Chapter 51

She did. Grace held her breath until she turned blue and passed out. Unconscious, her reflexes took over and she started breathing again.

While she was incapacitated, I called Daddy and he released some of his daughter's funds to me. It's about time Grace spent some money. She had been existing ... and very well ... on my 35 hundred a week and hadn't spent a single dime of her allowance. Except ... don't you just love exceptions? ... Grace was drawing 7.5% on her Three Million Five hundred thousand ... and had been for 52 weeks. $262,500.00 she hadn't touched ... plus interest. I don't know how much that was total ... that's why we have Bankers but I'm sure she was in the very close vicinity of three hundred thousand a year.

I wrote out a nice letter and pinned it to her panties. I wanted to make sure she found it.

Dear Grace,

While you were out, I bought an airplane ... three actually ... Mr. Franklin approved. I wouldn't have bought them if he hadn't. The reason I bought three is because Ben (Mr. Franklin) suggested that as long as I was spending your money I might as well spend it. You can only murder me once.

You bought a nice Cub. (which Ben will buy when we're through with it.) An SNJ for advanced training. (Ben will gladly buy it after we're done.) The last one is a 1953 Beechcraft D18S, nearly new and repossessed. I bought it ... with only three bullet-holes ... because Ben said we'd need multi engine, tricycle gear, and instrument ratings and he'd fix it at standard rates, since you evidently had bags and bags of money, after it was ferried up from Davis Monthan where it's been stored since it was confiscated. Excuse me ... repossessed ... by the Alcohol Tax and Firearms folks from Washington DC.

I'm going to be UP ^ taking my lesson. Bye for now, Your loving Twin, David.

P.S. Pink and lace, very cute. Ben thought so, too. Dave.

I'm sure I heard the shriek over the roar of the engine. We were, after all, only five miles from the field. Because Lansing Airport has a small fishpond, about two acres, on the north side of the field and seagulls are indiscriminating in their proclivities, not a few flock to the pond, only to rise en masse at the slightest unusual disturbance. I was reliably informed that commercial flights were delayed at the burst of gulls from the pond. Gulls everywhere!

The hoopla was over when Ben took the controls for the landing. Damnit ... I was hooked. There is a freedom, now sadly lacking, behind the stick, or yoke, of a personal aircraft. A Cub isn't fast and planning a trip of more than two hundred miles takes brain work. Two hundred twenty miles without stopping for gas means you're in some farmers wheat field hoping he has a sense of humor ... and gas you can strain through a piece of cheesecloth.

We still had a graduation ceremony, high school only.

We were requested, nay, commanded, to keep away from the College during Commencement: "Because we don't want the public to know that Genius is a license to ride roughshod over the rules and traditions of our great campus." Can't you hear the 'so there!'? I can picture the entire faculty and office standing in a long line giving us the razz berry.