I woke up the next morning to the sound of my phone buzzing. Maybe it was the Flee wondering where I was.
Hola, Señor Kovok. Happy New Year.
Hola, Señorita Sandy. Cómo estás?
Muy bien! Look on your porch!
Nope. No messages from my dad.
Sandy had sent a big basket of muffins to our house, along with a Happy New Year card. Even though muffin consumption was going to be far beyond my abilities for a while, I loved that Sandy had thought of me. So I decided I would find a way to make the muffins useful. I put the basket on our kitchen counter and went out into the backyard with a single muffin. Blueberry.
I lay down on the hard, cold New Year’s grass and used the muffin as a head support. It failed. It failed epically, but I didn’t care.
I lay there and scouted for planes flying overhead. I’d fallen asleep the night before thinking about all the 14As who crossed my airspace every single day. All those strangers above the earth. All of them, like me and Mom, who just wanted to get home safe.
It was a fast-moving sky filled with thin clouds. I waited and watched for a plane to fly over. I put my hand up to the sky and positioned it underneath the belly of the first plane I spotted and held it there. I carried it for the time it took to cross my personal airspace. Twenty-eight seconds.
Be safe, plane.
Do you know what Orville Wright once said about the physics of flight? He said that “the airplane stays up because it doesn’t have time to fall.”
Because it doesn’t have time to fall. Is that a good reason to fly? A way to make a person feel safe? Maybe.
Do you know that more people die each year from shaking a vending machine than from shark attacks?
True story.
People are afraid of sharks. But have you ever heard of a vending machine phobia? Not me. Maybe there should be a show called Deadliest Snacks.
Someone with a loud, Tim LeMoot, the Texas Boot, ALL-CAPS voice could shout, YOUR NEXT CANDY BAR COULD BE YOUR LAST!
Some people are afraid to fly, too, but it doesn’t stop thousands of people from traveling.
Every day in the United States, more than twenty-seven thousand commercial flights take off.
I looked it up.
That means that thousands of people were floating seven miles above the earth right as I was lying down, all relying on Orville Wright’s theory that planes don’t have time to fall.
All those planes.
And maybe even a hidden crocodile. There was a good chance that at least one out of six thousand flights carried a dork who’d smuggled a live animal on board.
I carried a second plane. Twenty-nine seconds.
I pictured the woman in 14A. Smiling, showing me her red-and-green quilted tree skirt. I still wished I’d talked to her on our flight.
So I made up other people inside the fuselage. Families. A woman reading a paperback. A guy playing a video game. Oh, and there’s a flight attendant handing out snacks, and she looks just like my math teacher, Mrs. Wiggington. Mrs. W always smiled as she handed out math worksheets.
Be safe, Mrs. W.
I closed my eyes. The clouds had thinned out. Sun hit my backyard. My face was warm. Maybe today would be a good day, I thought. Maybe it would be the day Liz Delaney found the flag. And the empty space on the wall could be filled. Everything put in place. I let my mind go there, float. Mom with a smile, less one eyebrow. Grandpa informing me that I’d been useful because I’d thought to contact Ms. Delaney.
My mind unfolded. Relaxed. Went off on a trip to a warm place where there were no fireworks or sore ankles.
It was a great fantasy.
I would have let my mind stay gone all day.
But a long, tall, square-shouldered, aviator-sunglasses-wearing shadow eclipsed the sun. I looked up and squinted.
“Wayne, have you parted company with your senses? You realize you are lying on your dog’s latrine.”
I rolled over, stood up, and brushed dry grass from my jeans. Grandpa was consuming one of my muffins. My one gift from the girl of my dreams.
“I didn’t hear your father’s car drive up last night,” he said, hands on his hips.
I shrugged. You can’t hear what’s not there.
“Your mother needs your help washing her hair. Can you do it?”
I helped Mom wash her hair in the kitchen sink.
“Are you excited about going to the new school next week?”
I nodded yes. I’d never lied to Mom with a gesture before.
“Nice of Sandy to send those muffins,” Mom said. She seemed better than the previous day. Maybe she thought the new year was going to be, well, new.
“Want to watch a movie later?”
Do I get to pick?
“Sure,” she said. No sad smile. “Oh, your dad called and said he was going to drop off your jacket. Guess you left it there?”
I shrugged.
“Wayne? Honey, do you ever want to talk to anyone about the crash? A counselor? If you do, let me know. We could do it together, okay?” She touched my face.
No, even if I could actually talk, I didn’t want to talk to a counselor. I just needed the flag to be found, Grandpa to move back to his house, my face and neck to heal, my dad to stop messing with me, and Mom to keep smiling and make spaghetti every Tuesday. That was all. I no longer even cared if we ever got a dishwasher. I didn’t mind washing dishes.
I knew what I wanted. So what was there to talk about?
I smiled at her because I knew that was what she wanted, and then I went out the front door.
My skateboard was leaning against the brick. I flung it on the sidewalk and took off. I wasn’t going to be home when the Flee showed up. No way.
I skateboarded way past our block. Past Elm and Dogwood and Oak Streets. Deep into the new neighborhood called the Estates. It was set right against our forest of streets. For me, the best thing about the Estates wasn’t the new houses. It was the new streets. Smooth, even, and acorn-free. Perfect for skateboarding. I skated all the way to the park, where eighty-year-old trees shaded the playground equipment in summertime. I climbed up into the plastic spaceship that had been bright red when we moved there but was now faded to pale pink. I’d only intended to sit there with my thoughts for a short time and look at planes and think about what I might text to Sandy. But a mom and her two kids came to the park. They played on the swings and laughed. I didn’t want to scare them with my face the way I’d scared Carrot. And since I had no voice to explain to the mother that I wasn’t a murdery stalker, I stayed up in that spaceship until dark.