Trent Reedy - Stealing Air

Finally, there was just one small blob of barbecue pork left. Brian wadded the meat up and held it in his hands, risking a look up at Frankie. Frankie was chewing furiously, trying to cram more and more into his mouth, but he had well over a quarter of his sandwich left. Brian had it. There was no way Frankie could win now.

He pushed the last of the food into his mouth and chewed the best he could, using his fingers to hold it all in until he could swallow. Slowly, he stood up. The light in the room seemed a bit blurred. “I win,” he said. “Mr. Piggly is mine!”

Frankie slammed his fist down on the table.

Maybe some of the guys were clapping or whistling. With his painfully full stomach, Brian couldn’t focus on them. Mr. Pineeda appeared next to him with a camera. “No, no,” he said when Brian went for the napkins. “Leave the SSSBS on your face and wave with it on your fingers. Smile so everyone can see how happy you are after eating so much good food! I’ll put this photo up on Piggly’s Wall of Champions! You’re our very first Double Big Porker Survivor!”

Alex collected a bunch of money. Someone, maybe Red, said something to Brian. Brian staggered out the door into the cool night air. The stars twinkled above in the night sky. “I won,” he said to them.

Then he bent over and barfed until his throat felt raw.

On Monday morning, Ms. Gilbert stood in front of the class. “I am handing out the paper that describes your Greek mythology group assignment,” she said. She quickly touched her thumb to her tongue so that she could separate the papers more easily, then peeled off enough for each row of students. Brian wished she wouldn’t do the whole licking-the-thumb thing. It always left this gross glob of spit on the corner of the paper. It wasn’t as bad for him in the fourth seat back, but he pitied the front-row people.

Starting in Wendy’s corner, Ms. Gilbert counted off the students. “One, two, three. You’re a group.” She directed the next three into a group. Everyone looked around, trying to figure out who they’d be with. The first two people in Brian’s row fell into a group with someone from the one before. That meant Alex, Brian, and Max would be working together.

“When I have given you permission to speak, and not a moment before then, you will form your groups,” Ms. Gilbert said. Her shoes made that scary teacher clip-clop sound on the tile floor. “You will not drag your desks into position. You will lift them up off the floor and place them where you want them. Do you understand?”

Why did she always ask that? Brian wondered. Did she expect anyone to answer her? Whenever grown-ups asked, “Do you understand?” it seemed more like they were saying, “Do you understand how much trouble you’ll be in if you don’t do what I say?”

Ms. Gilbert continued. “Each group will choose one of the myths from the list on the paper. You will all read and study the story of the myth. Then you will do research online and in the library to find out how this myth appears in or affects our culture. You’ll find advertisements, films, TV shows, novels, words, and…”

Something blinked on the screen of Brian’s graphing calculator. It was an old model, one that his dad wasn’t using anymore. He’d thought it was off. It blinked again and he looked more closely at it.

BRIAN, ARE YOU RECEIVING THIS MESSAGE?

THIS IS MAX. PLEASE RESPOND AND PRESS THE ZOOM BUTTON TO SEND.

Brian did his best to look like he was paying attention to Ms. Gilbert. He slid the calculator back behind his language arts book, hit the ALPHA LOCK key, and typed back:

HOW R U TXTING ME

He hit ZOOM. A moment later, another message appeared.

I APOLOGIZE FOR NOT TELLING YOU ABOUT THIS EARLIER, BUT I WASN’T SURE IF IT WOULD WORK. I INSTALLED TRANSMITTERS INTO BOTH OF OUR GRAPHING CALCULATORS, SO WE NOW HAVE TEXT MESSAGE CAPABILITY. HOWEVER, THE TRANSMISSION RANGE ON THE CALCULATORS IS LIMITED TO ABOUT ONE HUNDRED FEET.

No wonder he hadn’t been able to find his calculator over the weekend. It was cool that he could text in class, but really lame that it was on an old calculator. He wrote back:

WATS UP

Max’s reply popped up quickly.

YOU MAY BE PLEASED TO KNOW THAT PREFLIGHT CHECKS ON THE REBUILT FLYER ARE COMPLETE, AND THE STARBOARD WING IS FULLY FUNCTIONAL. FURTHERMORE, ENGINE REASSEMBLY IS FINISHED. I HAVE PRODUCED A SUFFICIENT QUANTITY OF HYDROGEN TO INFLATE MR. PIGGLY. THE FORECAST TONIGHT CALLS FOR CLEAR AND CALM. I BELIEVE WE SHOULD ATTEMPT A FLIGHT THIS EVENING.

Brian texted back.

YES FLY 2NITE Y NOT HELIUM

The answer came back:

IT’S GOOD THAT YOU ARE READY TO FLY TONIGHT. I AM REASONABLY CONFIDENT THAT THE FLIGHT WILL BE A SUCCESS. AS REGARDS MY CHOICE TO USE HYDROGEN RATHER THAN HELIUM, BASICALLY IT IS A MATTER OF HIT THE CLEAR BUTTON RIGHT NOW!

Brian tapped the CLEAR button, erasing the messages. He looked up just in time to see Ms. Gilbert a few paces away.

“What’s so interesting back here, Brian?” she said. She picked up his calculator and frowned, then put it back down on his desk. “What myth do you suppose you’d like to work on with your group?”

Brian licked his lips. The secret seemed to be safe. “I think the Daedalus and Icarus story you told me about looks pretty cool.”

“Have you read it yet?”

“I started it.” He swallowed. “A long time ago.”

“Ah, it’s so cool that you haven’t managed to finish reading it yet.”

“Sorry. I’ll read it now.”

Ms. Gilbert tapped Brian’s desk. “Stop fiddling with your calculator and pay attention.” She clip-clopped back to the front of the room. Brian sat back in his desk and released a quiet sigh.

Later, as the class prepared to go to Mr. Carlson’s room for science, Wendy put her hand on Brian’s arm to stop him. “Hey, it’s been a long time since we talked,” she said.

He could have sworn her fingers were electrically charged. It tingled where she touched him, even after she took her hand away. “Yeah, um, I’m… sorry about that,” Brian said.

Wendy leaned closer. “You want to skate tonight? We could carve it up on the half-pipe.”

He wanted to more than anything, but he and the guys planned to fly that night. “I can’t. Well, not tonight. I… um… I’ve got to help my grandpa on the farm. Otherwise, yeah, tonight would be awesome.”

Wendy frowned a little. “Oh. You’re busy a lot,” she said. “That’s too bad. Well, see you around.” She headed out the door.

Brian saw Ms. Gilbert watching him from her desk. She raised an eyebrow. He hated lying to Wendy. Things would get better once they were flying. They had to.

That night, both Mom and Dad were home, so Dad made pork chops and potatoes. It was pretty tasty, and Brian would usually have eaten three or four chops and at least two scoops of potatoes, except that after the battle for Mr. Piggly last Saturday, Brian wasn’t too crazy about pork just yet. More than that, by the time they sat down to eat, he was an hour late for the meeting at the Eagle’s Nest.

“Brian, would you please relax and eat? It’s still early. You can go play with your friends when you’re done with supper.”

Play? Why did adults call spending time with friends “playing”? He didn’t have many friends, but he wouldn’t make any more if anyone heard his mother treating him like a little kid. He tried to slow down and eat right so Mom wouldn’t complain. Maybe he could divert their attention. “How’s Synthtech, Dad?”