Eric Walters - The Rule of Three

What I didn’t say was that my hands were still shaking so badly that I didn’t think it was smart for me to drive right now. I’d just be a passenger—well, more than a passenger. Riding shotgun had a whole different meaning now.

It was a new experience to be woken up by a rooster, but there it was, in Herb’s backyard, along with the chickens, eight cows, three horses, and Mr. Peterson.

I stood in my kitchen looking out through the window at the little farm beside us. I wanted to go over, say hello, and see how the animals were doing. Maybe I could say hello to Lori as well. But it was still too early, only six o’clock. I knew what I could do to kill the time. Last night I’d had my recurring dream about flying. Maybe I could do more than just dream: I could work on making that dream real.

I went out front. There were already people with their water containers heading to or from the creek. We’d had a couple rainy days in a row, and the water level was up. Mr. Peterson’s tractor, the carriage, the wagons, and the flatbed truck were all on the street in front of Herb’s house. Livestock in the back and tractor and carriage out front seemed like perfect symmetry.

I pulled open the garage door. There on the trolley was my ultralight, the wings lying on the ground beside the body, the engine attached but still lifeless. If Dad had been here, those wings would have been put on by now and we would have had our first flight. It was so close to being ready. If he had been here, it would have been ready.

We’d spent so much time on the plane I knew it like the back of my hand. Of course it wasn’t just this little plane. I’d studied so much about flying. Not just the actual flying, but the science behind flight. If you didn’t understand those principles, then you’d think that flying was magic. I often wondered what it would have been like for people in the early 1900s to look up and see those first flying machines in the sky. They would hardly have believed their eyes because what they were seeing wasn’t believable. I had to laugh—when we’d seen that Cessna in the sky the other day I had thought my eyes were playing tricks on me. Flying had become amazing again because it was so rare. And if I was up there in the sky now, that would be magical .

What would be even more magical would be if my father had the ultralight with him. It was possible to fly an ultralight across the entire continent. It had been done. They weren’t fast, but in twelve hours you could fly five or six hundred miles at a go. It would have taken my father only a few days to get home. Or, if I went to get him, I could have him here in five or six days.

Of course I couldn’t do that. Where would I get gas? Where would I stop? Could I navigate that far? And even if I could get there, how would I find my father? It wasn’t anything more than a fantasy.

“Good morning.”

I turned around. Lori was standing there, smiling.

“Morning. You’re up early.”

“I’m a farm girl.”

She walked into the garage. “Does it fly?”

“As soon as I bolt on the wings and do some minor adjustments, then she’ll be good to go.”

“Aren’t they usually just one-seaters?”

“Usually. We built this one so my dad and I could go up together.”

“I’m sure that’ll happen.”

“I hope. We spent hundreds of hours working on it.” I paused. “When I’m out here it feels like I should just be able to turn around and he’ll be standing behind me, ready to hand me a spanner.”

“I could hand you a spanner, but I’d need to know if your ultralight is using SAE or metric.”

“Metric, actually. I’m impressed.”

“Like I said, I’m a farm girl.”

She gave me a smile that made me feel like I was floating up into the air without the need for any machine.

“Since you have an extra seat, maybe I could even keep you company up there.”

“I’m not sure how either of our mothers would feel about that.”

“Maybe we don’t have to tell them… After all, do you tell your mother everything you do?” Lori ran her hand along the frame of the ultralight. “But you are going to try to finish it, aren’t you?”

“I want to but—”

“Good morning, kids.”

We both turned around. Brett was standing there in full uniform. He flashed a big goofy smile. Lori smiled back. I worried that it was a bigger smile than the one she’d given me.

He walked into the garage. “This is one interesting little toy, Adam.”

“It’s not a toy,” I said.

He put a hand against the plane. I had to fight the urge to brush it off. It wasn’t the same as Lori touching it.

“I used to build models when I was a kid,” he said. “Of course those planes had wings.”

“But they didn’t actually fly. This one can.”

“ Can fly, or will fly?” he asked.

“She’ll fly, and I’ll be the pilot,” I snapped.

“There’s no way you’d get me up into the air sitting on something that looks more like a lawn mower than an airplane.”

I laughed. “A lawn mower you could handle, Brett, an ultralight you couldn’t. Not unless you know how to fly a plane.”

“Not me.”

Brett suddenly looked anxious. That gave me an idea.

“Hey, I could take you up with me. It is a two-seater.”

He took a half step away from the ultralight, as if he were afraid it might grab him and take off with him.

“No way he goes up with you—you’re taking me up,” Lori said. “You promised I could fly.”

“Probably a good thing,” Brett said. “I figure the only way this thing is going to fly is if it falls off its trolley.” He stretched and yawned. “Anyway, I’ve been on patrol all night. I need to get to bed. I’m going to go crash on Herb’s couch so the twins don’t wake me up.”

I was grateful to have him walk away. But now I was even more determined to get my plane in shape.

“You really want to help?” I asked Lori.

“You bet.”

“Okay, let’s wheel it outside. I want to attach the wings and maybe even start the engine up.”

Lori answered with another one of those smiles. She helped me ease it off the trolley and onto its wheels. We rolled it outside onto the driveway.

“It looked a lot bigger in the garage,” Lori said.

“Wait until we attach the wings.”

I went back into the garage and picked up one of the wings. It wasn’t heavy, but it was long and awkward. Carefully I carried it out and placed it on the ground, perpendicular to the body of the plane, right where it was going to be attached.

I went back in for the second, wishing my dad were here. In the first few days of the disaster, thoughts of him were floating around in my head almost all the time, but they’d been chased out for the last week or so. Maybe that was for the best. I felt awful when I thought about his situation and guilty when I didn’t. There was no winning; it was just a question of which way was best to lose.

I came out with the second wing, but instead of putting it down I positioned it against the body of the plane.

“Could you help me with this?” I asked.

Lori took hold of the wing and was handling enough of the weight that I could nudge the end of it over until the bolts sticking out of it stuck in through the matching holes in the body.

“All right, if you can hold this here, I’ll let go and get those nuts into place.”

She nodded. Carefully I removed my hands, and Lori shouldered the whole thing. I pulled the nuts and washers from my pocket as well as a wrench, working quickly to tighten them up until the wing was secured.

“You can let go now.”