Jake dashed across the room, waving his arms wildly through the thick cloud of smoke. As the air began to clear, he saw movement among the sparks that were still glittering on his desk. A small woman, no bigger than three inches tall, pulled herself to her feet and dusted off her leather coat.

“Now that was a bumpy landing,” she said, peering through a pair of goggles that was strapped to her face. “Must’ve been ejected on impact. Where’s the Canary?”

Julia squealed with delight. “You brought your pet?” she cried.

The woman chuckled. “I suppose you could say that,” she replied. “The Canary is my airplane. Bright yellow, she practically named herself. Any sign of her?”

I don’t think you traveled here by plane, Jake thought. But what he said was: “Wait a second. Who are you, exactly?”

The woman crossed his desk with long strides and held out her hand. “I’m Amelia Earhart,” she declared.

“The famous pilot,” Jake realized as his mouth dropped open. He carefully took hold of her tiny hand to shake it. “I’m Jake Everdale. This is my sister, Julia.”

“A pleasure to meet you both,” Miss Earhart said. She swept her long white scarf over her shoulder.

Jake wracked his brain, trying to remember everything he’d heard about Amelia Earhart before. Her daring sense of adventure had led her to become one of the first woman pilots. She’d set lots of new records and broken several others. But something had gone terribly wrong on her final flight. Miss Earhart—and her plane—had vanished without a trace.

Sir Isaac poked his head out from the toilet-paper curtains. “Pilot of what?” he asked rudely. “No one in their right mind would let a woman set foot on a ship.”

Miss Earhart pulled off her goggles and narrowed her eyes. “It’s small-minded thinking like that that got us into this fix, where men want to do everything themselves and never give a girl a chance,” she said, waggling her finger. “You ought to know that a woman can do anything a man can do—even fly an airplane.”

“Fly?” Sir Isaac asked. “Like a bird? Preposterous!”

“It is not!” Miss Earhart countered, pulling herself up to her full height. “I’ll have you know that I was the very first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic and the first person to fly solo across the Pacific Ocean.”

“A mortal—man or woman—flying through the air,” Sir Isaac said, laughing like he’d heard a great joke. “The very idea! Dear lady, I realize that you may be given to flights of fancy, but there is a force, you see, that draws objects down to the surface of the earth. I have decided to call it ‘gravity,’ after the Latin word gravitas, meaning ‘weight’—”

“I know all about gravity,” Miss Earhart said.

Now Sir Isaac looked even more astonished. “You know about gravity?” he asked. “That’s even more absurd than the thought that you have flown through the air in some sort of nature-defying contraption!”

Miss Earhart turned to Julia. “Can you believe him?” she asked. “Don’t listen to a word he says. There’s plenty of unenlightened men out there who’d rather stand in our way than get out of it. But we won’t allow them to hold us back, will we?”

“Unenlightened?” Sir Isaac sputtered as his face turned bright red. “You cause me offense! I have dedicated my life to the pursuit of knowledge!”

As the two tiny geniuses launched into a full-fledged argument, Jake buried his head in his hands. “This is a disaster!” He groaned.

“Maybe they would get along better if they had a big project to work on together,” Julia suggested.

“Yeah—like my science project,” Jake muttered. “But Sir Isaac’s not interested in helping me, and he and Miss Earhart won’t stop arguing long enough for me to even ask her if she’d take a look!”

Jake gestured at the two geniuses, who were shouting in each other’s faces.

“And if such a thing as human flight were possible, it would be someone like me who would accomplish it!” Sir Isaac hollered.

“I’d like to see you try!” Miss Earhart yelled back.

A strange, wistful look suddenly crossed Sir Isaac’s face. “Yes,” he said in a quiet voice. “I think I should like that as well.”

Sir Isaac wishes he could fly! Jake realized all of a sudden. Miss Earhart must have realized it, too, because the scowl on her face softened.

“Why didn’t you say so?” she asked. “I’m certain that can be arranged.”

Sir Isaac looked skeptical, but there was a new spark of hope in his eyes. “How?” he asked, his curiosity getting the better of him.

“First we’ll find the Canary,” Miss Earhart began, ticking the steps off on her fingers. “After a landing like that, I’m sure the old girl will need some fixing, but that’s nothing I haven’t managed before. Then it’s off we go—next stop, the wild blue yonder!”

That was all it took for Jake to have the best, brightest, most brilliant idea of his entire life. An airplane, he thought as a tornado of ideas whirled through his mind. A real-life miniature airplane can be my science project!

“Hang on a second,” he said in a rush. “If you can’t find the Canary, do you think you could make a new plane?”

Miss Earhart tapped her chin thoughtfully. “With the right tools, just about anything is possible. Yes, young man, if you have the supplies, we can build it.”

“Yes!” Jake cheered, so loudly that Sir Isaac, Miss Earhart, and even Julia jumped.

At last, Jake had solved the problem that had been worrying him for days!