فصل 23

CHAPTER 23

SIGNPOSTS IN THE SEA

WENDY HATED HERSELF for what she was about to do to Uncle Neville.

It’s for mother, she kept telling herself. But that didn’t make her feel any better.

She’d returned the evening before. Uncle Ted, who’d stayed in Harwich, had tried to talk her out of her plan, but Wendy could not be budged. His last words to her as he put her on the train were “Wendy, you’re every bit as stubborn as your mother. I just hope you’re also as resourceful.”

“I hope so, too,” replied Wendy.

She took a taxicab from the Cambridge train station to Uncle Neville’s estate. Nobody seemed suspicious; apparently Mrs. Blotney hadn’t noticed the Harwich postmark on the letter Wendy had sent.

The next morning Wendy awakened early and filled a cloth bag with supplies—bread, cheese, three apples, and a bottle of water. An hour later, at breakfast, she peppered Uncle Neville with questions about his ornithopter. He was happy to answer them; in fact, the ornithopter was all he wanted to talk about. He was giddy with anticipation, having finally finished repairing the odd-looking craft. He intended, despite Mrs. Blotney’s heartfelt pleadings, to make a test flight after breakfast.

John and Michael were so excited they could barely stay in their chairs. Every few seconds, Michael would shout, “Uncle Neville’s going to fly the ornihopper!” Each time, he emitted a spray of toast crumbs, and each time John corrected him, saying, “It’s ornithopter, you ninny.” But they were both too excited to get into serious quarreling.

Meanwhile, Wendy kept pressing for information. She had gotten Uncle Neville to explain the controls, which were quite simple—a lever for up and down, and another for steering. But the next issue was more worrisome.

“So…the motor,” Wendy said. “It uses gasoline?”

“Yes,” said Uncle Neville. “It’s quite a reliable motor. It has two cylinders and a four-stroke—”

“I see,” said Wendy. “And how long does the motor keep going before it runs out of fuel?”

Uncle Neville looked at the ceiling and scratched his cheek, thinking. Then he said, “I don’t know, actually, since it has never operated under flight conditions for more than a brief while without…ah…without …”

“Crashing,” said Mrs. Blotney.

“Quite so,” Uncle Neville agreed cheerfully. “But I imagine that with a full tank of fuel, it would run for, I should think, three or four hours.”

Wendy gulped. “Will the tank be full today?” she asked.

“Yes, I always fill it, just in case,” said Uncle Neville. “Although I’m planning just a short flight today. I won’t be going to France, at least not yet, ha-ha!”

Wendy tried to smile, but her mind was buzzing with troubling thoughts. Three or four hours. That didn’t sound like nearly enough time, but it would have to do.

“All right, then!” said Uncle Neville, wiping his mouth, then tossing his napkin onto the table as he rose. “Wind is down and the sun is up! It’s time to fly!”

With a whoop apiece, John and Michael were racing to the front door. Uncle Neville was right behind, followed by Wendy, who was holding her cloth bag. A very unhappy Mrs. Blotney brought up the rear.

Two minutes later, Uncle Neville and the boys were swinging open the big barn doors. Just inside, the orniqthopter was waiting, its feathered wings arching out on both sides like enormous eyebrows.

Uncle Neville and the boys took hold of the orniqthopter frame and began rolling it out of the barn on its four small, wire-spoke wheels. Wendy went to help them, and as she grasped the wooden frame, she was struck by how flimsy it was—just sticks, really. The wings looked especially frail, literally made from feathers (ostrich, her uncle had told her). They were connected by wire cables to the two large control levers mounted next to the platform where the pilot stood. There was a smaller lever there also, connected by a cable to the motor. Wendy assumed this was the throttle.

The motor itself looked a bit more substantial than the rest of the craft, but Wendy knew nothing about what made it work; its wires, belts, and hoses were a mystery. She did note, with relief, that the fuel tank was on the side of the motor facing the pilot’s platform.

When the ornithopter had been wheeled into place, Uncle Neville lugged a red metal can out of the barn. Wendy, touching her golden locket, watched closely as he unscrewed the cap on top of the fuel tank and filled the tank with gasoline. He put the cap back on, tightened it, and wiped the tank with a rag. Then he spent a few minutes inspecting the motor and making some small adjustments.

“All right, then!” he said at last. “It’s time!”

“I’ll go call the doctor,” said Mrs. Blotney, turning back toward the house, unable to watch.

“You boys stand back!” said Uncle Neville, shooing John and Michael a few feet farther from the ornithopter. The instant he was done shooing, they moved right back to where they had been. Uncle Neville, busy with the starter crank on the front of the motor, wasn’t watching the boys. He also wasn’t watching Wendy, who, clutching her bag, had stepped around the back of the ornithopter and moved next to the platform.

“Ready?” said Uncle Neville.

“Ready!” shouted John and Michael.

Uncle Neville grabbed the starter crank in both hands and gave it a yank. The motor coughed, then sputtered to life. The boys cheered. The giant wings started moving, rising slowly, then descending. Uncle Neville was making one last adjustment to the motor.

Now, thought Wendy. She climbed up onto the platform.

The engine roared as Uncle Neville finished his adjustment. The big feathered wings swept up and down, kicking up dust. On each downbeat, the ornithopter jumped a foot off the ground, then settled back onto its little wheels.

“Hurry, Uncle Neville!” shouted John.

Uncle Neville was already bustling around the side of the ornithopter, avoiding one of the huge flapping wings. He stopped suddenly when he saw Wendy.

“Wendy!” he shouted over the sputtering of the motor. “Get down from there!”

“I’m sorry, Uncle Neville,” she shouted back. She put her hand on the throttle lever.

“No!” shouted Uncle Neville.

Wendy pushed the lever all the way forward. The motor belched black smoke and then roared much louder. The big wings beat faster. With a whoosh, the ornithopter shot gracefully forward and upward.

Despite his concerns, Uncle Neville could not help but pause for a moment to admire the brilliance of his invention—with a child at the controls, it was actually flying! Then, remembering the danger, he lunged toward the ornithopter. He managed to get a hand on one of the wheels, but the next downbeat of the wings knocked him back, and the ornithopter shot upward and forward, gaining altitude.

Another flap of the wings, and it was well out of reach, rising steadily as it flew across the open field. Uncle Neville ran behind, trailed by Michael and John, all three shouting and jumping. But Wendy couldn’t hear them over the sound of the motor and the pounding of her own heartbeat in her ears. She was flying.

The ornithopter was now fifty feet in the air. It began to lean to the right, first slightly, then more sharply. Suddenly it was losing altitude. Wendy grabbed one of the levers and pulled it; this corrected the tilt for a moment, but then sent the ornithopter in the other direction, so far to the left that Wendy nearly fell off the platform. After several seconds of panic, she managed to get the craft level again. It resumed its rise, its big wings swooshing.

She was getting the hang of this.

Her uncle’s field was well behind her now; she was crossing over a line of trees and still gaining altitude. She looked down and felt a wave of nausea as she realized how high up she was on this fragile, creaking craft, standing on a platform barely larger than a step stool. She became aware of how hard her heart was pounding.

Concentrate, she told herself. Find the train tracks.

She glanced back over her shoulder at her uncle’s mansion, now small in the distance. Off to the left, she could see the spires of Cambridge. She adjusted the altitude lever so that the ornithopter was no longer climbing. Then, carefully, she leaned to her right, peering around the motor, squinting against the wind into the distance ahead. She stayed that way for several minutes, crossing a field, then another, then another. From time to time she thought she heard shouting below, but she did not look down, instead keeping her eyes on the horizon, looking for …

There. Beyond the next field, the train tracks ran along a raised bed, perpendicular to Wendy’s present course. As she approached the tracks, she put the ornithopter into a gentle right turn until she was flying directly over them, in the direction of Harwich.

Or so she hoped.

She followed the tracks, clutching the ornithopter’s frame, passing over towns and villages, listening to the whoosh of the wings and the roar of the motor. Occasionally the motor would cough and Wendy’s heart would stop; but then it would resume roaring. She prayed it was as reliable as Uncle Neville had said.

She had no watch, so she didn’t know exactly how long she’d been flying—it felt like an eternity, but she knew it was probably less than an hour—when she saw the sea in the distance. She followed the tracks into Harwich, comforted somehow by the sight of the train station. She adjusted her course slightly to take her toward the harbor, reducing her altitude as she drew close to the quay.

It was bustling with dockworkers. One of them caught sight of the ornithopter; soon all of them were pointing and shouting, some in fear, as the strange flying craft bore down on them. Wendy ignored them, her eyes searching the quay. Her heart leaped when she saw the bulky form of Uncle Ted at the very end, jumping up and down and waving both arms over his head to get her attention. As she drew close they made eye contact, and he pointed vigorously toward the harbor. Wendy looked in that direction and saw the sleek silver shape of a porpoise poking out of the water. She altered course slightly, heading toward it. The moment she did, the porpoise flashed its tail and dove, then resurfaced farther away, clearly leading her toward the harbor’s mouth.

Wendy followed. In a few moments, she realized with alarm that she was flying much faster than the porpoise could swim. As she passed over it she looked down frantically, wondering what she was supposed to do. Then she glanced up, and there it was, a hundred yards ahead: another grinning porpoise, poking high out of the water, waiting for her. Wendy aimed for it, followed it as far as she could, and then found the next porpoise, then the next, then the next, each one holding its grinning snout high, guiding her forward, like signposts in the sea.

For several minutes Wendy was so focused on finding the next porpoise that she didn’t look back. When she did, she saw that she had passed over the harbor breakwater and was already well out over the open sea; Harwich was receding rapidly behind her. Ahead lay only water, formless and dark. Wendy, for the first time, noticed the chill of the sea wind; the water, she knew, would be colder.

The engine coughed once, then resumed its steady roar. Wendy’s hand gripped the steering lever. Shivering in the wind, she again looked back toward Harwich, toward land, toward safety.

“No,” she said, out loud. Then she turned forward, looking for the next silver signpost in the endless dark green sea.