Trent Reedy - Stealing Air

Then Wendy slid over next to him and he forgot about the other guys. He was sitting, almost alone, on a blanket with Wendy Heller. She wore faded, torn jeans with a couple of paint splatters, along with an ancient Riverside Roughriders T-shirt. “I know it’s pretty warm out, but one thing I love about football games is hot chocolate. I was going to go get some.” Her face shone in the glow from the lights on the field. He could smell her sweet perfume. “You want to go with?”

She could have asked if he wanted to go with her into a fiery pit full of radioactive poisonous cobras, and he would have gladly followed along. Still, “Why didn’t you go with them?” Brian asked, jerking a thumb in the direction the Wolf Pack had taken.

“Ugh.” Wendy put her head down, whipping her long hair forward over her face as if to hide. “I have to get away from them for a little bit. All night, Jess has been blathering on about Kevin Stein. Heather was supposed to ask him to go out with her, but Heather won’t do it, so now Rowena’s going to ask instead.” She flipped her hair back and looked at him. “It’s like I don’t get them sometimes, you know?”

Brian wasn’t sure exactly what she meant, but he did know all about not understanding the ways of the Wolf Pack. He nodded.

“Anyway,” she said. “You want to go get something?”

“Sure,” Brian said. He and Wendy stood up. Max began to move too. “Hey, Max. Yeah, can you stay here and guard the blanket for us?” he said. Wendy had already started toward the refreshment stand. “Just… We won’t be gone long.”

Brian headed off after Wendy. He didn’t look back. He didn’t want to see Max left there all alone.

On the way to the line for treats, he desperately wanted to say something cool or funny, anything to impress this girl. What would a guy like Alex say? Something about the game. “Too bad the Roughriders aren’t doing better.”

Wendy shrugged. “Yeah.”

That didn’t work. What would Red say? Something really bold. David would only talk about the game more. Max? Wendy probably wasn’t interested in boring science stuff. He wanted to scream with frustration for not knowing how to talk to this beautiful girl. “You look so…” He couldn’t just flat out tell her she was pretty. “That’s a cool shirt.”

Wendy looked pleased. “Thanks.”

Finally, they reached the concession stand. “Two hot chocolates, please,” Brian said. It felt almost like a date, with him buying something for her. What would a really cool guy do now? “You want anything else?” he offered.

A woman came back to the counter with their two drinks. Her grin was sickeningly big. “That’ll be one dollar, kids.”

Brian had noticed that anything an adult said that ended with the word “kids” was almost always gushed out in a high-pitched cutesy voice normally used on puppies. This woman was no exception. He reached into his pocket for his money and froze when he realized that all he had left was one dollar. He had just asked Wendy if she wanted something else, and he didn’t have a nickel to pay for it.

“Just the hot chocolate is fine, thanks,” Wendy said.

He let out a little breath of relief as he slid his dollar over the counter, then took the drinks and handed one to Wendy.

“Thank you.” She smiled. “I’ll buy next time.”

Did that mean there would be a next time? Brian grinned at the thought, even as the first sip of scalding hot cocoa burned his tongue. They walked slowly on the way back to let their steaming drinks cool.

“I love football Fridays,” Wendy said after a long quiet. “I don’t even really care who wins. I hardly watch the game. It’s just fun to hang out with friends, you know?”

“Yeah,” he said. Who was she talking about? Did she mean the Wolf Pack or was she talking about him? He hoped she was talking about the girls so maybe he could be more than friends with Wendy. Hadn’t she asked him to walk with her to the treat stand? It probably didn’t mean anything, but he thought he might actually have a chance with her as long as he didn’t do anything too stupid.

“Brian! Catch!”

A football slammed into his hot chocolate, crushing the foam cup and thumping him in the chest. The hot liquid splashed all over his chest and hands. It didn’t quite burn him, but his shirt was soaked. Brian waved his hands to cool them.

“Are you okay?” Wendy tried brushing the cocoa off Brian’s chest and arms. She spun around and shouted, “Knock it off, Frankie!”

Frankie laughed. He shouted to the guys, “Did you see that? Nailed the cup! Awesome!”

“Why do you have to be such an idiot?” Wendy yelled.

“I said ‘catch’!” Frankie said. “It’s not my fault he’s so clumsy!”

“I think I better go home and get cleaned up,” Brian said. So much for not doing anything too stupid.

Wendy followed him toward the gate by the school. “Brian, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” Brian said. They were away from the lights of the field, in the shadows closer to the high school.

“I wish you didn’t have to go,” she said.

Maybe it was the pain in his hands, his anger over yet another humiliating incident with Frankie, or the disappointment of a great night being ruined, but Brian didn’t think about what he said. He just said what was on his mind. “Why?”

“Why don’t I want…” Wendy twirled a lock of hair around her finger. “I just… You’re not like all the others, and I think… Just… I’m sorry about the cocoa. Have a good night, okay?”

“Yeah,” he said. “You too.”

Brian walked home, more confused than he’d been in a long time.

A week later, Alex, Brian, and Max were in the hayloft in Brian’s grandfather’s barn. Alex swooped out on the rope.

“You know, we actually have a lot of work to do,” Max said as he sat down on a bale. “I thought you said you knew where we could find some more steel cable.”

When Brian and Alex had opened the flyer’s starboard wing, they found that one of the pulleys inside was damaged. Worse, the cable that operated the aileron had been cut when the wing tore.

“Relax. We’ll get the cables.” Alex swung in for a skidding landing on the hay. “Brian’s grandpa tore down an old building a long time ago, and he saved a whole garage-door kit somewhere in the back of the barn. I remember seeing a bunch of cables and stuff.”

“We can’t go through the barn without taking a timeout to swing,” Brian said. “Come on and try this for once.”

Alex flopped down on his back on the hay, laughing. “Yeah, right. Mad Max would never get on the rope like that.”

Max closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Brian was pretty sure he didn’t appreciate being called Mad Max. “I just think we should concentrate on repairs,” Max said.

“Max, come on,” Brian said. “It took forever to figure out how to pull the broken cable out of the flyer, and now we have the whole front part of the wing and the cable and pulley system to reconstruct. We deserve a break.” He held the rope out toward Max. He wanted Max to swing, not just for the fun of it, but also to do something completely un–Mad Max. “Just try this once.”

Max stood up and folded his arms over his chest. “If I swing one time, can we go find those cables and then return to the Eagle’s Nest?”

“I promise,” Brian said.

“Oh yeah, man!” Alex said. Max took the rope from Brian. Alex sat up. “This I gotta see. It’s about time you had some fun, Max.”