Positively Beautiful by Wendy Mills Page B

it’s amazing how quickly everything below us begins to blur together. I think about all those people living life in their own little squares, and not understanding that all the squares are connected, going on and on as far as the eye can see.
    I remember a poem my dad liked.
    Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,
    And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
    Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
    Of sun-split clouds,—and done a hundred things
    You have not dreamed of …
    I used to beg Dad to read the poem to me at bedtime and he would tousle my hair and say,
Rinnie, don’t worry, you’ll do a hundred things I’ve never even dreamed of. Go to sleep now, and think about dancing in the sky …
    Stew steers us into a steep turn and I hold my breath because it seems like we’re going to drop sideways straight into the ground. I have this irrational fear Stew is going to fall on me because it seems like he’s hanging above me. I’m pressed against the door, hoping desperately it won’t spring open and dump me into all that air down there. I see Stone Mountain in the distance, but I can’t make out the humongous carvings of the Confederate war heroes. Then we swing around into another sharp turn and all I can see out my side window isendless sky and I claw for the handle to keep from tumbling into Stew’s lap, even though rationally I know my seatbelt is holding me in place.
    We straighten out and bounce over air bumps like a stone skipping across the surface of the water. Stew shoots me a sideways glance and I see that he’s smirking just a little. I wonder how many students he scares off this way, because I definitely get the feeling he’s trying to.
    â€œWell?” he says through the headphones.
    â€œCool,” I say. “Very, very cool.” I try to look all nonchalant, like this isn’t the best thing I can remember doing in … well, ever.
    He nods and his expression changes, becomes less smug and more thoughtful. Maybe he was expecting me to throw up. I’m still holding the paper barf bag he shoved at me when I got in the plane. Maybe he is expecting me to be terrified. I’ve been terrified for weeks. This fear seems
clean
, somehow. Pure. Not putrid and creeping.
    â€œYour turn.” He lifts his hands off the yoke on his side.
    â€œSay what?” I stare at him in horror. My hands clamp over the yoke in front of me and somehow I push it forward. The nose dives, and my stomach comes to rest somewhere in the vicinity of my throat.
    â€œOh man!” I snatch my hands away from the yoke. We are totally going down.
    â€œPull back.” Stew grins at me. He’s enjoying this, the sick sadistic bastard.
    Since he seems content to watch us dive into the groundwithout lifting a finger to stop us, I grab at the yoke and pull it back.
    Too much. Too fast.
    My stomach careens as the plane yanks up toward the sun.
    â€œYou planning on making it into orbit?” Stew says, fishing in his shirt pocket for another stick of gum. He seems completely unconcerned that a loud alarm has starting blaring. “We’re getting ready to stall.”
    â€œOh my God!” I yell, and push down again.
    Now we’re diving toward the earth faster and faster, and I start wondering if this is the end.
    â€œSlow and easy,” Stew says, popping the gum into his mouth.
    I pull back slightly and the plane starts leveling out. I pull back some more but somehow I’ve twisted the yoke and we’re flying tilted to the right.
    Stew shows me a gauge on the dash that shows how far off center we are, and I turn the yoke back to the left a little. I experiment, back and forth, fascinated by how responsive the plane is to my touch.
I’m
controlling it,
I’m
in charge as we careen through the sky at over a hundred miles per hour. I manage to get us level and turn a big, delighted grin toward Stew.
    â€œNow