I had one eye on my work and one eye on the window. The little slice of sky that I could see was too small and the angle was all wrong for me to see much. Why couldn’t my desk be on the other side of the class by the windows?
I deliberately pressed down hard on my pencil and the tip snapped off. I got up and walked toward the pencil sharpener, which was on the window ledge. I walked as quietly and slowly as possible. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to disturb anybody doing their math, but I didn’t want Mrs. Orr to notice me. She was working at her desk, eyes down. If I moved silently, then maybe she wouldn’t—
“Nick?” Mrs. Orr said.
“Sharpener,” I replied. I held the pencil up like I was showing proof of where I was going and what I was going to do when I got there.
“Isn’t this your third or fourth trip to the sharpener this morning?”
“I haven’t really been counting,” I lied. It was my fourth. “But I’m sure you’re right. It has been a lot. This must be the worst pencil in the world.”
“I have extra pencils.”
It was Lailah. She smiled and I felt all gooey inside. I appreciated her offer, but I didn’t need a pencil—I needed to sharpen a pencil. Then I noticed the pencil she was holding out for me was brand-new and really needed to be sharpened.
I walked over to get the pencil.
“Thanks,” I said, trying to sound casual.
“Any planes?” she whispered.
I wasn’t even aware she knew why I was going over there so often, but obviously she was.
I shook my head. “Not that I’ve seen.”
I went over to the window and started to sharpen the pencil—very slowly. I figured I had to make this trip my last because I certainly wasn’t going to be able to come back here again.
I bent down slightly so I had a better angle out the window and could see more of the sky and—there was one! A plane was coming in just to the side of the school, just to the side of the field. Perfect, just perfect. Well…assuming it was big enough.
I finished sharpening the pencil and returned to my seat.
For the first part of the morning I’d been worried that the whole plan, all of our effort, was for nothing and it might not work. Now, having seen the plane, I was worried that it was going to work.
The twelve of us stood on the basketball court in the schoolyard, but there was no basketball going on. Instead we stood there watching as planes flew overhead.
“Here comes another one!” Kia exclaimed.
It was a big American Airlines plane.
“It’s almost right over top of us,” Lailah said.
“It might be better if it was a little off to the side,” I added. “But either way it’s good.”
The plane passed by, its engines roaring, and we all laughed and yelled and waved. Even Kia waved. I was going to say something about her doing that, but I thought it was better to just ignore the whole thing. The two of them seemed to be getting along.
Plane after plane kept coming in for a landing. The wind was blowing from the perfect direction to cause the planes to use the runway that brought them right over top of us. Most of the people living in the homes around here would much rather it was blowing from a different direction. But today, that wind direction and those planes flying over were perfect.
I’d had some terrible moments last night—after we’d done all the work and I was home lying in bed—thinking that sometimes there were days and days when no planes came over the school. Today could have been one of those days. Tomorrow could be one of those days, and by the time the wind was blowing in the right direction, the whole thing could have been taken apart. I would have put everybody to work for nothing. I shuddered at that thought. But none of that mattered now as another plane came into view.
This time there was a bigger cheer. I looked around. There were lots of kids reacting to the plane overhead. Were they just imitating us or…?
“Did anybody mention what we did to anybody else?” I asked.
No one answered, the silence submerged by the roar of the plane overhead. Nobody seemed to want to look at me either.
“I told a couple of people,” Greg admitted.
“Me too,” Devon added.
Everybody else nodded in agreement.
“It was supposed to be a secret,” I said.
“It doesn’t matter, because it won’t be a secret for long,” Kia said. “Besides, what can it hurt?”
I didn’t have an answer for that, although I guess part of me still worried about what Greg had mentioned the day before. This was sort of vandalism, and we could get in trouble.
I stopped watching the planes and started watching the schoolyard. It was like a ripple as more and more people began to react to the planes coming in. It was like the “secret” was being passed on from person to person until everybody was in on it. I remembered my mother once told me that as soon as a second person knew your secret, it wasn’t a secret anymore. We’d started with twelve and now it looked like it was six hundred.
The bell rang and we all started filing into our lines to go in. As we stood there, waiting to enter, another plane came over and the lines erupted in cheering.
“You kids certainly seem to like airplanes,” Mrs. Carson said. She was on yard duty.
“Airplanes are pretty exciting,” Kia agreed.