Stealing Air Read online

  “Forget him,” Wendy said after a moment. “Come on.” Her hand gently touched Brian’s elbow, and a tingling shiver went all through him. They walked together in silence for a while, then Wendy finally spoke. “I’m sorry my brother is acting like this. I know you don’t believe me, but he really is a good guy. He’s just having a tough time with …” Her voice trailed off.

  With being a jerk? With threatening people? With making Brian miserable? “What?” he said.

  “Nothing,” said Wendy. She took off her helmet and ran her fingers through her long dark hair. She looked at him. Her eyes were such a deep green. “It’s like lately he’s always looking for trouble. Just promise me you won’t fight him?”

  Sure, Brian could agree not to fight Frankie — but what if Frankie fought him? It didn’t matter. Wendy looked so sad, he couldn’t help but agree. “Sure,” he said. “I promise.”

  She smiled and looked like she was about to say something, but instead she just gave Brian a slow-motion punch to the shoulder. “Thank you.” She went inside, where she was immediately snatched away by the Wolf Pack.

  Brian couldn’t stop thinking about Wendy as he stopped by the office and picked up his locker information. Her face was still in his mind as he struggled to open his new locker. Max stood three lockers away.

  Then an elbow crunched into Brian’s back and his face slammed into his locker. Frankie spoke in almost a growl right near his ear. “Twelve minutes. That’s how long it took you and my sister to get here this morning. Figure fifteen from yesterday. And I’m going to make you pay for every minute of it.” He chuckled. Brian wanted to shove him away or punch him, but Frankie had his arm gripped tight around Brian’s shoulders like they were buddies. “This little locker slam was good for one minute.” He gave Brian a quick, hard slap to the face. “That’s another. Thirty minutes to go.”

  That wasn’t right. “Twenty … Twenty-six,” Brian said.

  “Well, golly,” Frankie said in an exaggerated hick tone. “I guess you’re right. I ain’t never been no good at figuring them there numbers.” He started walking away, but stopped long enough to crush Max up against the lockers, his hand gripping Max’s shirt. “Sorry I haven’t been around to thump on you in a few days, Mad Max. I’ve been busy with this new guy.” He grinned. “I’ll get to you soon, though. I promise.”

  Brian put his skateboard and backpack in the locker and acted like he was shuffling around on the shelf for some books. He heard people laughing, but when he sneaked a peek, David, Red, and even Jess O’Claire just looked away, snickering and whispering to one another.

  The morning classes went the same as the day before, except the teachers started up with lessons and homework. At midday, while everyone else charged to the lunchroom when Ms. Gilbert dismissed them, Brian held back.

  “Are you heading to the cafeteria, Brian?” Max said quietly from the desk behind his as the last of their classmates left the room.

  “Um …” Brian started. He should just go to lunch with Max. Max was a good guy. But Frankie had been taking every chance he could to hurt or humiliate him, and he couldn’t stand giving him more ammunition by hanging around with Max. “Oh, go ahead. I’m going to take too long. I … um … have to organize this … thing in my desk. Then I have to ask Ms. Gilbert something.”

  Max frowned. “Are you sure? I’m happy to —”

  “No, really. Go ahead.”

  Max looked at him for just a moment and then lowered his gaze to the floor as he walked out. Brian sighed and shook his head.

  Since Tuesday’s homework load was extreme, Max insisted on going home after school. Brian and Alex figured there wasn’t much point in trying to work on the flyer by themselves, so they all agreed to meet the next day.

  At lunchtime on Wednesday, Brian didn’t have to make up any lame excuses to avoid Max. He really did have to go to the bathroom. The only problem was that Frankie found him at the urinal. He pushed Brian in the back and made him pee all over himself.

  “About twenty-eight minutes left to pay for!” Frankie laughed on his way out of the bathroom.

  Brian missed all of lunch trying to splash water from the sink onto his pants to wash the pee off. This made an even bigger wet spot, so then he had to stand there for a long time with his crotch under the hand drier.

  Timmy Hale, from the other sixth grade classroom, came into the bathroom.

  “I spilled ketchup in my lap,” Brian lied.

  “Whatever,” said Timmy. He did his business, washed his hands, and left quickly, laughing as he sneaked a look at Brian on the way out. Brian wanted to get back at Frankie somehow, but he had promised Grandpa that he would stay out of trouble and Wendy that he would not fight her brother.

  He skated home slowly that afternoon, dumping his book bag on the floor in the entryway. The house was empty and silent. A note on the fridge told him that both Mom and Dad would be working late. He was supposed to go to Grandpa’s house for supper at seven. Brian sighed. He wasn’t ready for all of Grandpa’s questions about school. Grabbing his skateboard and heading for the door, Brian figured he’d check in at the Eagle’s Nest first to delay the visit with Grandpa and see if the flyer could be salvaged.

  When Brian came up out of the tunnel, Alex and Max were standing at the table in the center. A math book was open in front of them. “I hate story problems!” Alex was saying. “Why doesn’t stupid Miguel just sell lemonade made from a cheap mix or yellow food coloring or something? He’d make a lot more money for half the work that way. But no! He’s got to squeeze fresh lemons, and now I’m supposed to figure out how many lemons he’d need if he wants to expand his business?” He slammed the math book closed and pointed at the cover as he shouted, “Stop riding trains from New York to San Francisco and figuring out how large the pizza slices should be and how many lemons you need for your stupid lemonade stand! Why don’t you just go play video games or something, Miguel? Solve your own problems!”

  Max chuckled. “I sympathize with your frustration, but do you understand how to finish the math assignment now?”

  “Yeah,” Alex said. “I can handle basic math, enough to keep track of how much money people owe me, but these problems drive me nuts. You’re a bit strange sometimes, Max, but you’re awesome at this stuff.”

  “I don’t know what’s worse, the story problems or the super-cheerful way Mrs. Brown explains them,” Brian said. He put on a huge grin and opened his eyes as wide as he could. “Okay, boys and girls,” he said in a breathy, high-pitched voice. “Today we’re going to have fun with fractions!”

  Alex and Max laughed. “That’s her, dude,” Alex said. “Sometimes I want to throw something across the room just to make her mad and get that fake, pasted-on smile off her face for a little while.”

  “It is a bit disconcerting,” Max said.

  Brian nodded toward the flyer. “How bad is she?”

  “Not as bad as one might expect from a crash of this nature,” Max said. “If this had been a standard aluminum airplane, the damage from the collision with the tree would likely have been far more extensive.”

  “This Plastisteel stuff really rocks.” Alex switched on the spotlight above the table. The forward, curved section of the right wing was dented in about three inches. A nasty crack ran back about four inches from the dent.

  Brian slid his fingers along the tear. “Sorry about this. I tried to steer us around the tree trunk.”

  “Don’t apologize,” Alex said. “You probably saved our lives. If we would have hit that tree head-on …”

  “Alex is correct,” Max said. “Furthermore, you saved the engine.”

  Alex winced. “Max, don’t use the word ‘furthermore.’ You’re not writing a paper for class.”

  Max ignored him. “It was still excellent flying, Brian.”

  Brian looked at the dent closely. “Can we just take off the top panel of the wing and then hit the dent from the inside, like with a hammer or something? If hitting it from the
outside pushed the Plastisteel in like this, maybe hitting it from the inside would push it back out.”

  Max shot his phaser pointer along the tear. “Your approach to repairing the dent might work, but this tear presents a more difficult problem.”

  “Can we just put in a different panel?” Brian asked.

  “I don’t have any more Plastisteel, so I’d prefer to align it on both sides of the tear as evenly as possible. Then maybe we could find a very strong glue to seal it up.”

  “We could file it down to make sure it’s smooth,” said Brian. “The wing would be mostly okay then.”

  “After that …” Alex said. “I don’t know. Maybe we could ask Miguel how to get it to fly.”

  Brian laughed a little, but Max frowned. “The answer to our story problem is a bit more problematic.” He took off his glasses and chewed the earpiece.

  “But it did fly,” Brian said.

  “Yeah,” said Alex. “It glided for a while down off the highway until it crashed, but —”

  “No, I mean on the runway.” Brian put his hand on one of the flyer’s wings. “She was flying for a little bit. She’d get up two, three, maybe four feet in the air at a time.”

  Alex nodded. “Then it dropped right back down onto its skateboards. Maybe that’s the problem. Are there other wheels we could be using?”

  “Other wheels I investigated were too large, too heavy, or couldn’t roll fast enough,” Max said. “Yet that’s still the problem. The flyer needs to move faster in order to overcome the drag created by all those wheels.”

  Brian pointed to the rocket on the workbench by the wall, labeled the NX-03. “Why don’t we just mount that rocket on the flyer?”

  “You have a rocket?” Alex asked.

  “It’s how we got away when Frankie was chasing me at the skate park.”

  “I was wondering about that. You turned the corner and we couldn’t see you through the trees.” Alex said. “So that’s what that loud noise was.”

  “I don’t think the rocket method will work,” Max said. “The NX-02 exploded shortly after its first use.”

  “Exploded?” said Alex.

  Brian spread his hands out to mime the burst.

  “We shouldn’t use it,” said Max. “Even if I could engineer it correctly so it doesn’t explode, it is important to consider the physics of a solid-fuel rocket. Once ignited, it will continue to increase speed along one straight line, making it difficult to maneuver the flyer. The best course of action is for me to improve the engine somehow. I’ll have to find a way to increase its power so the flyer can move fast enough to take off.”

  “There it is,” Brian said. “You can take the engine apart and figure that out. Alex and I can get to work fixing the wing.”

  Nobody said anything for a moment. Max stared at the engine like he had never seen it before. Alex wore a similar expression.

  “Guys, don’t worry,” said Brian. “This is going to work.”

  “You’re right.” Alex smiled the way Dad had with Mrs. Douglas. “We’re still going to make a pile of money on this. I’d bet on it, and I never lose a bet. Plus —” He reached down into his backpack and pulled out a bag of Oreos, another twelve-pack of Mountain Dew, and a cool set of iPod speakers. “I brought treats and tunes. It may take some work to get this plane flying, but there’s no reason we can’t have fun in the process.”

  They each grabbed a couple cookies and cracked open a soda. Then Max busied himself opening up the engine to check on its interior, and Brian and Alex set to work carefully unbolting the wing. Alex put on some music. “I know this song is kind of old, but it’s really cool,” he said. “The band has a different song that sounds kind of like this. We’ll hear that next.”

  Brian tried to concentrate on unscrewing the Plastisteel on the wing, but he couldn’t help thinking that every song this band made sounded exactly the same. How did all the popular kids always know which terrible songs were the coolest ones? Why was it weird to like older stuff like the Beatles? What was so weird about him that made him unable to care very much about whatever was new and popular?

  “Dude, you okay?” Alex asked Brian.

  “Yeah,” said Brian. “Fine. Just … listening to this awesome song.”

  All day Friday, David, Red, Alex, and most of the other guys couldn’t stop talking about that night’s high school football game. “You going to the game?” was the question of the day. Even the Wolf Pack seemed excited. Once in the hall between classes, Brian could hear their giggly whispers about who they hoped to see at the game and what they would wear. It seemed like only a real loser would skip the game.

  So as the band took the field with a marching tune at the end of the first half, with the Dysart Trojans killing the Riverside Roughriders twenty-one to six, Brian found himself sitting on a small corner of Abbie Sark’s blanket on the grassy hill by the football field. He wasn’t even completely on the blanket — more like half on one corner of it. Still, that was better than Max, who sat off to the side in the grass. Wendy was sitting on the other side of Heather, Abbie, Jess, and Rowena. The only other guys sitting down were Alex, David, and Kevin Stein, who had Mrs. Brown for homeroom. The rest of the boys were out on the practice field, playing football. That was fine by Brian. Frankie could stay with them.

  “They’ll figure out a better defense during halftime,” David said. “Don’t count us out yet.”

  Alex keyed some figures into his iPhone, probably game statistics for other bets. “Yep. Maybe.” He looked up and slipped his phone into his pocket. “Even a sure bet’s not sure until the game’s over.”

  The Wolf Pack stood up, all except Wendy. They whispered something as they huddled close together, then Jess O’Claire pushed Rowena Stewart out of the circle.

  “Come on,” Rowena whispered back toward them. They motioned her forward. She shuffled up to the guys, fidgeting with the crystal pendant she always wore. “Um, Kevin.” She giggled like someone had just told a joke. Her cheeks were as red as her hair. “Um … so Jess was wondering if you want to come with us to the concession stand.” Kevin turned toward Alex and David, rolling his eyes. Rowena chewed her thumbnail. “So, do you wanna?”

  Kevin sighed. “I guess. You guys coming along?”

  Alex stretched out and yawned. “Sure. Why not?” He stood up, along with Kevin and David. Brian started to get to his feet as well.

  “Oh, hey,” Kevin said to him. “Would it be cool if you two just stayed here? You know, to save our places and stuff.”

  What did he mean by “you two”? Brian glanced behind him. Max looked like he wanted to go along with the group as well. No wonder Kevin had told them to stay.

  “We’ll be quick anyway,” Alex said.

  Brian picked a blade of grass and twisted it in his fingers as he watched David, Kevin, and Alex leave him behind as they headed off with the Wolf Pack. He was left out of the group again.

  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 th
em 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.