Amelia Earhart: Lady Lindy (9 page)

The engine sputtered to life. Another man, dressed exactly like the one inside the plane, turned a wooden propeller until it spun on its own.

“Now watch,” Meelie's father said quietly. “It's going to fly.”

Slowly, the plane rolled across the field.

“I don't think that thing can fly,” Maisie said, just as it began to rise up into the air.

Meelie gasped.

They all watched as the aeroplane circled the field.

“They'll never be used for much,” Meelie's father said. “But they're still quite an invention.”

“I think they'll carry people all over the world,” Maisie said. “And cargo, too.”

Meelie's father laughed. “That's a funny idea, Maisie.”

“Papa!” Meelie said, watching the aeroplane land. “I want a ride in it!”

“Do you think they'll let us?” Pidge asked.

“I don't know,” their father said, “but we can find out.”

“With those clouds,” the man who had started the propeller told them, “it's probably not a good idea to go up.”

They all turned their eyes upward.

“They do look ominous,” Meelie's father agreed.

“The ride only takes a few seconds,” Meelie reminded him.

“Well,” he said, considering.

“You couldn't pay me to go up in that thing,” Maisie said, staring at the contraption.

“I thought they were going to carry people all over the world,” Meelie's father teased.

“Bigger ones,” Maisie said. “Aluminum ones.”

He laughed. “Big aluminum aeroplanes! I like that!”

“It's true,” Maisie said under her breath.

Felix glared at her. And this time, Maisie pretended not to see him.

“I'll take the three big kids up,” the man said finally. “For five dollars.”

“Five dollars!” Meelie's father said. His hand went instinctively in his pocket, but he didn't take any money out.

“I want to go, too,” Pidge whined.

“If it hasn't started to rain,” the man said, “I'll let you and the little girl go up free of charge.”

Their father looked longingly at the aeroplane, then slowly nodded.

“Don't tell your mother that I spent part of her grocery money on a few seconds in a flying machine,” he said.

Meelie whooped. “Now this is an adventure!” she shouted.

“Pidge can take my place,” Maisie said, staring at the plane. That wire and wood looked like it could break apart easily.

Felix had the very same thought. But he didn't want Meelie to think he wasn't brave, so he kept it to himself.

Meelie spun around to face Maisie, who was lagging behind as they crossed the field to the plane.

“Why are you so afraid of everything?” she said angrily. “If you don't take chances, nothing wonderful will ever happen to you.”

“I take a lot of chances,” Maisie said, remembering how it felt when she first stood on that stage for the audition. She'd thought she might faint from fright.

“Then stop complaining and let's fly,” Meelie said.

“Okay,” the pilot explained, “what's going to happen is you three will climb in, I'll start up the propeller, and I'll jump in once it gets going. Boyd's gone on home. 'Cause of the storm.”

Meelie got in first, followed by a reluctant Felix and an even more reluctant Maisie.

The little seat was so tiny that they had to all scrunch close together.

“My heart is beating like a hummingbird's,” Meelie said happily.

Felix wanted to say something, but fear had lodged in his throat like a big stone and he couldn't speak.

The man warned them that it would be too noisy to speak over the wind and the engine.

“So you just need to sit back and enjoy quietly,” he added, giving the propeller a spin.

“Um,” Maisie said, “is that rain I feel?”

“For goodness' sake,” Meelie said.

“I think I felt it, too,” Felix said.

He was about to point out that raindrops splattered his glasses, but he didn't get a chance.

A gust of wind sent the propeller spinning like a pinwheel and before the pilot could jump in with them, the plane lifted up, up, up.

Meelie screamed, no longer impressed by flying.

At first, Felix thought the loud rumble he heard was coming from the engine. But then he realized it was thunder.

He clenched the steering wheel.

A bolt of lightning cracked blue across the black sky.

Rain began to fall, softly at first, then harder and harder, soaking them.

More thunder.

Another crack of lightning, closer this time.

All three children gripped the steering wheel now.

But even that couldn't stop the plane from plummeting downward, spinning toward the ground below, fast.

AMELIA EARHART

“D
o something! Now!” Meelie screamed. Felix did do something. He let go of the steering wheel and covered his eyes. And just like he'd heard people say happened right before you died, his life flashed before him.

Almost like a home movie, he saw himself as a very little boy. He remembered the feeling of his father pushing him in a swing, the bucket kind that held you in nice and tight. They were probably at the Bleecker Street Playground, and Felix could practically feel the spring sunshine on his face, and the nudge of his father's strong hand. Beside him, his mother pushed Maisie in her own little bucket swing, but Maisie wanted out. She wanted to play in the sandbox or slide down the curly slide, and Felix could hear her young voice demanding,
Out! Out! Out!

Then there were the four of them at Florent, their favorite neighborhood diner, and the salty taste of the skinny fries that came, improbably, with eggs. His father lifts one French fry and dips it in ketchup and feeds it to Felix's mother, who looks up at his father like she loves him.

He saw himself learning to ride a bike on bumpy Hudson Street. Running on the beach at Cape May. Petting the classroom guinea pig, Cinnamon. Whispering to Maisie in the dark in their apartment on Bethune Street. He heard the crack of the bat when he hit his first home run, his mother singing as she cooked spaghetti carbonara, the sound of his father's key in the lock when he came home from his studio.

If someone had told Felix that they'd remembered all of these things, he would have thought it took some time. But in fact, they truly flashed through his mind, like lightning bugs on a summer night.

And they stopped as soon as the plane began to gasp and burp.

Felix opened his eyes. The rain was falling steadily and his hair and face and shirt were already drenched. But, he realized with relief, the plane had leveled off.

He held his breath, prepared for the nose to turn downward again.

Instead, it began to climb again, though not at all smoothly.

They had dropped low enough for Felix to see the surprised faces of the pilot and Meelie's father and Pidge and maybe a dozen other onlookers, all standing in the rain staring up at them.

Felix's ears popped like crazy.

The wind made it hard for him to turn his head, but when he did what he saw made him yelp.

Maisie was flying the plane!

Meelie had let go of the steering wheel, too, and she sat, her face frozen in a terrified expression, her eyes wide, her mouth opened.

But Maisie looked determined. Her jaw was set and her eyes were narrowed with concentration.

The plane seemed to buck rather than fly. It ascended with a lurch, and then it dropped. Over and over again.

Meelie's face turned pale first. But before long, her skin took on a vaguely greenish cast.

Below, the pilot waved his arms and shouted at them, though his words got lost in the noise of the engine and the loud wind and the sound of the rain hitting the plane.

“He wants me to land!” Maisie shouted above the din.

Although Felix knew they had no choice, he also knew that his sister had no idea how to land a plane.

Maisie clenched her jaw and focused on the pilot.

He was pointing to a particular spot. He was moving his arms as if to say “go slow
.
”

The important thing, she decided, was to keep the plane straight. At first, it had seemed like a living thing—a bucking bronco, maybe, like they had in rodeos. But clutching the wheel so hard that her knuckles had turned white and pulling up on the rudder, Maisie somehow was keeping the thing straight. Kind of.

If she could manage for it to stay straight while she dropped it lower, she might be able to land the thing. Although probably not in the spot where the pilot kept pointing, ever more frantically.

“I'm landing her,” Maisie said.

She said it out loud, but she was really talking to herself, as if by saying it out loud she had made a commitment.

Meelie let out a long cry: “Nooooooooo!”

Felix decided to close his eyes again.

“We're going to die!” Meelie yelled.

“Be quiet!” Maisie ordered. And for once, Meelie obeyed.

“I need you both to look out and tell me if I'm getting to close to anything,” Maisie said. “I need to keep my eyes looking straight ahead.”

Now Felix understood why the aeroplane was out in this field—away from the crowded fairgrounds, the rides and animals and people. And the trees that bordered the whole fair. Here, they circled the mostly empty field, and as they slowly descended, he saw the onlookers below scatter.

As Maisie set about trying to land the plane, her nerves calmed. Just like when she had finally started to speak the lines onstage at her audition, the world around her disappeared. All that mattered was keeping the plane straight and gently descending. Her whole world became that cockpit, that steering wheel and rudder, that field in front of her. Even all the noise stopped, replaced by a quiet that seemed to come from deep inside her.

Last autumn, when a hurricane was threatening to hit Newport, Mrs. Witherspoon had told them how hurricanes were classified, how fast their winds were. She'd pointed to the very center of the picture of the swirling storm.
This is called the eye,
she'd said. Inside the eye, everything was calm, despite the violent winds that surrounded it. That's where Maisie was now, in the eye of her own storm.

“Ready,” she said out loud.

“No!” Meelie screamed.

But Maisie didn't answer her. She wasn't asking Felix and Meelie if
they
were ready. She was telling herself that
she
was ready. Ready to land this plane.

The ground seemed to be coming up toward the plane, as if it wanted to grab them and toss them away. The wet, green grass looked almost close enough to touch.

Maisie kept her grip steady, though. The plane was as straight as she could keep it.

The wheels were about to touch down.

The pilot yelled to her: “Steady! Steady!”

Meelie bawled.

Felix held his breath.

The wheels kissed the ground.

Bumped up.

Came down a bit harder.

The plane began to skid on the wet grass. Maisie fought to control it, but she couldn't.

It turned in slippery circles, tipping right and then left as it did.

Just when Felix thought the plane would flip over or fall, it slowed and finally stopped. Already, everyone was running across the field in the rain. Felix watched the faces, awash with a combination of fear and relief, rushing toward them.

Meelie was the first off the plane, climbing hastily out and racing into her father's arms. Felix stood, his legs so shaky that he had to sit back down until his breath slowed and the trembling stopped. Even then, it seemed his knees might give way at any moment.

But Maisie just sat behind the wheel, looking stunned. She watched the scene unfold before her—Pidge and her father hugging Meelie, Felix standing awkwardly in the crowd, the pilot explaining aerodynamics in a very loud voice to anyone who would listen.

“It's that girl who saved them,” the pilot said, pointing to Maisie.

“But how?” someone asked.

“Luck. Blind luck,” someone else said.

Meelie stepped out of her family's embrace.

“I will
never, ever
get on an aeroplane again as long as I live!” she announced.

Her father tousled her hair. “You won't have to worry about that,” he said. “These things are just for show, anyway.”

He glanced at Maisie, still perched in the plane. “Despite what your friend Maisie thinks,” he added with a grin.

Slowly, Maisie stood and climbed down from the plane. Her hair was wet and plastered to her head and face. Her feet sank into the soaked grass as she sloshed toward the others. Nothing seemed real to her. This place. The plane ride. The tailspin and her white-knuckled rescue. None of it.

Meelie stared up at Maisie with wide, admiring eyes.

“See?” she said. “You
are
brave. You can do anything you set your mind to.”

Maisie nodded, letting the idea sink in.

“Maybe you're right, Meelie,” she said.

“Let's get home, kids,” Meelie's father said. “Get you out of these wet clothes and get some warm food into you.”

Felix threw his arm around his sister's shoulders.

“You were amazing,” he told her.

“I was, wasn't I?” Maisie said.

“And modest, too,” Felix teased, giving her shoulder a squeeze.

“You know what?” Maisie asked. “I'm ready to go home. I think that between the gorilla and the plane, I've had enough excitement for a while.”

Felix sighed. “All we have to do is find the person, give him the compass, get a lesson—”

“Stop!” Maisie interrupted. “Let's just figure it all out. Soon.”

Meelie's mother had baked chicken and creamed corn and roasted potatoes waiting for dinner. And a big bowl of Meelie's favorite: radishes. She'd made biscuits, too, and she put a small pitcher of honey beside them.

“So?” she said after they all had sat down and piled food on their plates. “Was the fair exciting?”

Meelie and Pidge glanced at Maisie.

“No,” Maisie said, forcing her voice to sound casual. “Fun,” she added, chewing on one of the flaky biscuits. “But not exciting.”

“We saw an aeroplane!” Pidge blurted.

Her father cleared his throat. A warning for her to keep their adventure to herself.

“I'd like to fly in one of those,” her mother said dreamily.

“It's awful!” Meelie said fiercely. “The wind is in your face the whole time, and it's so noisy you can't even hear yourself think and then the stupid thing almost crashed.”

Everyone stared at Meelie.

But it was her mother who spoke first. “You went up in an aeroplane?” she said, her nostrils flaring in anger.

“I . . . ,” Meelie began.

Her mother turned to her father.

“You let her go up in one of those flying machines?” she demanded.

“Why, you just said yourself how much you'd like to fly in one!”

“Yes, but I'm a grown woman! Children shouldn't ride in aeroplanes!”

“I didn't,” Pidge said quickly. “I stayed right on the ground and watched.”

Her mother looked from her husband to Meelie and back again.

“It was an adventure!” Meelie's father said.

“It was terrible,” Meelie said, taking another piece of chicken as if to end the entire conversation.

“Good,” her mother said. “Maybe that will teach you a lesson, Miss Amelia Earhart.”

Felix gasped.

“Uh-oh,” Pidge giggled. “You know you're in trouble when Mother uses our real names.”

“You're . . . you're
Amelia
?” Maisie sputtered. “
Earhart
?”

“What of it?” Meelie said.

Maisie and Felix broke into big grins.

“Oh,” Felix said. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”

Maisie poured some honey on another biscuit.

“Do you know what I think, Meelie?” she said, still grinning. “I think you will fly in an aeroplane again. And I think you'll love it.”

Mr. Earhart laughed. “You certainly have a lot of predictions about these aeroplanes, Maisie.”

“I did a big report on aviation in school,” she said.

Mr. Earhart laughed harder. “A big report?” he said. “There's not much to say about it, is there? You've got the Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk but not much else.”

“I don't care what you say, Maisie,” Meelie said. “I'm done with flying machines.”

“Amelia Earhart,” Maisie said smugly, “I'm willing to bet that you fly all the way across the Atlantic Ocean in an airplane. Alone!”

Meelie rolled her eyes. “I don't think I've ever heard anything more ridiculous in my entire life.”

“Imagination is a good thing to have, Maisie,” Mr. Earhart said. “And you certainly have a big one.”

“All this nonsense does not get either of you off the hook,” Mrs. Earhart said sternly. “Next thing I know, you're going to tell me you actually paid for the honor of almost getting yourself killed up there.”

They all looked down at their plates.

“What?” Mrs. Earhart said. “How much?”

“When will they ever get the chance to fly in an aeroplane again?” Mr. Earhart said.

Maisie smiled at Felix but decided to keep quiet. They had found Amelia Earhart and gone on her first flight with her. Now all they had to do was give her that compass, and they would be home in no time. Maisie knew Amelia Earhart had already given her the best advice:
Be brave
. And Maisie had already taken it. She'd saved all of their lives by landing that plane. Stage fright was nothing compared to that.