Positively Beautiful by Wendy Mills Page A

said I was “plane insane.” Ha, ha, ha.
    Ashley thinks it’s the coolest thing since sliced bread. Somehow I’m not surprised. It sounds like something she’d like.
    â€œWhat do you think, you just jump in like it’s a car?” Stew barks at me. He’s chewing gum like he’s starving, all smacking and gnashing of teeth.
    â€œI don’t … no?”
    â€œEven before you get in a car, you’re supposed to kick a tire or two, maybe check the oil every once in a while. With a plane, it’s even more important. Up there, were you expectingto pull into the nearest service station if something goes wrong?”
    I am rapidly seeing the futility of answering any of Call-Me-Stew’s questions. They are meant solely to amuse him. He’s already told me he doesn’t like kids, never has, never will, we’re all ungrateful brats, thank you very much.
    I follow him around as he checks out the plane. He stabs a stubby finger at various mysterious things as he rapid-fires info in my direction, as well as the smell of stale beer. I stuff my hands into my pockets to hide their shaking.
    So why haven’t I already said
sayonara
? Why can’t I just make like a tree and leave? Here’s the thing: I
want
to fly that plane, more than just about anything. I
like
the canary yellow plane, it looks sassy and punk, like Tweety Bird. It makes me smile. I haven’t had a lot of giggles lately, what with Mom puking up her guts and whispering when she doesn’t think I can hear, “I think it would be easier to just
die.
”
    â€œLet’s do this,” Stew says, with an expression on his worn, lined face like this is about as fun as a pop quiz.
    â€œNow I can get in?” I ask.
    â€œYes, get in.”
    â€œYou sure? We don’t need to check the windshield wipers or something?”
    â€œGet
in
. Smart-ass,” he says, looking perturbed.
    I grin at him sweetly, which throws him off, and climb into the plane.
    â€œYou got your parents stashed somewhere? Your age, they’re usually following their little chicks around with a camera.” He heaves his jiggling belly into the seat beside me.
    â€œNope.”
    Mom, the last I saw her, was leaning over the toilet, heaving, heaving, heaving. And when I tried to put a wet washcloth on her forehead after she brought up a bare spittle of bile, she screamed hoarsely, “Just go, go, Erin,
I can’t have you here right now.
” So no, Call-Me-Stew, my mom is too sick right now to be able to care what the heck I do.
    He shrugs and starts rattling off another long list of information I sincerely hope isn’t vital, as I’m so nervous I’m only catching about half of it. Then he starts spitting nonsensical words into the radio like “November Six One Seven Niner Romeo” and I hear someone through my headphones answer back, “Cleared for takeoff.”
    And then we’re moving. Stew stops at the end of a runway, craning his neck around to look out all the windows. He revs the engine so hard it rattles everything in the plane. I notice my window is being held shut with a twist of clothes hanger, and a piece of tinfoil covers some gadget on the dash. Not all warm-and-fuzzy-making, but on the other hand, it makes me like Tweety Bird the Plane even more.
    I’m not entirely sure if the whole-body shaking is from the engine or coming from inside me. I debate asking Stew to take me back to the hangar.
    But it’s too late.
    We’re rolling, and the little plane is racing down the runway, and with a sudden dip in my stomach—
Oh no, am I going to throw up?
—we’ve left the earth. We’re in the air. We’re touching the sky.
    It is freaking awesome.
    I clutch the door handle as the ground falls away and the buildings get smaller and smaller, just like I remembered. The engine roars and we bump over pockets of turbulence as we make our ascent and