Chapter 2: Stoking the Fire

01 August 2012 – Crawford Street, Fitchburg, Massachusetts

“You’re gonna bounce yourself right out of the car if you don’t chill out a bit,” Jeff chuckled to his daughter as the sun peaked over the hill to their east.

“Daaaaaad! I’ve been waiting for my first flying lesson since I took that Eagle Flight last year after the shuttle launch!”

“Waiting none too patiently, I might add...” Sabrina punched him in the shoulder, a typical response to his humor. The women in his immediate family – and his extended one – always did that to him. “PARENTAL ABUSE! POLICE!”

“And just how hard do you think your friends at work and on the SWAT team will laugh at you once they learn your fourteen-year-old daughter beat you up?” she teased.

“Pretty damn hard!” he laughed as he turned onto the airport access road. A hard right put them on another, more minor access road leading to the flight school.

“G’mornin’!” the large red-headed man behind the counter said as he stood. “Are ye ready fer yer flight, lassie?”

“Yes, Sir!” Sabrina chirped while bouncing on her toes.

“In case you can’t tell, she’s kinda looking forward to it,” Jeff mumbled.

“I wasnæ sure. Ye never can tell with teenagers.”

“If you two yucksters are finished with the comedy routine, I’d like to get airborne.”

“She’s the shy an’ retiring type, eh?” Hamish asked. Sabrina glared back. “Och!” he laughed. “I’ve seen that look enough tæ know when I’m aboot t’get yelled at! Ma used tæ look at me da that way!”

“Oh, come on, Mr. MacDougall!”

“Mr. Knox, ye’re welcome tæ wait in our lounge while we be out flyin’. T’is not much, but t’is air-conditioned.”

“Thank you for the offer, but I’ll go to the airport restaurant for breakfast first. Doing stuff at this hour was fine when I was in the Army as a teenager, but it’s for the birds on a day off at forty-three. I need more coffee!”

“Aye, but t’is a great time of day tæ be flying, ‘specially today! Should be nice an’ calm all mornin’!”

“Well, you two enjoy yourselves. Princess, no buzzing the tower.”

Jeff waved as he walked out. He had submitted all of Sabrina’s paperwork to the flight school the week before. Everything was ready to go.

“He does know that Fitchburg’s næ a controlled airfield, so there’s næ a tower to buzz?” Hamish asked quietly before turning back to the young girl in front of the counter. Sabrina giggled while shaking her head ‘no.’ “Well, my young lassie, are ye ready tæ get tæ work?”

“Yes, Sir!”

“Then let’s go an’ see if the mechanic put the propeller back on the plane.”

✦ ✧ ✦ ✧ ✦

It took Hamish a good hour to roll the aircraft onto the ramp. He spent that time quizzing Sabrina about her online ground school topics and reviewing the pre-flight checklist with her.

He then spent another half-hour on the plane’s walk-around, ensuring she did things correctly. Hamish was in no hurry, even if Sabrina was. Her appointment would take up both of his two-hour morning instructional slots, so they had plenty of time.

“Ye dinnæ want to trust yer memory when it comes to any checklist, lassie,” Hamish cautioned. “In stressful situations, they’ll save yer life by helping ye remember a critical step. They’ll keep ye from killing yerself and others if ye get complacent on ‘routine’ flights, too. They be callin’ that ‘underload’ in CRM – crew resource management. What happens when yer mind isn’t busy enough up here, and ye think, ‘I can remember all this stuff.’ Næ, ye can’t, so use the checklist.

“Another saying ye’ll hear repeatedly is, ‘There be old pilots, and there be bold pilots, but there næ be any old, bold pilots.’ Is where ye be going or what ye’ll be doing once ye get there as important as yer life? Both will still be there by the time ye arrive safely.

“T’isn’t a military mission, where completing the mission t’is the most important thing. Landing safely at the end of yer flight so ye can go home tæ yer family t’is. Physical aptitude is important, aye, but there be times when good critical decision making is a better skill set tæ have.”

Sabrina sat in the co-pilot’s seat and thought about Mr. MacDougall’s words. It wasn’t different from what her parents tried to teach her and her brothers. You can be good at something, but sometimes it’s better to understand why you are doing it. She nodded to her instructor to let him know she understood.

“Alrighty, enough of the lectures. Are ye ready tæ fly?”

Sabrina bounced in her seat with excitement. Somehow, the plane didn’t jump off the tarmac.

Sabrina’s eyes widened when Hamish told her she would handle everything from then on – start-up, taxiing, and the takeoff. Hamish noted some slight hesitation when she first reached for the control yoke of the Cessna, but that wasn’t uncommon for students.

However, once Sabrina finally got her hands on those controls, that disappeared as she talked herself through the start-up checklist. True to his word, Hamish let Sabrina handle the takeoff. His hands rested on the controls the entire time, but he didn’t need to make any inputs himself. Instead, he spent a few minutes pointing out various landmarks before starting his basic instructional program.

Students who had taken lessons with Hamish as their instructor wrote numerous testimonials about how patient he was with them. Even two who washed out praised him for this.

Sabrina talked with a few former students before meeting Hamish and choosing him as her instructor. During that initial meeting, Sabrina impressed Hamish. She wasn’t shy about asking tough questions, which drew a snort from her father when Hamish mentioned it.

Visibility was excellent with the wing mounted above the fuselage, but Sabrina commented on how quickly that changed in turns. Finally, after thirty minutes on a northwestern course, Hamish told Sabrina to turn back to the southeast. After crossing over Fitchburg Airport, he gave her a slightly different heading while they continued to chat.

“Do ye recognize where we are, lassie?” he asked his young charge.

“Well, that’s I-190 over there, and that looks like the Route 117 interchange...” she said. “Are you gonna have me barnstorm my house?” she asked with a mischievous grin.

“I can see I’m gonna have tæ work harder tæ get anything past ye!” he laughed. “But, næ, I’m not. The FAA doesnæ have much of a sense of humor aboot that – or anything, really.”

Sabrina blushed while continuing to scan the terrain below.

“I cheated a bit,” she admitted. “I’ve been studying satellite imagery of the area since Dad booked this lesson for me.”

“T’is næ ‘cheating,’ Sabrina,” Hamish laughed again. “Studying the area, or areas, ye’ll be operating over t’is never bad. Things look different from a few thousand feet in the air than they do at ground level. So, fer extra credit: what do we need tæ avoid given where we are?”

“The ground,” Sabrina answered immediately.

“Och, ye have yer father’s sense of humor, dontcha?”

“As Mom would say: ‘Unfortunately, yes.’ In all seriousness, Fort Devens and Moore Army Airfield are to our left, stretching between ten and seven o’clock. Restricted airspace. We should be fine if we stay west of Route 70 while south of Route 2 and well west of the Nashua River while north of it.”

“Ye have studied the area, then?”

“I’d rather not have some F-15 out of Westover or Otis shoot us down on my first flight.”

“An armed, special ops Black Hawk from Moore chasing us would be more likely, lassie. But that’s something I’d rather avoid, too.” He looked at his student again. “Ye’re doing vurry well. How do ye like it?”

“I’d never land if I had the choice.”

“Sorry, næ mid-air refueling capability on this aircraft. Næ bathrooms, either.”

“Yeah, limiting factors.”

“Right, so that brings up another topic fer discussion: distractions. Ye’ll be multitasking almost constantly up here. Ye’re continually evaluating fuel status, weather, terrain, other air traffic, and yer own endurance on some level when ye’re out flying.

“Different priorities come and go depending on where ye are. Fer example, Boston’s Class-B airspace is vurry busy, and næ a place I like tæ take students until the end of training. There be too many demands on yer time in there. Even oot here, it can be hectic on a nice day like this. T’is especially true when the gliders are flying in and out of Sterling.”

Hamish showed her how to announce her intentions on the Unicom radio so that other pilots would know what she was about to do. He then showed her how to waggle her wings as they passed over her house three hundred feet above the ground.

Sabrina saw four people waving up at her from the driveway – her mom, Alex, and her grandparents, she figured. One person stood there with their hands in their pockets, and she didn’t have to guess who that was. After the flyover, they climbed and turned west.

Hamish let Sabrina fly, having her make only minor course adjustments. However, she needed more coaching to keep a constant altitude. Even flying VFR – under visual flight rules – Hamish required new students to check the altitude and attitude indicators often since the body’s senses don’t notice minor changes well.

Pilots must also stay within prescribed altitudes, depending on where they are, or risk drifting into another aircraft’s airspace. Nevertheless, Sabrina smiled when he told her to descend slowly toward the summit of Great Quabbin Hill.

“My dad’s parents are at the fire tower, I’m guessing?”

“Ye must not be any fun tæ buy presents fer,” Hamish groused. “Are ye gonna be a detective or some such?”

“No, an astronaut pilot.”

Hamish had her call out their intentions on the radio once more. After a low pass over Enfield’s Lookout Park, where she waggled the wings again, Sabrina banked while pulling up. She brought the aircraft into a tight yet smooth turn. Hamish looked over and raised an eyebrow after they returned to level flight. Sabrina noticed the look and blushed again.

“I asked for high-fidelity flight simulation software and controls for last Christmas and my birthday in June.”

“What’s our base course back tæ Fitchburg then, Amelia Earhart?” Hamish asked as he glanced down at the plane’s compass.

“Um ... I don’t know how to figure that out...” she admitted.

“At least ye’re honest about what ye don’t know,” Hamish said before he pointed at one of the instruments. “This is the VOR, or ‘VHF omnidirectional range.’ Line us up on zero-five-zero on this, then read the compass. Once ye have the compass heading, keep us on that, regardless of what the VOR does. That should bring us close tæ Fitchburg Airport. We’ll go over how tæ use VORs in-flight next time, lassie.”

“Ground school covered VORs, DMEs, and VORTACs, but plotting courses in real-time isn’t something I’ve done.”

“T’is one reason ye map out a flight plan beforehand,” Hamish responded, holding up theirs, “so ye don’t have to fumble with a sectional chart in flight. Today was about getting ye introduced to the physical part of flying. Most of the mental comes later.

“Don’t worry, lassie, ye’re way ahead of where most folks are in their first lesson. Are ye havin’ fun?” Sabrina nodded that she was. “And that’s what’s important right now. Ye’ll worry over some of the stuff we’ll do down the road, but what’s important is that ye keep feeling that flying is fun.”

Hamish let her fly until just south of Fitchburg before taking back the controls for the landing. He had Sabrina read off the checklist for landing, stressing the absolute necessity of following them at all times again. Hamish told Sabrina to keep her hands and feet on the controls and let him make the inputs. He wanted her to feel what he did as they landed. He also talked her through watching her airspeed, how to enter the pattern, watching for traffic, and a thousand other things.

’Head up and stick on the ice, Sabrina’, she thought to herself, equating the lessons with those from hockey: be ready for anything.

They taxied to the flight school hangar. Sabrina waved to her father, who stood inside and off the apron. Once it shut down, she bounded out of the plane and leaped at Jeff.

“Well?” he asked after putting his daughter back on the ground.

“AWESOME!”

“I cannæ tell, but I think the lass enjoyed herself,” Hamish chuckled while shaking Jeff’s hand. “Mr. Knox, ye’ve got yerself a natural stick-and-rudder pilot here. If the lass was allowed tæ get her pilot’s license before seventeen, or a student license before sixteen, it’d be a question of how young she’d be when she did get either of those.

“Sabrina, let’s go intæ the office, and I’ll show ye how ye tæ log those flight hours. Ye cannæ get a student license fer two more years. But, as I told yer da, there be no restriction on training with an instructor.”

✦ ✧ ✦ ✧ ✦

The four weeks before school started passed quickly, but Sabrina’s parents didn’t give her or her brothers time to be bored. Instead, they helped with yard work and other minor projects around the house. They also helped their mother finish setting up her Devens Regional High School classroom. Sabrina also took another two flying lessons.

This year, she would ride to school with her mother and brothers rather than take the bus, as she’d been doing. After eight years of school at the same place – Lancaster’s Rowlandson Elementary and Burbank Middle shared a large building – the route to school would be a new one for her. Keiko would also bring Tommy Jones to Devens Regional High School since he lived next door.

The first day of school was, as usual, barely controlled chaos. Keiko mentioned that student drop-offs at the high school were much worse when the Army’s guard shacks were present. Finally, three years ago, they relinquished the plot west of the Nashua River to the Town of Shirley.

Sabrina could see the stout barrier of the Hospital Road gate in the distance past the football stadium. Alex and Ryan drifted away from Sabrina and Tommy, who were, after all, freshmen and lower forms of life. As other freshmen arrived by bus and car, the new high school students waited to see who they knew.

“Hey! Rocket Girl!” someone called out. Sabrina grinned and greeted a young African-American boy as he approached.

“S’up, Shawn? How was your summer?” Sabrina asked while bumping fists.

“Not bad. We spent a good chunk down in Alabama, where Dad’s from, then another chunk in Carolina, where Mom’s from. Not one of my cousins knew what I was talking about when I started yapping about hockey, though! All they kept talking about was football! You?”

“Hockey camp out in Colorado in July, then flying lessons through August.”

“Nice! Who’s your buddy?”

“This is my friend, Tommy Jones. Tommy, this is Shawn Hurt, a friend from youth hockey.”

“Good to meet you, Shawn. When did you first run into this one?” Tommy asked while nodding at Sabrina. Shawn laughed.

“Funny you should put it that way. We crashed into each other during a peewee hockey game years ago. High school will be the first time we’ve played together on the same team, though. You?”

“I moved in next door to her when I was two. You grew up around here, then?”

“Over on Littleton Road in Ayer. Mom and Dad met at Fort Jackson and married while stationed there. Mom left the Army when she got pregnant with me, and Dad transferred to the 646th MP Company here in 2004. He got out four years ago and got hired by Littleton PD. My little brother and I have been in the Ayer schools until now. Hey, here comes one of my friends from Ayer. Yo! Wheels!”

“S’up, Slick? How ya been?” asked the blonde girl in a wheelchair as she rolled up to the group. Ice-blue eyes swept over Sabrina and Tommy. “Who are these other ambulatory humans here?”

“Erica, Sabrina Knox, and Tommy Jones. Guys, this is my friend, Erica Thorisson.”

“Nice to meet you guys,” Erica replied.

“Here comes one of our other friends,” Tommy commented as Naomi approached. “Naomi, these two folks are Erica Thorisson and Shawn Hurt. Erica, Shawn, this is Naomi Taggert.”

Tommy’s eyes swept appreciatively over Naomi’s new clothes and the figure hinted at underneath them. He saw Shawn do the same thing. Erica glanced at her watch.

“We should find the gym,” she said. “It’s almost time for Freshman Indoctrination, I mean ‘Orientation.’”

“I’ve been in and out of this place since before I could walk,” Sabrina mentioned. “I know where it is. Plus, it’s not like there aren’t a couple of hundred freshmen heading that way, too. I’m sure we’ll find it easy enough.”

“Yeah, but if I want to be anywhere near you guys, we need to get there pretty quick,” Erica pointed out. “It’s not like I can climb the bleachers.”

“If you let me carry you, you could sit up there with us.”

“Thanks, Slick, but you’ll have to show off your manliness another day. Don’t drag your knuckles on the linoleum, by the way. The custodians hate having to buff out the scuff marks.”

“You’re so pale. If they try to turn off the lights for a video presentation, they’ll have to cover you up to block the glow, you rolling glacier.”

“At least they’d be able to see me in the dark. They’d probably trip over your dusky self.”

Sabrina and Tommy nearly spat their drinks out at the exchange. Naomi’s eyes widened in shock.

“This shit is mild, kids,” Shawn laughed. “You should hear us when we get going.”

Four friends found seats in the first row of the gym bleachers to sit near Erica. School staff looked confused when confronted with a student in a wheelchair. They tried to say Erica had to move, that she couldn’t block the aisle or the spots in front of the first row. Sabrina cocked her head at one of them.

“Are you going to provide chairs for the rest of us so we can sit with our friend while you stick her in the corner over there?” she asked the sputtering, blustering man dressed in athletic wear. “That won’t foster the welcoming community mentality the principal will probably talk about in his welcome speech, will it? Stashing her away by herself?”

“You know that was the hockey coach, right?” Shawn asked in a whisper while the older man stalked away, grumbling under his breath.

“He can get bent,” Sabrina responded in the same manner. “‘Nobody puts Baby in a corner.’”

“What?” Shawn chuckled.

“A quote from an old movie Mom makes me watch all the time, Dirty Dancing. The line seemed to fit.”

Sabrina could see the coach cast disapproving looks her way from time to time out of the corner of her eye. Don Atwater, DRHS’s principal, strode to the center of the court and faced the bleachers. Sabrina tuned him out while he droned on and on about inclusiveness and being kind to one another. She was sure most of her classmates also did.

Sabrina agreed with the message; she had heard it throughout middle school, too. She was sure many of the Class of 2016 would ignore it and be their usual cruel selves soon enough. That one of the staff members started to do the same thing to Erica didn’t bode well in her estimation.

Sabrina also saw her mother glancing over from her spot along the wall. Keiko was disappointed when Carl Hammond, the principal who hired her fresh out of graduate school, retired two years ago. While her mother tried to keep Sabrina and her brothers from hearing her opinions of Mr. Atwater, inevitably, they would.