Born to Fly (5 page)

But Mom didn’t buy it. “You know Bird. Wherever she goes, her imagination’s not far behind.”

“Of course,” he said.

“Thanks for looking out for her, and for bringing her home,” Mom said. “That was really thoughtful of you, Deputy.”

He smiled like he was kind of embarrassed. “Just keeping things safe on the home front.”

Two hours later I was still stuck in my room with nothing but a plate of cold turnips on the nightstand, so I decided to write a letter.

I paused. My stomach tightened from hunger. I tried to force down some cold turnip, but it tasted like wet plaster. “Yuck.” But then I started to wonder what Dad was eating for supper. I bet he would have given anything to be there
dining on Mom’s undercooked turnips for the tenth day in a row. I downed another slice of turnip, for Dad.

I could hear my mom downstairs, fighting with the sewing machine, trying to save my dress. I always thought she hated sewing, but ever since the war started it was like she was trying to prove she was Betsy Ross or something. Margaret said Mom was just trying to keep her mind off Dad.

Alvin was in the front room listening to my favorite radio program,
The Green Hornet
. It was just loud enough that I could recognize the theme music. I thought I heard the Green Hornet shoot his gas gun but I couldn’t tell whether Kato and the Black Beauty arrived in time to save Casey from the Creeper.

I could tell Margaret must have been winding rag curlers in her hair because every few minutes I heard her yelp like a cocker spaniel.

Suddenly the doorbell rang and I jumped right out of my bed. You see, out where we lived our doorbell almost never rang, especially at night. After a moment I could hear Mom’s slow, measured footsteps cross to the door. I ran to the top of the stairs and stuck my head through the banister to see. As Mom opened the door, I noticed that her hand was shaking.

On our doorstep were two Army Air Corps officers standing at attention, one behind the other. The older one in front took off his hat.

“Mrs. McGill?” he asked.

Mom took a deep breath. Like she was bracing herself for something bad, which made my hand clutch the banister.

“I’m Captain Winston; this is Lieutenant Peppel.” The captain stepped aside.

Lieutenant Peppel stepped forward, head bowed. “Ma’am, I’m awful sorry.”

Mom covered her mouth. “Oh God!”

“The lieutenant thought it was part of the exercise, Mrs. McGill,” the captain explained.

“I had no idea your little sprout was gonna be out on that airfield this mornin’,” said the young lieutenant.

With one big sigh of relief, Mom said, “Bird.”

The captain seemed confused. “Bird? Ma’am?”

“Won’t you come in?” Mom said.

In the living room the captain explained, “When we contacted the school, one of the teachers remembered your daughter coming in covered with flour.”

Mom hollered upstairs, “Bird!”

I came the rest of the way downstairs and Mom introduced everybody. “Captain Winston and Lieutenant Peppel, these are my children, Alvin, Bird, and Margaret.”

The lieutenant was kind of skinny, with a crooked grin and a fuzzy shadow on his lip that looked like he was trying to grow a mustache but really couldn’t yet. He had pale blue eyes. They weren’t as gentle or as blue as Dad’s, but I could tell Margaret was already all goo-goo eyed over them.

She rolled out a girly
“Hello.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Miss McGill,” the lieutenant said, and he kissed her hand. Yuck. I thought I was gonna throw up.

Margaret nearly swooned. “I just love the way you talk,” she said. “Are you from Texas?”

“I’m from Sweetwater, outside Atlanta, miss.”

“Atlanta?” Margaret looked so dazed you’d have thought he just said his name was Rhett Butler. Ever since she saw
Gone With the Wind
, she’d been wishing she was Scarlett O’Hara.

“Uh, that’s in Georgia, Margaret,” I explained to her.

“I know that, Bird,” she said haughtily.

“Whatever you say … Curly.” I pointed to her curler-covered head.

Margaret felt atop her head and shrieked with horror, “Mom!” She lifted her pajama top to cover her hair, and instead exposed her bra.

Without missing a beat, Alvin started to chant, “I see London, I see France, I see Margaret’s underpants.”

Red-faced, Margaret ducked and raced back up the stairs. But curlers or no curlers, the poor lieutenant seemed just as goo-goo eyed over her as she had over him. Maybe he needed glasses.

Then Mom said, “Bird, the lieutenant said he saw you on the airfield this morning.”

“You were flying that Warhawk?” I asked him, finding it pretty hard to believe. I mean,
Mom
was taller than this kid.

“Yup. Sorry ’bout bombing ya, sprout,” he apologized. “You okay?”

I looked him over and frankly, I wasn’t too impressed. “You look barely old enough to drive.”

He laughed and mussed my hair. “I’m nineteen, you little peach pit.”

“Bird, I told you to stay away from the airfield,” Mom said.

“Okay, Mom. I promise.” I gave it a shot, but it wasn’t one of my better performances. Behind my back, I made sure my fingers were crossed.

“Now, back to bed,” Mom said.

I trudged up the stairs.

“Good night,” the lieutenant called out to me.

Halfway up the stairs I paused to give him some advice I remembered from the manual: “Adjust your rudder trim and you’ll get more airspeed diving.” But the lieutenant and the captain just laughed as I scampered the rest of the way upstairs.

From my window I could hear Mom seeing them to the door. “You’ll have to excuse Bird. She has this thing for airplanes.”

“We’re just glad she’s okay.” The captain sounded amused. Not amused like he really believed I knew anything about airplanes, but amused like the way people used to get when Dad told them I could throw a curveball.

While the captain talked with Mom, I saw the lieutenant
wander into the front yard. I could hear Margaret’s big mouth gargling from the bathroom and my brain hatched an idea. I leaned halfway out the window and whispered out to Lieutenant Peppel,
“Pssst!
Hey, greenhorn.”

“Hey,” he answered.

“What would it take to get me a ride in your Warhawk?”

He shook his head. “You mean besides a commission in the Army Air Corps?”

“Listen. I’ve flown lots with my dad. And I know the P-40 backwards and forwards,” I told him.

He looked up at me and smiled. “I bet you do. But it’s still a pretty tall order, Peach-pit. You better leave the flying to us fighter pilots.”

But he didn’t realize I had a goo-goo-eyed ace up my sleeve. “What if I could arrange a rendezvous between you and a certain curly-haired Allied sympathizer?”

“Rendezvous?” Bingo! His eyes lit up like Judge Dickens’s Christmas tree. “And you’re sure she’d go out with me?”

I turned toward the bathroom and saw Margaret trying on Mom’s lipstick. “Let’s just say my intelligence sources promise little or no resistance.”

I could see he was about to take the bait, when the captain called, “Lieutenant, let’s go.”

With time running out, I scrambled for something that would seal the deal. I quickly grabbed one of Margaret’s bras, which happened to be nearby. I stuck it out the
window and twirled it around my finger. “I can guarantee it.”

Lieutenant Peppel’s eyes were practically bugged out. “All right, Peach-pit. I’ll be in touch.”

“Roger Wilco.” I gave him my best Army Air Corps salute and watched him drive away with the captain.

T
he next day at school, I kept busy sketching in my notebook, while Mrs. Simmons slowly worked her way through the class, assigning report topics for each of us. My drawing was really cool. It showed me piloting a P-40 Warhawk and strafing the Genny in the bay with my wing-mounted machine guns.
D-d-d-d-d-t-t-t-t!
Luckily, no one had taken my topic yet—“The Curtiss P-40: Greatest Plane in Rhode Island”—so I was pretty jazzed. I imagined someday, when I was a world-famous fighter ace, I was gonna fly to a desert island and find Amelia Earhart. I didn’t believe it when people said she was dead. I bet she
was on an island, drinking coconut milk and lying in a hammock safe and sound.

Mrs. Simmons moved down the list to Minnie. “And your report topic, Miss Lashley?”

“President Roosevelt,” Minnie announced loudly so everyone could hear.

“What’s he got to do with Rhode Island?” Libby complained.

“My father said he’s making a whistle-stop in Providence this July,” Minnie answered.

“Excellent, Minnie. Susan? What about you?”

“Um. I don’t know.”

Uh-oh. Wrong answer. But before Susan could blink, Mrs. Simmons had her assigned. “How about the state flower, hmm?”

Susan groaned. I had learned the hard way you’d better be ready with your topic or else Mrs. Simmons would stick you with one of the boringest ones. I’m talking about the kind that would put even Mr. Van Dyke, the science teacher, to sleep (and he liked to make mold).

Finally it was my turn. I leapt to my feet. “I want to do it on—”

“Bird, sit down. Kenji is next,” Mrs. Simmons said.

“Oh. I guess I didn’t see him there.” I slumped back down into my seat.
Come on, just pick your stupid topic so I can go
.

Kenji peeked out from behind some movie star magazine he had hidden inside his arithmetic book. He stood up and said, without an ounce of enthusiasm, “My uncle
works at that factory outside of town. He said they make the engines for the plane John Wayne flies in his new movie,
The Flying Tigers.”

Mrs. Simmons corrected him, proud of our little town’s important contribution to the war effort. “Oh. You mean the P-40 Warhawk.”

“Yeah, whatever. Could I do a report on that?”

“What an original idea. That would be splendid. Okay, now you can go, Bird.”

Splendid?
It wasn’t splendid. It was awful. So awful I was speechless. I glared at Kenji.

“I don’t have all day,” said Mrs. Simmons. “Shall I choose one for you?”

In a daze, all I could mumble out was “Huh?”

“How about the state marsh weed?” she said with a straight face.

My mouth dropped open but I was too outraged to speak.

“Marsh weed it is. And remember, everyone: footnotes.”

The class groaned all together. As the bell rang and the students filed out, I was too shocked to even drag myself out for gym class.

By the time I did trudge outside, the boys were picking baseball teams, so I snuck over to watch. They were splitting off to head for the diamond when Mr. Phelps, the gym teacher, noticed that Kenji was left behind.

Mr. Phelps collared Farley and pointed at Kenji. “Hey. What about that kid?”

Raymond had to think quick. So he kicked Kenji in the shin.

“Ow!” Kenji yelped.

“He’s got a bad leg,” Raymond explained.

Then Red Phillips, an obnoxious kid with too many freckles, piped up. “And what do Japs know about baseball anyway?”

“Besides, he doesn’t want to play,” added Farley.

But as anyone could tell you, that argument didn’t work with Mr. Phelps. Sports were his life. He wore sneakers and sweat socks all day, every day, even to church.

“Listen,” he said. “In my class, everybody plays.” He walked over, grabbed Kenji, and pushed him along to join them. “I’ve got to umpire for the girls. Any trouble, you just holler.”

A half hour later, it was the bottom of the last inning, two outs, with Farley on the mound holding on to a one-run lead and looking for blood. He wound up, hurled his meanest curveball, and hit Frankie Mitchell hard in the back.

Raymond hollered from shortstop, “Atta boy, Farley.”

“Atta boy?” their second baseman, Dickie Doolittle, shot back at Raymond. “That’s a walk, you idiot.”

“It’s all right.” Raymond shrugged, trying not to seem so dumb. “We still got ’em by a run.”

Frankie hobbled to first. But as soon as Farley turned his back, Frankie took off for second. He was faking being hurt! By the time Farley noticed, Frankie was already safe at second with a stolen base.

All the players on Frankie’s team jumped to their feet, rattling the dugout fence, cheering and clapping for Frankie’s great steal. Everyone, that is, except Kenji, who sat alone at the end of the bench.

I decided this was as good a time as any to straighten him out. So I walked over and poked him hard in the back. “You stole it.”

“Huh?” he answered, turning toward me.

“And you didn’t even know it was called a P-40,” I said with disgust.

“The airplane? So?” He turned away.

“So?” I poked him in the back some more. “It was my topic. Everybody knew it was my topic. And you stole it.”

Sean Fitzgerald, their catcher, called out, “Come on, Farley. One more out.”

Red called his next batter. Kenji. “Hey, Charlie Chan, you’re up.”

But Kenji just played dumb. So I elbowed him, hard. “Hey, they’re calling you.”