Taking Off by Eric Kraft Page B

unsupportable claim, I think. ‘Anyone’? You would think that ‘anyone’ could make a decent bagel just by following the steps in the manual and referring to the detailed plans, but experience belies it again and again.”
    â€œHe makes a point of the fact that no welding is required.”
    â€œThe bagel analogy holds.”
    â€œHe says he’s sold more than two thousand sets of plans.”
    â€œI smell a home business for you there.”
    â€œHundreds of Pinch-a-Pennies are currently under construction,” I went on.
    â€œSays Nort.”
    â€œSays he.”
    â€œI take that to mean that hundreds of Pinch-a-Penny projects are languishing in back yards and garages.”
    â€œSeven are flying. Have flown.”
    â€œSeven.” She leaned toward the screen. “Tell me what you see here,” she said.
    I looked at the photograph on the Pinch-a-Penny website.
    â€œI see a stocky man, whom I take to be Norton Prysock, standing beside what I assume is his own Pinch-a-Penny, at the point in its construction when it was complete except that the fabric that would eventually cover the wings, control surfaces, and, optionally, the fuselage aft of the cockpit had not yet been applied.”
    â€œDo we know that he ever did get around to covering the thing?”
    â€œSkeptic,” I whined.
    â€œAnd daughter of a skeptic,” she reminded me. “What did my father always say?”
    â€œâ€˜Assume nothing.’”
    â€œLook behind Nort and the Pinch-a-Penny, Peter, and tell me what you see there.”
    â€œThere’s an outbuilding of some kind, a shed or garage, or a shed with a carport attached—”
    â€œâ€”and the siding has never been put on it, just the raw boards that are supposed to underlie the siding.”
    â€œRight.”
    â€œAnd the roof has been covered with tar paper but not shingled.”
    â€œRight.”
    â€œThere is a stack of something on the left and a stack of something else on the right, both stacks covered with tarpaulins.”
    â€œMaybe he’s going to use those tarps as fabric for the wings.”
    â€œI wouldn’t be surprised. And then whatever is under those tarps will be exposed to the weather, and in time will molder and rot.”
    â€œMaybe.”
    â€œNort has a serious personality flaw, Peter. He is not a finisher. He probably abandoned the carport project when the Pinch-a-Penny passion struck.”
    â€œI don’t know about that. He looks so relaxed and self-confident—the way he’s leaning on the plane—” In the photograph, Nort was resting his right elbow on the aluminum just ahead of the cockpit.
    â€œHe appears to be leaning on it,” said Albertine, “but I don’t think he actually is.”
    â€œYou don’t?”
    â€œNo. There is a tension in his body that makes me think he is holding himself in that position, giving the appearance of the builder at his ease, resting on the plane he has built, but in fact being careful not to put any weight on it.”
    I looked more closely. I took the magnifying glass from my desk drawer and looked more closely still.
    â€œWell?” she asked.
    â€œYou may be right,” I said.

Chapter 24
    Surplus Motorcycles? Why Not?
    THE HEART of the aerocycle design was a surplus motorcycle. The people at Impractical Craftsman asserted that the builder could obtain a surplus motorcycle locally and easily. They passed over the acquisition of a surplus motorcycle so quickly, in so few words, that I got the impression of a vast glut of surplus motorcycles, a buyer’s market in surplus motorcycles, and I was amazed that I hadn’t ever seen any abandoned by the side of the road, considering that the glut must have made them all but worthless.
    I looked in the Yellow Pages under “Motorcycles, Surplus,” but there was no entry for “Motorcycles, Surplus.” I looked under