Stealing Air (12 page)

“Okay,
Icarus
it is.” Alex patted the wing. “Hear that,
Icarus
? You've got a name now, so make us proud. Fly like you flew out of that maze.”

They were so high now that Riverside resembled a little island of lights in a dark ocean. Cars and trucks driving on the streets looked like toys. Brian looked up and saw Mr. Piggly carrying them up into the sky. He swallowed. How high was five thousand feet? He had seen videos on the Internet where cameras tied to balloons soared up practically to space. On one, the camera picked up the curvature of the earth.

Brian shivered. Was it getting colder or was he just scared? If they went up too high, they'd start to run out of oxygen. Then there was a lot of stuff about air currents that he didn't understand. If they flew into one of those, they could be blown hundreds of miles away.

“Alex, check the gauge. How high are we?”

“Just a little higher to go. This thing's reading four thousand eight hundred thirteen feet.”

“Does that mean four thousand eight hundred feet above sea level or four thousand eight hundred feet above the ground?”

Alex didn't answer right away. “Oh … um, I don't know. I never thought about that. I wish we could ask Max. He'd know.”

Brian remembered that when he used to fly with Dad, he would check the altimeter and then look out the window to see how small houses and cars appeared at different altitudes. The houses were tiny now, but he had no idea how high they were.

“We're at five thousand feet now,” said Alex.

“I don't think we should wait any longer. It's time to start the engine.”

“Woo-hoo! Fire this baby up! Let's go,
Icarus
! It's flying time.”

“Okay, don't kick the pins out until I tell you to. I have to start the engine and get our speed up first.”

“You got it!”

When Brian leaned forward to grab the handle on the engine's pull-start rope,
Icarus
rocked in her cables a little, just enough to make his stomach twist around. He wasn't afraid of heights, he reminded himself. He was only afraid of being really high up on something shaky and unstable. He got a hold of the handle and yanked. The engine sputtered and growled a bit, but then died down.

“Come on,
Icarus
. Fire up, baby!” Alex shouted.

Brian pulled even harder.
Icarus
rocked some more, but the engine didn't engage. Brian pulled again. No good. He took the handle with both hands and tugged as hard as he could, again and again and again.
Icarus
swung back and forth under Mr. Piggly.

“Whoa,” Alex said. “We're really shaking here. Is there a problem?”

What if the engine didn't start at all? How would they get back down? They didn't have any parachutes. There was no backup plan. Once they had the engine going, they were just supposed to fly under their own power until they came in for a safe landing.

“Please, baby. You gotta start,” Brian whispered. He pulled the starter again. The engine roared to life, propeller spinning.

Suddenly, something somewhere cracked, and
Icarus
lurched hard to the left, dropping its right wing almost straight down. Alex screamed behind him. Brian grabbed on to the port-side wing and looked back. The rope tying the right side of the aircraft to the balloon had already come loose somehow. Alex had fallen out of his seat, but managed to grab the right-side skateboard. He kicked his legs in the open air beneath him. “Brian, help! I'm gonna fall!”

What could he do? There was only one safe way back down. Struggling to hold on, Brian slammed the throttle lever up to give the engine more power. They shot forward, but with tethers holding only the front and left points of the aircraft,
Icarus
was almost totally on its side. Worse, while Brian could still pull the front pin to cut them loose from Mr. Piggly, there was no way Alex could reach the left-side pin now — not when he was struggling just to hang on.

“Brian! The tail's on fire!”

He glanced back. The rudder and horizontal stabilizer looked fine. “What do you mean?”

“Mr. Piggly!” Alex tried to kick a leg up to get back into the flyer. They lurched again. “His tail is on fire! The metal ring for the cable must have sparked when it broke.”

Brian looked up. Alex was right. The dopey curly tail was burning, with bright red flames inching closer and closer to Mr. Piggly's butt. “The hydrogen!” Brian shouted. If the fire reached the balloon, all the gas inside it would ignite.

“That's going to be the biggest pig fart Riverside's ever seen!”

Brian pushed the throttle, trying to do something to save the situation while still holding on with one hand and squeezing the center plank between his legs to keep himself from falling. He was helpless unless he could get those other two pins pulled at the same time. If he pulled the front pin first,
Icarus
would tip straight down. They might be completely banked with one wing pointed to the ground right now, but at least the engine and tail were still on the same level.

“It's going to blow!” Alex kicked his legs again. Brian could see his arms shaking in the growing light from the burning tail. “We're going to die!”

WHOOF.
Flames suddenly burst from the pig's butt and expanded fast. For an instant, Mr. Piggly's big grin stretched and his eyes grew wider, as if he was shocked at what was happening to him.

Then his face was all fire, and they were falling.

The wind whipped through Brian's hair. Somehow he managed to crank the yoke to the left and shift the ailerons into position. The whole aircraft shook. Brian could barely hold the yoke. But it worked!
Icarus
leveled out!

“Alex! I think I've got it! Hold on!”

“The heck you think I'm doing back here?” Alex screamed.

When the wings were level with the ground, Brian quickly pushed the yoke to starboard to flatten the ailerons, then moved it backward to try to bring the nose up. They were still plummeting down toward the darkness of the woods that lined the river, but the angle of their fall gradually flattened out as they shot forward. Mr. Piggly was nothing more than a big lump of burning rubber now, a fireball chasing them through the dark.

“Hold on, Alex!” If they hadn't dropped so fast at first, they'd be flying fine by now. In the dim light cast by the fire behind them, Brian could see tree branches to the right and left. They were over the river, and it was coming up fast.

“Brian!” Alex screamed as his grip on
Icarus
slipped. He fell away into the dark.

“Alex!” Brian pulled back on the yoke, trying to bring
Icarus
up. “Alex!”

Icarus
's descent slowed until it was just above the surface of the river. “Come on, girl, pull up. Pull up,” Brian muttered. The wheels skimmed the water with a little splash. He felt her slow down on contact. Then the skateboards entered the water too and he was thrown forward in his seat, just before the engine splashed down and water careened up to knock him out of the flyer. The cold water shot up his nose and into his mouth, and his face smacked the tail rudder as he somersaulted past it.

When he finally found which way was up, he surfaced and coughed out the river water. A smoky mess floated past him, the remains of that stupid pig balloon. A few feet downstream,
Icarus
floated on its Plastisteel wings.

“Alex!” Brian shouted, still hacking water as he swam after the flyer. “Alex!”

He grabbed hold of the flyer and kicked to push her onto the muddy shore. He scrambled up to the bank himself, then flopped over on his back in the muck, his eyes stinging. “Alex,” he mumbled. How high had they been when Alex fell? What if they hadn't been over the river? Alex could have hit a tree or the ground, and even if he fell into the water, there were still branches and rocks…. “Oh, God, no, Alex.”

“Brian?” A voice came from upstream. “Are you okay?”

Brian shook his head to try to get the water out of his ears. He couldn't have really heard what he thought he heard. “Alex?”

“Brian, where are you?”

They kept calling out to each other until Alex swam up beside him. Then they both staggered away from the river, over to a tree, and rested. They yelled to Max until he came running out of the scrub brush nearby.

“Are there any injuries?”

“I'm not broken,” Alex said. “But that was the worst belly flop I've ever done.”

Brian touched his puffy, sore cheek. “I think I'm okay.”

Max dropped down to his knees, took off his glasses, and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I saw the fireball and assumed the worst. What happened up there?”

“The engine wouldn't start,” said Brian. “I had to keep pulling the starter cable, and that rocked us around a lot.”

“Then one of the rings on Mr. Piggly broke and started the stupid balloon on fire,” Alex said. “We were hanging there tipped on our side and I fell off.”

Max closed his eyes, rested his chin on his chest, and let out a long breath. “It was great to hear you yelling to each other. You are very fortunate that you went down over the river.” He was quiet for a moment. Then he took another deep breath, put his glasses back on, stood up, and walked toward
Icarus
on the bank. “How's the flyer?”

“She was flying, Max,” Brian said. “If she would have had a more controlled drop, if we would have had just a little more time to level out, I swear she would have pulled out of the fall.”

Max examined the aircraft. “We'll need to get it back to the Eagle's Nest and check it under better light to be sure, but there doesn't appear to be any damage.”

“A waterlogged engine, though.” Alex coughed. “Maybe
Icarus
wasn't the luckiest name.”

“You named the flyer
Icarus
?” Max asked.

“Ms. Gilbert talked about it,” Brian said. “We thought it would be cool.”

“Did either of you actually take the time to
read
the story of Icarus and Daedalus?”

Brian shook his head.

“The end of the Icarus story is that he flies too close to the sun, his wings melt and burn, and he crashes and drowns in the ocean.”

“So the flyer needs a new name,” Brian said. “And a new takeoff plan.”

The next morning, Brian's mouth watered at the smell and sound of hot sizzling bacon. But he stopped when he entered the kitchen, surprised to find Grandpa and not Dad at the stove.

“Morning, sport!” Grandpa said. “You're just in time. Got some bacon and home-fried potatoes for you. I remember how you hate eggs.” He placed a plate on the table and pulled out a chair. “Have a seat.”

Brian sat down. It was true. He couldn't stand eggs. Something about that whole gooey glob of yellow pre-baby-chicken slime thing made him want to throw up. He just wished Grandpa had made this awesome breakfast another day when he didn't have this huge bruise on his face. He tried to keep Grandpa from getting a good look at him.

Brian ate in silence while Grandpa cleaned up the kitchen. It was a much better breakfast than his usual cereal. “What are you doing here?” he finally said, finishing up the last of his food.

Grandpa groaned as he sat down across the table with a mug of steaming coffee in hand. “Truck's in the shop and I got a doctor's appointment at the V.A. in Iowa City. Your mother's going to drive me there on …” He peered closely at Brian. “Her way to … work.”

Grandpa put his coffee down. The thud of the mug on the table echoed in the quiet kitchen. “Let me see your face.”

Caught. He couldn't hide it now. Brian showed him as directed. “It's no big deal, really.”

“No big deal.” Grandpa's chair scraped the floor as he pushed it back. “I think you better come with me.”

Brian wondered why adults bothered to say things like, “I think you better” as if it mattered if he thought differently. They really just meant, “Do whatever I'm about to tell you to do.” He followed his grandfather out onto the back porch.

It was a cool morning, but sunny and bright. Grandpa reached into his pocket and pulled out a small brown cigar. Then he opened the top on his metal lighter and flicked the flame to life. He lit the cigar, and after a few puffs, he lowered it and tapped some ashes to the ground. “Brian, you may think I'm too ancient to understand much about what you're going through, but this old man is sharper than you know.” His shoes clomped as he crossed the wooden floor. He took another drag on his cigar. “You've been into some trouble after school. Coming home with all these scrapes and bruises. I know what you've been up to.”

Brian felt cold. Grandpa must have seen them bringing the flyer back to the Eagle's Nest last night. Now he'd tell Mom and Dad, and everybody would know about the stolen Plastisteel. He'd be grounded for the rest of his life and he'd never get the chance to fly. “I'm sorry,” Brian said.

“Hold on.” Grandpa had been smoking and looking out over the yard. Now he faced Brian again. “I know I made you promise to stay out of trouble, and I'm sure you tried.” He pointed his cigar at Brian. “But sometimes trouble finds you, and it's not your fault.”

What? How could working on the flyer in the Eagle's Nest possibly not be his fault?

“You got some guy thinks he's tough. Coming around making life hard, picking on you.” Grandpa took a long drag. Brian felt relieved that he hadn't discovered the Eagle's Nest. A moment later Grandpa blew out smoke. “And I appreciate you trying to be good like I asked you to, but Brian, sometimes the only thing these tough guys understand is toughness. You sock him a good one” — he punched the air — “be amazed at how quick this so-called tough guy will fall. How quick he'll leave you be.” He stabbed his cigar into the dirt in a flowerpot, then he waved his hand back and forth to shoo away the smoke. “Don't tell your mother I've been smoking out here. Okay, sport?”

Grandpa had his secrets too. “No problem,” said Brian.

“And you think about what I told you,” Grandpa said. He patted Brian on the shoulder as he went back inside.

Later, as he skated to school, Brian considered Grandpa's words. There were just two problems with the whole fight-back-against-Frankie thing. First, for a tough guy, Frankie was
really
tough. Sometimes in gym class, before Mr. Darndall even had them do anything, Frankie would knock out push-ups for no reason, sometimes over a hundred.

The second problem rolled up next to him just as his iPod switched to the Beatles' song “Getting Better.” Brian popped out his earbuds, careful to keep the bruised side of his face away from her. “Hey, Wendy,” he said.

“What? No half-pipe this morning?” she said.

“I don't think I could handle it today.”

“Oh.” She was quiet for a moment. “Hey, do you think you could give me a few pointers sometime?”

“Um, I don't know. Maybe.” He sounded like an idiot.

“We could meet at the skate park tonight.” She kicked up her speed a little. “Or, you know, we could get ice cream too.”

One thing Brian knew about his life in Iowa so far was that everything could change very quickly. Last night he was miserable after crashing the flyer into the muck again. Now he almost felt like he could fly all on his own. He smiled so much that it hurt his bruised face. Without thinking, he reached up to touch his swollen eye.

“Wait. Are you okay?” Wendy asked.

Oh no. He kicked the ground to speed away from her.

“Brian,” she said, “let me see your face.”

“It's cool. Don't worry about it,” said Brian.

“Come on. Show me. You can't hide all day.”

“Fine.” He looked at her.

Wendy gasped. “Oh my gosh. What happened?”

What could he say? Even if he could tell her about the flyer, she'd never believe him. “It's, um … hard to explain.”

“It was Frankie, wasn't it?”

“No!” Brian objected so forcefully that he almost fell off
Spitfire
.

“Don't try to cover for him, Brian. I know he's been giving you crap.”

The one time Frankie was innocent was when Wendy had to drag him into the situation. “It's nothing.”

“It is
not
nothing!” Wendy shouted. They were starting down the Lincoln Street hill to the school, speeding up. It was usually a fun slope, but today she just stood straight up on her board with her arms folded. “I will
kill
him!”

“No, Wendy. Please. Trust me on this. He didn't do anything this time! It would be better if you didn't —”

“It would be better if my stupid brother left people alone!” Wendy kicked up a wicked ollie off the street onto the sidewalk in front of the school. Brian went to follow, but was distracted enough to hook his wheels on the curb. He stumbled, but caught himself just in time. Picking up
Spitfire
, he watched Wendy vanish into the school.

 

There were still twenty minutes until the first bell, but kids were already hanging out in the hallway or in groups around their desks. After stowing
Spitfire
in his locker and getting his books, Brian went to his seat between Alex and Max in homeroom.

Alex turned around and bit his lower lip. “I hurt everywhere. Who knew water could be so painful?”

Max spoke quietly. “I'm very pleased that you and Alex made it through last night's malfunction safely.”

“I wouldn't call it safe,” Brian said. “But at least we weren't killed.”

Max smiled. “I have heard the expression, ‘Any landing you can walk away from is a good landing.'”

“Any landing you can
swim
away from,” Brian said.

Alex laughed a little. “Max, tell him.”

“I remained in the Eagle's Nest late last night, checking over the damage. The flyer held together perfectly. The engine will have to be flushed and cleaned, but other than that, it should be as functional as it was before.”

Which wasn't that great, Brian thought.

“What he means is that we're still in business,” Alex said. “But just like before, we need to work on fixing up the engine and figuring out a new takeoff plan. So, Eagle's Nest. After school.”

Brian shrugged. If Wendy hadn't freaked out about his bruises, they could be skating together after school. He tried not to think about it.

It was almost a relief when Ms. Gilbert started class — that is, until she started them on their group projects. He'd had about all he could handle of stupid Icarus.

 

Frankie slammed Brian with the usual shoulder bumps after class. He left him alone the rest of the day, but Brian didn't want to take any chances with him after school. “Max,” he said as they gathered up their books after the last bell, “do you want to go to the Eagle's Nest now? We could take the other way out of here.”

Max nodded.

Outside, they crossed the playground and reached the big maple in the corner by the back fence. “You go first and then I'll toss our bags over,” Brian said to Max.

Max went around the tree to the side with the low branch — then came flying back, landing on his butt. Frankie jumped out from behind the tree. He ran his hand through his curly black hair. “It took a little time to figure out how you two losers were always getting away after school, but I found your sissy escape path.” He cracked his knuckles. That twitch was back in his eye, now focused on Brian. “Wendy says you've been going around telling everyone I beat you up.”

“I did not.”

Frankie shrugged. “I told her she was crazy. I told her I barely touched you in a long time. She didn't believe me.”

Brian's legs shook. Max stood up next to him, but there was no rocketbike for their escape today.

Frankie gave Brian a quick shove in the chest. He was forced back a little. Grandpa wanted him to fight this guy? Maybe he could. Brian tightened his fist.

Frankie stretched his neck to one side and then the other. “Now, I told you not to talk to my sister, but you wouldn't listen.” He shrugged and took another step closer. “And I figure since she's going to be mad at me for beating you up anyway, I might as well actually do it.”

Max held up a hand. “There's no reason for this —”

Frankie shoved Max back. Brian rushed at Frankie, but he was too quick, slamming his fist into Brian's stomach. Brian bent over in pain, the wind knocked out of him.

“Just leave us alone!” Max shouted.

Frankie planted one boot behind Max's foot and pushed him back, dropping him on his butt. Brian tried to stand upright so he could punch Frankie in the face, but he couldn't breathe. Frankie grabbed him by the shirt and slung him into the fence. He hit the wood face-first and fell to the ground.

Frankie leaned down over him. He pounded his fist into his other hand. “See you tomorrow.”

Then Brian and Max were alone on the quiet playground.

A breeze blew over them, and from somewhere came the sound of the metal hook for the tetherball, clinking against the pole. Brian just stayed on the ground. He might never get up. Every time he tried, he came crashing back to the dirt again.

Then Max was above him, holding out a hand. “Let me help you up.”

When Brian was on his feet, brushing himself off and feeling his stinging eye and cheek, Max handed him his backpack. “Come on,” he said. “It makes no sense to take the secret way home now.”

Neither of them spoke all the way across town to Grandpa's farm.

In the Eagle's Nest, it didn't take long for Max to disassemble the whole engine. He picked up a toothbrush and started scrubbing down some of the parts.

“Think you can fix this?” Brian asked.

“Most likely.” Max put one part down and picked up another. “I don't think there is much damage. The engine parts will just have to be cleaned and lubricated.”

“Anything I can do to help?” Brian looked over the mess of parts on the table.

Max pointed to the engine parts, bottles of water, brushes, and clean rags. “You can scrub down the components that are dusty from where the muddy water dried on them.”

“I have my iPod,” Brian said. “Music?” Max nodded, and Brian plugged his iPod into the speakers, putting on the Beatles'
White Album
.

They cleaned parts for a while, and nobody spoke. It was nice, just enjoying the music safe inside the Eagle's Nest. Except for the sting in his face, Brian could almost forget about Frankie.

After a long time, Max looked up from his work. “About this afternoon with Frankie … Thanks for trying to help. I'm sorry that —”

“Guys!” Alex shouted from the hole in the floor. “Check this out! I ordered it a long time ago, but it finally came today.” He came up into the room and rushed to the table with a box so big it barely fit through the tunnel, but he stopped when he saw Brian's eye. “Whoa. Is your face actually getting worse? What happened?”

“Frankie,” Brian said.

Alex stared at them both for a moment. “Yeah. Well … Hey! Check this out, check this out!” He put the box down on the east-side workbench and opened it. “Okay, so everybody's a little down about our second crash. I get it, but I have something here that might cheer you up.”

He pulled out a big green metal box. It was the size and shape of a video-game console, but instead of a disc slot on the front, it had a bunch of knobs. Alex took out a long, narrow, folding metal strap and screwed it into the end with the knobs. Then he plugged in what looked like an antique telephone handset.

“It's a radio communication set,” Max said.

“It's not just any old radio!” Alex answered. “This is the PRC-77, a retired military radio. This sucker can take a hit and keep on rolling.” He reached into the box and pulled out another identical unit. “These things usually cost a fortune on eBay, but I've been looking all over the Internet and at military surplus stores and stuff, and you'll never believe this. Both radios, with batteries, antennae, and handsets, and I got the whole thing for, like, two hundred bucks!”

“You had two hundred dollars?” Brian asked.