Chapter 3

When Junior left the Courthouse, she did so, with all the pomp and circumstance normal humans expected of a envoy of a great country: helicopter to the airport, red carpet walk to the flight home.

The helicopter was rented ... the carpet was the size of a beach towel ... she flew her own plane. Home? Home was two square miles of island at the end of Georgian Bay on Lake Huron ... a house, a tourist trap of an Inn, two barns, two sheds, a BIG garden, an airstrip and one hangar. 'I miss my mom.'

Victor of a short war or not, she still got shit from the FAA about her age, international license or not.

'I hate being 13 ... my body is taking control of my mind. Everybody says, "You need to grow up, girl." and when I try, they say, "You're too young." I'm betting 14 isn't any better.' "Hi Tim." Even though he wasn't sitting right seat a blink of an eye ago ... there he was ... looking concerned.

"You ARE suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I was hoping you were young enough to get over it quickly. See that cloud?"

There was only one cloud as far as the eye could see in this clear blue sky.

"Well, Duh! It's the only one."

"Fly through it."

She lined up and climbed a little above it, dove ... and missed.

"You missed."

"It moved."

"You missed."

"It moved!"

"Try again."

"Right, I'm on it."

For the next hour, until the 'Low Fuel' light flashed and the buzzer buzzed, she chased that stupid cloud from 'hell to breakfast.' No matter what she did she couldn't even put a wing through it.

The cloud played her like a piano, she went right, it went left, she flew up, it went down. Then it started showing off, barrel rolls over the cockpit, loops, dives, a high speed chase, although it would be difficult to say who was chasing what. She was behind ... she was in front. She tried everything in the aerobatics book and never touched it.

When the low fuel light flashed she looked down and she was over the rebuild hangar of Ben's Flight Training School.

She contacted the tower, declared a low fuel emergency, and greased the landing. She taxied over to the JetA pump, shut everything down, ran her card through the reader, hooked up the grounding strap, wheeled the ladder to the wing, locked the wheels, fetched the hose and nozzle and waited for the office to turn on the pump.

The pumps hummed, She unlocked the fuel cap, touched the nozzle to the wing, put the nozzle in the tank and the fuel started flowing. She filled the far side, shut off, locked the fuel cap, checked it twice, took the hose back to the pump, moved the ladder to the near side wing, locked it down, unlocked the cap and repeated the process. She filled the emergency reserve, the auxiliary belly tank and the tail tank. She checked all the water drains, wiped every drip. Every thing was completely empty and now it was full.

She hummed a little ditty as she fell into the routine of refueling.

"You know better than that, Wendy ... how did you let yourself run out of fuel?" Ben said.

"Chasing a cloud."

"Did you catch it?"

"No."

"It's hard to catch the Powers that Be." He walked off.

'Ben is dead.' She thought, 'he died years ago.' She look to see where Ben went. No Ben.

She looked up at the sky. The cloud winked at her ... and started raining.

Harold, Ben's grandson, came out to the pump with the aircraft tug. He hooked on and hauled her plane into the big hangar.

"Time for your hundred hour check ... coffee? Help yourself to a donut. Nice plane ... European?"

"CS&S Armored Twin."

"Never heard of them. Fast?"

"425 cruise. They're out of Florida."