pecans or walnuts.

But Maisie thought it was boring to look at smelly animals or stare at a bunch of food you couldn't even eat. Plus, the day had gone from very warm to hot, and the fairgrounds offered little shade. And all Meelie and Pidge wanted to do was ride the merry-go-round, again and again, changing which brightly painted horse they sat on each time.

She was relieved when the girls' father showed up and asked them to come with him.

“I have the most amazing thing to show you,” he said.

“But I still haven't ridden on the white horse,” Pidge complained. “Or the purple one!”

Her father laughed and tugged on one of her braids. “This is so much better than that purple horse, Pidge. I promise you.”

Still, Meelie and Pidge kept finding things to distract them from whatever their father was trying to show them.

“
Real
ponies!” Pidge said, pointing to two tired-looking Shetland ponies. “Can we, Papa?”

Her father glanced up at the sky where dark gray clouds had started to roll in.

“The thing is, if we don't get there before the rain comes, you'll miss this marvelous invention,” he said.

“What is it?” Maisie asked, eager to see something marvelous and amazing.

Their father turned to her, his eyes shining with excitement. “An aeroplane,” he said, awed. “It's an amazing new invention that Orville and Wilbur Wright flew for the first time five years ago out in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.”

Disappointed, Maisie shot a look at Felix. But he didn't seem to notice.

“How something heavier than air can fly . . . well, that baffles me,” Meelie's father continued.

“Just one ride on a pony?” Pidge pleaded. “Then we'll go see your flying machine.”

Reluctantly, their father let them take a ride around the corral on the ponies. But when Pidge and Meelie begged for another ride, he refused.

“Look at those storm clouds,” he said.

He led them to the edge of the fairgrounds. A field with a high wire fence around it and a higher wooden fence inside that had a big sign in front of it:
FLYING AEROPLANE
.

Again, Maisie tried to catch Felix's eye. Were they really going to spend the rest of the day looking at an airplane? Felix either didn't see her or chose to ignore her as Meelie found yet another distraction.

“Paper hats!” she shouted.

“Oh!” Pidge said, jumping up and down. “I want the yellow one!”

Maisie followed everyone to the booth selling the ridiculous paper hats, which were really just circles of cardboard covered with paper flowers. They tied under the chin with colorful ribbons. Once that rain started, those hats would dissolve into lumps of wet paper.

Meelie and Pidge tried on one hat after another as their father paced impatiently.

“That one looks pretty on you, Meelie,” Felix said.

“It looks like you have an upside-down basket on your head,” Maisie said.

“Well, I like it,” Meelie decided. “I think I'll wear it every day until I'm ninety-nine years old.”

Her father quickly paid for the hats and told his daughters, “Not one more delay, girls. You are going to see this aeroplane, and you are going to thank me profusely once you do.”

Without anymore complaining or stopping, they entered through the fence and stood in the field.

“
That
's the airplane?” Maisie said, staring in disbelief at the thing in front of them.

It did have two wings, but one was stacked on top of the other. Instead of a shiny plane with the name of an airline painted in bright colors on the wing, this thing was made of wood and wire. It barely looked like it would hold together if it could even take off. In the middle of the plane, between the wings, a man wearing goggles and a leather cap sat on a seat, the engine right behind him. Maisie narrowed her eyes. The tail of this “aeroplane” looked more like a box kite than a real plane's tail.