“But I still haven’t ridden on the white horse,” Pidge complained. “Or the purple one!”
Her father laughed and tugged on one of her braids. “This is so much better than that purple horse, Pidge. I promise you.”
Still, Meelie and Pidge kept finding things to distract them from whatever their father was trying to show them.
“Real ponies!” Pidge said, pointing to two tired-looking Shetland ponies. “Can we, Papa?”
Her father glanced up at the sky where dark gray clouds had started to roll in.
“The thing is, if we don’t get there before the rain comes, you’ll miss this marvelous invention,” he said.
“What is it?” Maisie asked, eager to see something marvelous and amazing.
Their father turned to her, his eyes shining with excitement. “An aeroplane,” he said, awed. “It’s an amazing new invention that Orville and Wilbur Wright flew for the first time five years ago out in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.”
Disappointed, Maisie shot a look at Felix. But he didn’t seem to notice.
“How something heavier than air can fly . . . well, that baffles me,” Meelie’s father continued.
“Just one ride on a pony?” Pidge pleaded. “Then we’ll go see your flying machine.”
Reluctantly, their father let them take a ride around the corral on the ponies. But when Pidge and Meelie begged for another ride, he refused.
“Look at those storm clouds,” he said.
He led them to the edge of the fairgrounds. A field with a high wire fence around it and a higher wooden fence inside that had a big sign in front of it: FLYING AEROPLANE.
Again, Maisie tried to catch Felix’s eye. Were they really going to spend the rest of the day looking at an airplane? Felix either didn’t see her or chose to ignore her as Meelie found yet another distraction.
“Paper hats!” she shouted.
“Oh!” Pidge said, jumping up and down. “I want the yellow one!”
Maisie followed everyone to the booth selling the ridiculous paper hats, which were really just circles of cardboard covered with paper flowers. They tied under the chin with colorful ribbons. Once that rain started, those hats would dissolve into lumps of wet paper.
Meelie and Pidge tried on one hat after another as their father paced impatiently.
“That one looks pretty on you, Meelie,” Felix said.
“It looks like you have an upside-down basket on your head,” Maisie said.
“Well, I like it,” Meelie decided. “I think I’ll wear it every day until I’m ninety-nine years old.”
Her father quickly paid for the hats and told his daughters, “Not one more delay, girls. You are going to see this aeroplane, and you are going to thank me profusely once you do.”
Without anymore complaining or stopping, they entered through the fence and stood in the field.
“That’s the airplane?” Maisie said, staring in disbelief at the thing in front of them.
It did have two wings, but one was stacked on top of the other. Instead of a shiny plane with the name of an airline painted in bright colors on the wing, this thing was made of wood and wire. It barely looked like it would hold together if it could even take off. In the middle of the plane, between the wings, a man wearing goggles and a leather cap sat on a seat, the engine right behind him. Maisie narrowed her eyes. The tail of this “aeroplane” looked more like a box kite than a real plane’s tail.
The engine sputtered to life. Another man, dressed exactly like the one inside the plane, turned a wooden propeller until it spun on its own.
“Now watch,” Meelie’s father said quietly. “It’s going to fly.”
Slowly, the plane rolled across the field.
“I don’t think that thing can fly,” Maisie said, just as it began to rise up into the air.
Meelie gasped.
They all watched as the aeroplane circled the field.
“They’ll never be used for much,” Meelie’s father said. “But they’re still quite an invention.”
“I think they’ll carry people all over the world,” Maisie said. “And cargo, too.”
Meelie’s father laughed. “That’s a funny idea, Maisie.”
“Papa!” Meelie said, watching the aeroplane land. “I want a ride in it!”
“Do you think they’ll let us?” Pidge asked.
“I don’t know,” their father said, “but we can find out.”
“With those clouds,” the man who had started the propeller told them, “it’s probably not a good idea to go up.”
They all turned their eyes upward.
“They do look ominous,” Meelie’s father agreed.
“The ride only takes a few seconds,” Meelie reminded him.
“Well,” he said, considering.
“You couldn’t pay me to go up in that thing,” Maisie said, staring at the contraption.
“I thought they were going to carry people all over the world,” Meelie’s father teased.
“Bigger ones,” Maisie said. “Aluminum ones.”
He laughed. “Big aluminum aeroplanes! I like that!”
“It’s true,” Maisie said under her breath.