Читать книгу Roy Blakeley Up in the Air - Percy Keese Fitzhugh - Страница 7

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Maybe you don’t think we weren’t good and scared. For a second none of us said a word. Then we got clear of the woods and there below us was a nice sunny stretch of ground with a great big house in the center of it. There were lots of people down around it too and we could see that they were all looking up and watching us.

So Jack said, “This is luck. That’s somebody’s estate, so we’ll glide for it. Here we go, kids!”

You can imagine how tight we sat. But it wasn’t a second before I saw we were going to be all right and then I recognized the estate. That was all right too, because it was Sunny Acres.

So I said, “Goodnight magnolia! Whoever thought we’d get inside of Sunny Acres this way?”

Pee-wee looked out of the window and all the time he was shouting, “What are you talking about? What do you mean—Sunny Acres?”

I said, “Just now it looks as if Sunny Acres is coming up to meet us. Wow! Don’t you feel nice and dizzy, kid?”

“How do I know how I feel and besides do you mean to tell me we’re in Sunny Acres and we’re going to land in Swankeys’ house—I mean, land in front of Swankeys’ house?” the kid yelled.

I said, “That’s better. We’ve had enough trouble for two seconds without smashing through the Swankeys’ house.”

“Gee whiz,” said the kid, “now we don’t have to pay admission either because I don’t think Major Bigwing’s got here yet. I don’t see his plane, do you?”

“No,” I said, “not unless he’s hiding it under that girl that’s standing alongside of that table over there on the other side of the field.”

“That’s the refreshment table,” said the kid all excited. “They’re going to have cake and lemonade and sandwiches and ice cream.”

“Then that must be Salina Swankey standing alongside of the table,” I said. “She must know you’re coming, kid.”

“Don’t be a fool,” he came back. “I bet they’re wondering who we are and I bet they’re good and mad that it isn’t Bigwing’s Giant Gopher plane that’s coming because he’s good and late.”

“There’s a couple of cameramen running across the lawn,” said Ben.

Just then the wheels of the plane touched the ground and we taxied nice and easy across Swankeys’ smooth lawn. I guess there were about a hundred people and more that ran along with us until we stopped. Pee-wee was jumping up and down in his seat, he was so happy to think we got there before Bigwing and that we didn’t have to pay fifty cents. He kept saying what a joke it was on Salina Swankey.

Goodnight, what a crowd gathered around that plane! Klammer got to the door first while Pee-wee and the rest of us stood behind him. Then all of a sudden the cameramen pushed through the crowd and before we knew it they had taken our pictures. All in a second.

Another fellow pushed his way toward us and rushed up to Klammer with a pad and pencil in his hand. He was all excited and he said, “This is luck, Maj. I was just on my way out of the gate when you came down. Thought you weren’t coming. Am late for press now so I’ll just ask you a few questions and be off—kids with you to help along the Blue Bird League benefit?”

“Say listen,” Pee-wee yelled, “we’re Boy Scouts of America and this feller here isn’t....”

“All right, kid,” the reporter laughed writing down on the pad as quick as anything. “Now, Maj, is there anything you’ve got to say about this business? You going to autograph some o’ your photographs so’s the Blue Bird League can sell ’em for the blind horses, eh? Well, that’s that. Glad to meet you, Maj.”

Just like that the reporter jotted some shorthand down in that pad and he didn’t look up at Klammer once excepting when he shook hands with him. Then it was just for a second and before Klammer or any of us could tell him it was a mistake he was gone. Charlie and Jack, the mechanics, couldn’t have explained anything, they were laughing so. Boy, what a joke.

And while they were doubled up laughing who should push up to Klammer but Salina Swankey and her girl friend, Birdie Blabbe. If you know any girls that are the gushy kind—you know, hysterical like all the time they’re talking and talking all the time at that? Well, if you know any like that then you know what Salina and her girl friend are like.

So just like I said they came gushing up to Klammer who was standing there with a lot of the grease still around his eyes and nose. Goodnight, he was a dumb looking fellow standing there the way he did and not knowing what it was all about. All he did was grin and look puzzled so can you blame us for laughing too and not being able to tell Salina and her girl friend that she was mistaking Lowden Klammer, the hoodoo pilot, for the famous Major Bigwing.

While we were still laughing, Salina got a lot of photographs and held them out almost under Klammer’s chin. Then right away, Birdie Blabbe pulled a long sheet of paper from somewhere and that was the time I almost passed out because I happened to remember that Birdie was famous in high school for writing essays and speeches like that so I knew what was coming.

I was right too because she started in to read to Klammer. In the screechy voice she has, she said, “Major Bigwing, we of the Blue Bird League welcome you to Sunny Acres. We——”

That was the time the sound news cameramen got another picture and believe me that picture turned out to be some sound. Klammer was coughing and trying to explain, Birdie was reading the first lines of her speech of welcome, Salina was making funny gurgling noises and the rest of us were laughing like everything. So the cameramen rushed out of Sunny Acres and they found out too late that it wasn’t Major Bigwing’s picture they had taken.

When they got out of sight, we heard the sound of a plane in the sky overhead. We all looked up and we could see this great big plane circling around like as if the pilot was figuring out where he was going to land.

So Jack the mechanic stopped laughing long enough to say, “It’s a Gopher all right—the big boy himself.”

Anyway that started the kid and he yelled, “Here comes Major Bigwing—here comes Major Bigwing now, Miss Swankey, because it’s a Gopher and Klammer’s been trying to tell you he wasn’t the Major—we’ve all been trying to tell you but you wouldn’t stop giggling long enough to let us, so now you know! Besides it shows you’re not observant like a scout is because you’d see that Klammer doesn’t look anything like those pictures you have even if he has got grease on his face and besides Bigwing has curly hair so that shows!”

Birdie Blabbe had hysterics right away but the crowd (and that included some of the girls of the Blue Bird League too) were shaking with laughter. They thought it was a fine joke you could tell and it made Salina so mad that she fainted for spite.

So like a couple of good scouts, Pee-wee and I ran across to the refreshment table to get some lemonade. Anyway it tasted so good that we kind of forgot about Salina. Besides she came to right away because it was only a fake faint so the kid and I helped ourselves to some of the cake and ice cream while we were there.

While we were eating it we watched Major Bigwing taxi across Swankeys’ nice park. And then the fun began.