Takeoffs and Landings Read Free Page A

her and frame it. They could title it W OMAN ON THE GO .
    Some magazine had done an article about Mom a year or so ago. There’d been lots of pictures with captions like that, making her sound like Superwoman. M OTHER OF FIVE FLIES HIGH IN “ACCIDENTAL” CAREER, was the headline.
    He could almost remember feeling proud, wanting to go around bragging, Hey, that’s my mom.
    But then some of the kids at school had seen the article.
    â€œYour mother’s a motivational speaker?” Cassandra Dennis had asked. “Why can’t she motivate you?”
    The whole English class had heard, and laughed.
    Now just thinking about that article made his face hot with shame.
    Lots of thoughts did that for him.
    He stumbled following Mom and Lori toward the lady taking tickets. Horrified at the thought of falling—he pictured a giant tree crashing in a forest, a beached whale flopping on the shore—he stomped squarely on Lori’s foot as he tried to regain his balance.
    Lori flashed him an outraged, pained look.
    â€œWatch it!” she hissed.
    She even had tears in her eyes. So one of Chuck’s last acts would be hurting his sister.
    Again.
    Chuck watched his feet, heading toward the plane. Toward his doom, probably. He had sympathy suddenly for the hogs that tried to run backward down the loading chute when they were being sent off to slaughter. Chuck hated sorting hogs, anyway—Pop always yelling at him, “Don’t let that one past you! He’s not ready for market!” and Joey and Mike tattling, “Chuck’s not helping!” It was a relief, at the end, when the hogs were all headed up the chute onto the truck. But some hog always balked. He’d turn the wrong way and try to run against the pack. The backward hog would squeal, and the others would squeal, and no matter how much Pop and Chuck and Joey and Mike pushed, the dang hog wouldn’t turn around.
    More than once, Chuck had seen Pop flip a 250-pound hog end over end, just to get him on the truck.
    If Chuck were a hog being sent to slaughter, he wouldn’t have the nerve to turn around. He wouldn’t have the nerve to squeal. He’d go quietly.
    Mom handed a packet to the airline attendant beside the door out to the plane.
    â€œThere’s, um, three of us,” she said.
    â€œFamily vacation, eh?” the woman said.
    â€œSort of,” Mom said.
    The woman ripped out three tickets and handed the packet back to Mom.
    â€œHave fun!” she said cheerily.
    Mom led them through a door and down a hallway. Then they were in the plane, and Chuck had another attack of panic. Everything was too flimsy looking—he felt like he could reach over and crumple the tin of the door with his bare hands. He glanced to the left, and shouldn’t have, because that was the cockpit, all those important-looking dials and gauges. But they looked fake, like children’s toys. He didn’t know what he’d expected the inside of an airplane to look like, but it wasn’t this. This was supposed to fly?
    He looked at Mom, walking confidently down the aisle ahead of him. But that was a mistake, too, because she was tiny and fit easily between the rows of seats. She moved like she belonged on a plane—it wasn’t too hard to believe she could be lifted off the ground. Chuck felt like Godzilla trampling behind her. He knocked one man’s jacket to the floor and accidentally kicked another man’s luggage.
    â€œExcuse me. Sorry,” he muttered.
    â€œWho wants the window seat?” Mom asked when they reached their row.
    Silently, Chuck shook his head. What? And have to look out?
    â€œI don’t care,” Lori said, though she usually had an opinion about everything. “You can have it, Mom.”
    A woman behind them cleared her throat impatiently.
    â€œNo, you take it, Lori,” Mom decreed. “So you can seeout during takeoff and landing. Those are the best parts.