He held his breath, prepared for the nose to turn downward again.
Instead, it began to climb again, though not at all smoothly.
They had dropped low enough for Felix to see the surprised faces of the pilot and Meelie’s father and Pidge and maybe a dozen other onlookers, all standing in the rain staring up at them.
Felix’s ears popped like crazy.
The wind made it hard for him to turn his head, but when he did what he saw made him yelp.
Maisie was flying the plane!
Meelie had let go of the steering wheel, too, and she sat, her face frozen in a terrified expression, her eyes wide, her mouth opened.
But Maisie looked determined. Her jaw was set and her eyes were narrowed with concentration.
The plane seemed to buck rather than fly. It ascended with a lurch, and then it dropped. Over and over again.
Meelie’s face turned pale first. But before long, her skin took on a vaguely greenish cast.
Below, the pilot waved his arms and shouted at them, though his words got lost in the noise of the engine and the loud wind and the sound of the rain hitting the plane.
“He wants me to land!” Maisie shouted above the din.
Although Felix knew they had no choice, he also knew that his sister had no idea how to land a plane.
Maisie clenched her jaw and focused on the pilot.
He was pointing to a particular spot. He was moving his arms as if to say “go slow.”
The important thing, she decided, was to keep the plane straight. At first, it had seemed like a living thing—a bucking bronco, maybe, like they had in rodeos. But clutching the wheel so hard that her knuckles had turned white and pulling up on the rudder, Maisie somehow was keeping the thing straight. Kind of.
If she could manage for it to stay straight while she dropped it lower, she might be able to land the thing. Although probably not in the spot where the pilot kept pointing, ever more frantically.
“I’m landing her,” Maisie said.
She said it out loud, but she was really talking to herself, as if by saying it out loud she had made a commitment.
Meelie let out a long cry: “Nooooooooo!”
Felix decided to close his eyes again.
“We’re going to die!” Meelie yelled.
“Be quiet!” Maisie ordered. And for once, Meelie obeyed.
“I need you both to look out and tell me if I’m getting to close to anything,” Maisie said. “I need to keep my eyes looking straight ahead.”
Now Felix understood why the aeroplane was out in this field—away from the crowded fairgrounds, the rides and animals and people. And the trees that bordered the whole fair. Here, they circled the mostly empty field, and as they slowly descended, he saw the onlookers below scatter.
As Maisie set about trying to land the plane, her nerves calmed. Just like when she had finally started to speak the lines onstage at her audition, the world around her disappeared. All that mattered was keeping the plane straight and gently descending. Her whole world became that cockpit, that steering wheel and rudder, that field in front of her. Even all the noise stopped, replaced by a quiet that seemed to come from deep inside her.
Last autumn, when a hurricane was threatening to hit Newport, Mrs. Witherspoon had told them how hurricanes were classified, how fast their winds were. She’d pointed to the very center of the picture of the swirling storm. This is called the eye, she’d said. Inside the eye, everything was calm, despite the violent winds that surrounded it. That’s where Maisie was now, in the eye of her own storm.
“Ready,” she said out loud.
“No!” Meelie screamed.
But Maisie didn’t answer her. She wasn’t asking Felix and Meelie if they were ready. She was telling herself that she was ready. Ready to land this plane.
The ground seemed to be coming up toward the plane, as if it wanted to grab them and toss them away. The wet, green grass looked almost close enough to touch.
Maisie kept her grip steady, though. The plane was as straight as she could keep it.
The wheels were about to touch down.
The pilot yelled to her: “Steady! Steady!”
Meelie bawled.
Felix held his breath.
The wheels kissed the ground.
Bumped up.
Came down a bit harder.
The plane began to skid on the wet grass. Maisie fought to control it, but she couldn’t.
It turned in slippery circles, tipping right and then left as it did.
Just when Felix thought the plane would flip over or fall, it slowed and finally stopped. Already, everyone was running across the field in the rain. Felix watched the faces, awash with a combination of fear and relief, rushing toward them.