Those Who Favor Fire by Lauren Wolk (easy readers .TXT) 📕

“Sure. We can take the Schooner, park near the bar, won’t have to drive home if we have too much to drink.”

“Now, that is one hell of an idea,” Ian said. “Not that I ever have too much to drink, but just in case.”

“Exactly,” Joe said. “I’ll see you back here at, what … nine o’clock?”

“On the dot,” said Ian, and waved Joe on his way.

Chapter 13

        Some people are born too late and miss the pocket of time that would have suited them best. Others, born far too early, never know what’s to come and so perhaps don’t feel the lack so keenly. Others miss the mark by just a decade or two and live to see what might have been. For them, there is sometimes much to regret.

Ian Spalding, born in 1919, first heard the word astronaut when it was far too late. From the time he was five years old he had looked at the heavens the way some people look at the sea. He thought of the stars the way others thought of the continents. And he considered the planets to be destinations only temporarily beyond his reach. Decades too early for Apollo, Ian decided that he would learn to fly airplanes, master the sky, and be ready for the first spaceships. He was only twelve when he made these decisions. He did not know about such things as odds or impossibilities. He only knew that if he did everything right—kept himself fit, studied hard, read every word ever written about flight, and somehow found his way into the sky—he would be a worthy pilot, perhaps a great one.

Each day, after his early chores, after school, after his late chores, after supper, Ian would sit on the edge of his bed and read books without number. He knew about Kitty Hawk as if he had been born there. The Wright brothers were his own brothers by everything but blood. Lindbergh was his hero, and the Spirit of St. Louis history’s most heavenly vessel. There was nothing on earth, for Ian, to compare with the realm of the sky.

His father, a farmer with only one son and an ailing wife, knew that to farm, a man had to be tied to the land with a real bond, a sure commitment. Farming broke hearts and spirits. That’s what it meant to be a farmer. And only those who loved the land could bear it, whether they called the bond love or something else. So he did not insist that Ian farm. He expected his son to help with the chores, but he did not look for anything more and he was not bitter. When his wife died and as he grew older, he allowed more and more of his land to go to grass and clover, or rented it out to neighbors, or planted it in trees. He loved his son and, though he never admitted it to himself, envied him, too. There was such great enthusiasm in the boy, such determination. To fly had never been the father’s wish, but because it was the son’s, it fired them both. While Ian worked and studied and dreamed, his father saved every spare nickel, and though there weren’t many of these, there were enough to grant him one small wish of his own.

Living alone as they did, Ian and his father had learned to cook a dozen meals extremely well, exactly to their liking. They rarely fiddled with other possibilities. They saw no need. They had far too much to do to worry about what they ate, as long as it was good. On the third Friday in June 1935, they sat at the kitchen table eating oven-fried pork chops, mashed potatoes, baby limas, and store-bought bread. Ian’s father was drinking his Friday-night beer.

“School’s out next Friday,” he said.

“Don’t I know it,” Ian said, buttering his beans.

“Sounds like you’ll be glad to be out.”

“Not just out this time. Done.”

His father smiled. “Our first high school graduate.” He pronounced it “graj-e-at.”

“Soon to be a college man.”

“Soon to be a college man.” His father put a crust of browned pork fat in his mouth. “I don’t know if I’ve told you how proud I’ll be to have an educated son,” he said after a moment. “But I will be. Already am.”

“I know, Daddy,” Ian said, unabashed, grinning with his mouth full of mashed potatoes.

A week later, when Ian graduated from high school, his father gave him a compass. “So you’ll know it when you’re facing Belle Haven,” he said.

Two weeks before Ian was to leave for college, his father gave him a new suit of clothes and a small suitcase for his travels. “I’ve never in my life owned a suitcase,” his father said. “Never went anywhere.” But he said it without rancor.

Ian was touched by each of these gifts and was sincerely grateful, but it was what his father gave him on the eve of his departure that made Ian understand forever the mettle of his father’s love.

Ian was packing his new suitcase when he turned to find his father standing at his bedroom door, looking all at once sad and delighted. A rare look for his father.

“Hey,” the boy said.

“Almost packed?”

“Yessir. Not much to pack.”

“Well, lights out soon as you’re done, boy. Big day tomorrow.”

Ian glanced at the clock by his bed. “It’s only nine, Daddy. If I go to bed now, I’ll be up at four.”

His father nodded.

Ian had somehow thought that on the coming all-important morning he would for once be excused from his regular chores, but he corrected himself and returned the nod. “You’re right,” he said. “That’ll give me plenty of time to catch the eight o’clock bus.”

Ian’s father shook his head, never taking his eyes from his son’s face. “That’ll give you just enough time to catch the five-thirty plane.”

Ian straightened up. The shirt he’d been folding fell out of his hands.

“What plane?” he said. He did not appear to be breathing.

“Man named