Dream Horse (9 page)

“We’ve been talking about this for a long time, haven’t we?” Uncle Michael asked.

“It seems like it’s been hundreds of years, but I suspect it’s just been more like three.”

“Since that’s exactly how long I’ve owned my two-seater, I think you’re right,” Uncle Michael said. “We just had to wait until you got to be what your mother thought was ‘old enough.’ ”

He turned the car off the main road, following signs to
Dunstable Field. The area had a small collection of large, low buildings. A wind sock next to the main building showed a gentle, steady wind from the west. A dozen or so small planes were parked nearby. To the side a long strip of roadway served as the parking area for the gliders. Uncle Michael drove around the main building and off to the side road where his glider waited.

“There’s always a lot of work to do before we take off,” said Uncle Michael, parking the car.

“That’s one thing soaring has in common with horseback riding, then,” said Phil. “I think it’s usually about two hours’ worth of work in and around the stable for each hour in the saddle. I don’t mind, though. Anything to do with horses is fun.”

“That’s the way I feel about gliders,” said Uncle Michael, smiling at Phil.

The two walked over to the glider. Uncle Michael put out his hand to touch the plane as they neared it. The motion made Phil think of the affectionate touch he gave Teddy every time he was going for a ride. He tried it himself. The glider was made of a lightweight carbon fiber. It was sleek and shiny. Compared with the airplanes behind the main building, the part of the craft that held the pilots was very compact, but the wingspan was several times larger.

Uncle Michael removed the protective canvas cover and then offered Phil a sponge and a bucket of water.

“First, we wash,” he announced.

“Well, there’s one difference between gliding and riding,” said Phil. “I usually give Teddy a quick grooming before we ride, but the really good grooming comes after.” He took the sponge and began wiping one of the glider’s elegant wings. The white surface was so shiny he could see his reflection in it.

“We want to try to remove anything that would spoil the lift or create drag and slow down the craft while we’re in the air,” Uncle Michael explained, wiping the other wing. “Also, it’s an opportunity to check the airframe to be sure the whole thing is in good condition.”

They wiped and they dried.

Uncle Michael then went through a check routine on all of the equipment, including the batteries, radio, instruments, parachutes, controls, a canteen of water, granola bars, and first aid kit.

“Boy, it’s like we’re going up for days instead of for a few hours,” said Phil.

“And if you were just going for a five-minute ride, wouldn’t you want your horse to have all his tack, just as you’d want if you were going for a four-hour trail ride?”

“Check,” Phil said.

“Ah, you’re getting the language,” Uncle Michael said, smiling.

“Roger that,” Phil informed him.

“Now I need to check on the local weather outlook,” said Uncle Michael. He switched on the radio and called the tower. While the tower checked the weather, Uncle Michael told Phil why he needed to know the forecast.

“Gliders go up and stay up chiefly because of one thing,” he said, “and that’s temperature. The slightest difference—a degree or two of warmth—will create what we call thermals, or patches of rising air. You remember that warm air rises?”

Phil nodded. He’d learned about that in science class.

“What a glider pilot wants is to be in the middle of the warm air that’s rising. That gives us what we call lift. In general, what I want to do is to get the plane in an area of lift and take advantage of that by going up in circles in the area. Once I’ve gotten as high as I want—perhaps ten to fifteen thousand feet—then I can go forward. When luck and the weather are with me, I’ll meet up with lots more thermals that will keep me at that height, or, if I do lose some altitude, I’ll find more lift when I need to go higher.”

“Boy, if the weather stays right, you can go on forever, then, can’t you?” Phil asked.

“Not exactly,” said Uncle Michael. “For one thing, as
the sun goes down, the thermals disappear. For another thing, while there are thermals that give lift, like most good things, there is an opposite. That’s known as sink. Sink will bring you down as fast as lift will raise you up. Wherever you go, whatever you do in a glider, you’ve always got to leave room for sink. This is especially true where we’ll be flying today, over these beautiful mountains. Here, we get lift from thermals, but we also get lift from the updrafts that occur when wind hits a mountainside and is deflected upward. That can be perilous, however, since the currents that pass over the top of the ridges tend to drop quite suddenly on the other side.”

“Sink,” said Phil.

“Big sink,” agreed Uncle Michael. “So we fly carefully when we have to be near the mountaintops. There are a number of precautions glider pilots take to avoid risks. One of them is that one glider passing another near a ridge never, never passes on the outside of the other. That might tend to force the other glider closer to the mountain, where the winds are unpredictable, dangerous, and—”

“Phil? Is that Phil
Marsten
?”

Phil turned to see who was interrupting his conversation with Uncle Michael.

“Veronica?” he asked, surprised. “What are you doing here?”

Veronica smoothed her already impeccably smooth blouse and blinked sweetly.

“Why, I was about to ask you the same question!” she cooed.

“Uncle Michael, this is Veronica diAngelo. She rides at the same stable as my girlfriend, Stevie Lake,” Phil said. He wouldn’t normally have bothered to explain that Stevie was his girlfriend. Uncle Michael certainly didn’t need to know it, but from the way Veronica was blinking at him wide-eyed, it seemed to Phil that
she
needed a reminder that Phil had a girlfriend.

“Ooooh, are you going to go flying in that thing?” she asked, pointing at Uncle Michael’s glider.

“Yes,” Phil said, sighing.

“I’m going for a ride in Daddy’s plane,” Veronica said, answering a question that hadn’t been asked. “It’s that big one over there.” She pointed to a plane that was parked behind the main building. Next to the plane a man was waving at Veronica, telling her it was time for them to take off. Veronica waved back at him, as if it were a greeting. The man began walking toward Veronica and Phil. “Daddy’s pilot, Hubert, is taking me up for a ride. It’ll be the first time I get to go up in the
private
plane. I just know it’s going to be great.”

“I’m sure it is,” Phil said. He had long since learned
that it didn’t pay to engage in any conversation with Veronica. The less said to or by her, the better.

“Our tow is about ready,” said Uncle Michael. “Shall we go? Nice meeting you, Veronica.”

A small golf cart arrived to pull the glider onto the runway, where the tow plane would take them up as high as they needed to go to find thermals—approximately two thousand feet.

Ten minutes later, Phil had clipped on his parachute and was in the backseat of the glider. He fastened his safety harness securely and closed the clear plastic canopy over his head. Uncle Michael was in front of him. They finished their preflight checklist, including testing all the controls—the rudder, ailerons, elevator, flaps, and spoilers. Phil loved the sounds of the names. The very words were exciting to him.

Uncle Michael snapped his own canopy tight and gave a thumbs-up to the pilot of the tow plane. With the help of the ground crewman, they double-tested the towline release. Then they were ready to go. The ground crewman held the glider level so the craft balanced on its single central wheel, then signaled to the tow pilot that he could proceed. The tow pilot moved the airplane forward, making the towline taut, and then he began to taxi. It didn’t take long. In less than a hundred yards, the
glider lifted up off the ground, trailing behind the still earthbound tow plane. A few seconds after that, the tow plane was in the air, too.

Without thinking, Phil held his breath. It was as if he didn’t want anything to interfere with his concentration on the extraordinary fact that he and Uncle Michael were flying through the sky and in a few minutes they’d be on their own—just the two of them in a beautiful glider with an eighty-four-foot wingspan and nothing but air to hold them up.

“You okay?” Uncle Michael asked over his shoulder.

“Never better,” said Phil. And he meant it.

V
ERONICA LOOKED AT
the neat little plane she and Hubert were going to fly in. She couldn’t imagine why anybody would fly in a plane without an engine. What did Phil see in gliding around? Then again, she wondered what Phil saw in Stevie Lake. Veronica had much nicer clothes. Perhaps Phil hadn’t noticed, any more than he’d noticed her father’s bank’s very expensive airplane. Well, she could see to it that he did notice. She could see to it that he noticed a lot of things about her, in fact.

“Are you ready now?” Hubert asked.

“Oh, yes,” said Veronica.

He opened the small door of the plane and helped her up the cute little set of steps and into a seat. It seemed
like a very small seat—much smaller than she was used to in first class on a commercial airliner. But this wasn’t a commercial airliner. This was Daddy’s bank’s plane. And Veronica was going to remind Phil of that.

“Anywhere in particular you want to go, Miss Veronica?” Hubert asked politely.

Veronica looked up into the sky. She could still see the tow plane that was launching Phil and his uncle. In fact, as she watched, she saw the long towline drop from the nose of the glider. The glider found a patch of rising air, circled upward on it, and then floated regally to the east.

“That way,” said Veronica, pointing west.

“As you wish,” said Hubert.

Of course it’s as I wish
, Veronica thought.
You work for Daddy. You go where I tell you
.

She smiled, listening to the efficient rumble of the engine as it sparked to life. Wasn’t Phil going to be surprised!

C
AROLE PEERED CAUTIOUSLY
around the door of Stevie’s room.

“There you are!” Stevie said excitedly, welcoming her friends. “I’ve been waiting for you for hours! Do you have any idea how lonely it is just sitting here in bed, wondering when my friends are going to arrive?”

Lisa breathed a sigh of relief. Now
that
sounded like the Stevie she knew and loved.

“It’s only a few minutes past noon,” Lisa reminded her. “And your mother said you just woke up half an hour ago. How lonely can you get in half an hour?”

“Very,” Stevie assured her. “But now that you guys are here, I’m not lonely anymore. I’m just happy as can be to see you. Tell me everything that’s been happening in the world without me there to make it interesting.”

Carole burst into giggles. It felt wonderful to have Stevie back in form. She was relieved, too. Maybe the doctor was right that there had never been anything to worry about.

“Well, nothing very exciting since the sign on Veronica’s back and our visit to Mickey Denver’s horse ranch,” Lisa said. “We did have a mounted Horse Wise meeting this morning, and it was a lot of fun. More fun than usual, in fact. I wonder why.”

“There’s only one thing that would make Horse Wise more fun than usual, and that is if Veronica isn’t there,” said Stevie.

“How did you know?” Carole asked her.

“So she wasn’t there?” Stevie responded.

“No,” said Lisa. “How did you know?”

“It’s just logical,” Stevie said simply. “Veronica’s a damp rag on any party. We all know that.”

“Yes, but you seem to know things we all
don’t
know,” Carole said.

Stevie rolled her eyes up at the ceiling. “Give me a break,” she said.

“Give
me
a break,” Carole countered. “I mean, you knew about Phil getting thrown by Teddy and you knew Starlight was going to step on my toe and you knew Lisa was calling Deborah Mom.”

“Just coincidences,” Stevie said.

“But what about your dream with the Point and Laugh sign?” Lisa asked her.

“What about it?” Stevie asked.

“Well, it was like you knew what was going to happen,” Lisa said. “Not that I really believe in that supernatural stuff or extrasensory perception or whatever it is; but Stevie, you’ve got to admit there’s something a little bit creepy going on here.”

“I don’t either,” said Stevie. “You guys just have the most fantastic imaginations.”

“Right,” said Carole. “Like we made it all up?”

“Just like that,” said Stevie. “You have made up a lot of things in the past few days, and I have to tell you, it’s upsetting to me when you do that.”

Lisa realized that Stevie meant what she was saying. She really was getting upset. Her face was reddening, and her eyes were welling with tears. Clearly the idea that she had some sort of superpower disagreed with her.

“Oh, Stevie, we’re only kidding,” Lisa said. “I guess when you’re not around with all your crazy schemes,
Carole and I don’t know what to do with our time, so we make stuff up. Don’t worry about it. It’s just that we miss you. The thing you have to do is concentrate on getting better. In the meantime, we’ll try to stay out of trouble, okay?”