Born to Fly Read online

  For my daughters,

  Clarissa and Eva

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Special thanks to:

  My parents and family, for years of encouragement and confidence in me, especially when I lacked it in myself;

  My friends and fellow writers Karol Silverstein, Paula Yoo, Greg Neri, and Leigh Purtill, who know how special this is;

  And especially to my wife, Pattie, who makes it all worthwhile.

  This book was made possible in part by a grant from the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators.

  Just ’cause I was a girl in 1941, don’t think I was some sissy. Shoot, I saw stuff that would’ve made that bully Farley Peck pee right through his pants. Like summer, the year before. That’s when me and my best friend Wendy saw the Genny, the giant man-eating sea serpent that lived in Geneseo Bay. Except Wendy didn’t get a good look like I did. To tell you the truth, I don’t think she really saw anything, she just said she did to back me up. That’s what friends do. But then Wendy’s dad got a job building roads, or houses, or something with the Work Projects Administration, and they moved to Wisconsin. It didn’t really matter, because no one believed me anyway. I was always seeing stuff that no one else did. Mom thought I probably just needed glasses, but my dad said it was because I had “imagination.” Once, when I was two, they found me way up on the roof of our barn. Dad said I must have flown up there. That’s how I got my name.

  “What do you think, Bird?”

  “This is the best birthday present ever, Dad.”

  We were flying above the clouds in Mr. Watson’s yellow Piper. I guided the small propeller plane so that it moved through the air just like an eagle. Seeing me in my World War One pilot’s skullcap and goggles and my Huck Finn dungarees, you would’ve never guessed that someone with a neat name like Bird McGill was actually just an eleven-year-old girl. But I was. I worked the controls carefully, scanning the skies for bogies at twelve o’clock.

  “She’s no Warhawk, but she sure beats that puddle jumper we had last year,” Dad told me.

  My dad was a mechanic, the best one around. He could fix just about anything, but his favorite things were airplanes. He had rebuilt Mr. Watson’s airplane carburetor last month.

  “Mr. Watson says we can take her up anytime,” Dad said.

  This wasn’t the first time I’d been up in a plane. Dad had taken me up plenty of times. My big sister Margaret was afraid to go and my little brother Alvin was still too young. Mom flew with us sometimes, but she didn’t like it like I did. Plus, when Mom wasn’t around and it was just the two of us, Dad would let me take the controls. I knew just about all there was to know about flying. You have to watch your airspeed and your altimeter (that’s what tells you how high you are). You’ve got to know how to ride your rudder, adjust your trim and throttle, and know just how much flaps to use when taking off and landing. My favorite airplane was the P-40 Warhawk. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. Someday, I was gonna fly one.

  See, every airplane needs wings and a tail. The wings need flaps, and the tail needs a rudder. And it’s a good idea to have wheels, if you ever hope to land and take off again. But you can hardly call it an airplane if it doesn’t look like it was born to fly. An airplane can only fly as good as it looks. My dad said it’s like falling in love. If one look at the plane doesn’t make you want to shoot up into the clouds, the plane’s hardly worth talking about.

  Down below us was Geneseo, the town where we lived. It’s in the state of Rhode Island. Funny thing is, Rhode Island isn’t an island at all. An island has water on all sides, like Hawaii or Treasure Island. But we only had water on one side. We lived near the ocean, but thanks to the bay, which hooked around like a big arm, we could swim and fish and the water never got too rough, like it did farther out in the Atlantic Ocean.

  My dad’s name was Peter. That was what Mom called him when she was scared or mad, or didn’t want him to let me do something that she thought was too dangerous or un lady like (like flying an airplane). My dad was handsome, with strong arms and a big, easy smile. I liked the way he looked at me when I was flying. Like he was proud.

  When you’re flying and you look down, everything looks different. All the stuff you thought was so big, or scary, is just small. Underneath us, Geneseo was laid out like a map, with Main Street dividing the town in half. On the north side were the bay, the airfield, our house, and the Widow Gorman’s farm. On the other side were nine or ten clusters of houses in little rows. Main Street was crooked, and from up here it looked like a lazy snake. It was lined with two wavy rows of maple trees planted by Ruth Geneseo more than two hundred years ago to welcome her husband home from the Indian Wars. The story goes, Ruth couldn’t see too well, so the trees weren’t exactly in a straight line. But her husband, Wilford, thought they were the most beautiful things he’d ever seen. He built a hotel at the end of the road so that everyone would get to walk right between the two rows of trees whenever they came to town. To my left I saw the white roof of the courthouse, then a dull red box that must have been the school, and finally the pointy spire of the church. Below my right wing I could even see two men fishing from a rowboat in the bay, far below.

  “I bet that’s Father Krauss trying to catch the Genny,” I blurted out, but then caught myself. See, I wasn’t supposed to talk about the Genny. “Sorry.”

  But Dad just smiled, like he didn’t hear. “So you’re really eleven today, huh? That’s pretty old.”

  “I can finally reach all the pedals,” I told him.

  “Why, I bet in another year you’ll be ready to land this thing.”

  “Another year?”

  “Here. You better let me line up our approach. You’ve got a birthday party to get to.”

  I reluctantly handed over the controls so that Dad could turn the plane around toward Mr. Watson’s grass airstrip.

  “I’ll die if I have to wait another year,” I said under my breath.

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s just… A year is practically forever.”

  “I see.” Dad looked at me, the same way he looked at Mom when she was bugging him to take her to see her mom, Grandma Birch, in Buffalo. “Well, a year is too long to stare at that sad face. I guess you’re gonna have to land this thing.”

  “Really?” I screamed.

  He handed back the controls and cautioned me, “Remember, landing’s the toughest part of flying.”

  “I know.”

  At first I couldn’t tell if I was more excited or scared. Then Dad winked at me and said, “Relax. I know you can do it.”

  That was it. I got embarrassed by all his faith in me and so, like always, I rose to meet his expectations. I took the controls. Pulled back on the throttle. Leveled off for final approach. It was obvious. I was a natural. Making my descent like an old pro! We laughed and smiled. I checked my instruments. Everything looked okay.

  Then suddenly the engine hit an air pocket and hiccupped.

  “Easy,” Dad said calmly. “Remember, don’t choke it.”

  Right. Don’t choke it. That’s something you never want to do on approach. But I panicked and goosed the throttle. The engine sputtered and gasped like a sick duck. I wrestled with the mixture of fuel and air. Suddenly it was the scariest sound any pilot ever heard: complete silence. The engine stalled.

  “Dad!”

  My dad grabbed the controls—but the plane was dropping like a rock, the wind whistling past the cockpit windows.

  “Hold on!” Dad yelled.

  The panic in his voice was what really scared me. He dipped the nose. I could hear the rivets of the fuselage rattle with the increased strain. The rushing wind feathered the propeller like a pinwheel. I couldn’t believe this was happening. A
nd it was all my fault! But Dad didn’t seem to be thinking about that kind of stuff. He was focused on what he had to do to fix the problem. The whole plane was shaking like crazy and yet somehow he carefully set the throttle. Picked his moment. Primed the engine. Then jumped the starter.

  C-c-coughhh.

  I covered my eyes and prayed.

  It started! The two of us looked at each other and screamed in triumph.

  Moments later, I stared in awe as my dad gently landed the plane beside Mr. Watson’s cornfield like nothing had happened. We taxied to a stop, and at last Dad let out a big sigh.

  I was still shaking and stuttering, trying to apologize. “I’m so sorry, Dad. I shouldn’t have goosed the throttle.”

  He smiled, wiping the sweat from his brow, and steadied my hand. “It’s okay, Bird. I wouldn’t let you miss your own party, would I?”

  By the time afternoon rolled around, the December skies had gone back to cloudy gray. Sitting on the roof of our barn, I had a bird’s-eye view of our backyard picnic table and the remnants of my disastrous unattended birthday party—unused hats, clean paper plates, unopened party favors. Mom had made me hand out invitations to all the girls in my class. Not a single one came. They weren’t my friends or anything, but still, when you’re ten years old, you must really despise someone to turn down free cake and ice cream. I bet Minnie Lashley had told them all not to come. I’d kind of “forgotten” to give Minnie an invitation. Why did Wendy’s stupid dad have to move her away? This was quickly turning into the worst birthday ever. While I peeled splinters off the roof shingles, my kid brother Alvin paced anxiously below.

  “Come on, Bird. Don’t you want any birthday cake?” Alvin was only four but he had a voice like Louis Armstrong. It was so deep and hoarse, like he woke up gargling a bullfrog. You’d never believe it could come out of such a small person.

  “You can have it,” I told him.

  “But Mom said I can’t, until you have some,” he countered.

  My sister Margaret slammed the back door and marched out of the house grumbling to herself.

  “I’m not her mother. I’m sixteen, you know?” she hollered back at Mom.

  She had to point out that she was sixteen a million times a day. As if anybody cared. Margaret dragged Dad out from under the chopped fuselage of an old biplane that had been parked at the side of our house for forever.

  “Dad, Bird’s on the roof again.” Margaret led him toward the barn, all the time fussing with her hair. Lately that was how she spent most of her time—because of boys. How stupid.

  “Do you have any idea how perfectly impossible it is to scare up a date in this town?” she went on. “Especially when your kid sister thinks she’s the Red Baron?”

  Dad chuckled.

  “I’m not kidding, Dad. It’s embarrassing.”

  Embarrassing? She spent an hour every morning stuffing socks in her bra and I was embarrassing?

  “I’ll talk to her,” Dad said.

  As they crossed the backyard, Mom threw the kitchen window open. She was more serious than Dad was about most things. And she wasn’t like a lot of the other moms in town. Sometimes it was almost like she wasn’t happy being a mom. Which didn’t make sense, because then why did she become one?

  She barked over the sounds of the Glenn Miller Orchestra coming from the radio, “Tell her the candles are melting.”

  “Roger,” Dad called out.

  Dad and Margaret joined Alvin by the barn below me.

  “She’s just pouting ’cause no one came to her stupid party,” Margaret said.

  “Shut up,” I told her, and tried to hit her with a pebble.

  “Margaret. Take Alvin inside,” Dad said.

  Margaret snatched Alvin’s hand. It must have been sticky, as usual.

  “What is that?” she shrieked.

  Alvin licked his fingers to check.

  “Chocolate, I think.”

  She groaned and dragged him away.

  Dad climbed the ladder to the roof. As he reached the top, a crop duster made a low pass on its way to our neighbor Mrs. Gorman’s cornfield.

  “Staggerwing?”

  “Uh-uh,” I told him. “Tiger Moth.”

  “By gosh, you’re right.”

  I knew he was just playing dumb, but it was sort of a routine we had. Like Abbott and Costello.

  Dad sat down beside me. “Mom said you haven’t eaten all day.”

  “If I keep eating, I’ll end up like Margaret. You know …” I cupped my hands below my chest, like boobs.

  He smiled. “That’s the nature of things. Little girls become women, boys become men.”

  “Margaret said women can’t be fighter pilots,” I told him. “So I decided I’m not gonna be a woman.”

  “Hmm. I see.”

  We sat there quietly, just watching the crop duster. It seemed like a long time, but Dad was a lot better than me at this. He waited me out. Eventually I couldn’t stand it.

  “Aren’t you gonna make me?” I asked.

  “Make you what?”

  “Eat.”

  “Nope. You’re eleven. You’re old enough to know when you’re hungry. One thing I will tell you—” But he stopped himself. “Oh, never mind.”

  That was the worst, when Dad was about to say something but then changed his mind. It drove me crazy! I had to know what he was gonna say. “What?” I pleaded.

  “Oh, what’s the point? The only one you listen to is Margaret.”

  I sure didn’t like the sound of that. So I moved a little closer to Dad. That was how I usually got him to spill the beans. “What do you think?” I asked.

  “Me? Well, I’ve only known you eleven years, so I could be wrong, but I think you can be whatever you want to be.”

  “Really?” I said.

  “Really. And I’m not just saying that ’cause I’m your father. You’re special, Bird.”

  “Special.” That’s a code word adults use when they don’t want to admit that something’s not as good. Like the “special” shoes Alvin had to wear until he was three to straighten out his feet.

  “I’m weird. That’s why nobody came to my birthday party. No one believes I saw the Genny in the bay.”

  “I do,” Dad said.

  I nudged closer and he wrapped his arm around my shoulder.

  “Know something, Dad?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Since Wendy moved away, you’ve become my best friend. Actually, you’re my only friend.” I could feel my chest shiver and my eyes get full, like when you have to sneeze. Only I didn’t have to sneeze. I tried to hold it in, but I couldn’t. All those years spent showing people I wasn’t like those other sissy girls—and now this.

  “Listen. You don’t realize it, but there’s someone out there right now, just waiting and wishing for a friend like you.”

  “Where?”

  “Where you never thought to look,” he said. My dad was smart and all, but some stuff he said didn’t make any sense.

  “Then how will I find them?” I asked.

  “Just be yourself, and they’ll find you.” He looked at me in that way he had, that somehow let me know things would be okay.

  That is, until my mom let out a shriek from the house. “Peter! Peter!”

  We could both tell from her panicked voice that it was serious, so Dad jumped right down off the roof (which seemed, from up here, like about a hundred feet). He started for the house, not waiting for me.

  “Dad?” Without him there, I was kind of scared to climb down the ladder.

  Then Mom yelled again, “Peter! Hurry!”

  But Dad stopped and came back for me. “Go ahead,” he called out.

  As soon as I saw him stay, I was no longer afraid. In fact, I felt ten feet tall. I shoved the ladder aside, and I jumped like my dad, landing on a small pile of hay. Dad didn’t wait as I dusted myself off.

  By the time I stumbled into our living room, Mom, Margaret, Alvin, and Dad were all huddled around the radio.<
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  “What’s the big deal?” I asked.

  “Shhh!” ordered Margaret.

  “Shhh yourself,” I told her.

  “Bird!” Dad hollered (which made me clam up quick, because Dad never yelled at me like that). I heard the announcer say:

  “… to bring you a special news bulletin. This morning, Japanese planes attacked the American military base in Pearl Harbor…. President Roosevelt spoke in an emergency address….”

  Then the President came on: “December 7, 1941—a date which will live in infamy—the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan…. With confidence in our armed forces, with the unbounding determination of our people, we will gain the inevitable triumph, so help us God.”

  As the report continued, I watched Mom hold Alvin a little tighter. Dad wrapped his arm around Mom’s shoulder. But it was the look of worry on his face that frightened me the most.

  On the coffee table was my birthday cake. Most of the candles and now Bird and the number eleven were one messy pink swirl of wax and frosting. I knelt down, lit the one remaining candle, took a big breath, and closed my eyes.

  And all of a sudden I found myself wishing I was still ten.

  February in Rhode Island is cold and snowy like nobody’s business. I’m not sure what that means exactly, but it’s what Dad said every winter after the first snowstorm hit. We were at the train station all the way up in Providence, the capital of Rhode Island. It was a big city compared to Geneseo. I had only been to Providence once before, when we drove Mr. Ramponi to pick up his wife when she finally came over from Italy. But that was a happy trip to the train station. Trips like that usually are, when you’re picking someone up. It’s not the same when you’re dropping someone off. Especially if that someone is your dad.

  Just about everyone at the station seemed sad. The snow sprinkled over the families saying goodbye on the platform like giant grains of rice at one of Father Krauss’s weddings. The conductor whistled and the soldiers and sailors reluctantly grabbed their duffel bags, kissed goodbye, and filed on board.