Flying Without Wings

by Paula Wynne

  After they rang, two local policemen came out almost immediately. Matt wondered how much work they had going on if a minor break-in would make them respond so rapidly. What if a dead body were found? How fast would they be? They couldn’t really be any quicker.

  While Mum gave them the details and they filled out their report, Matt wondered whether Ben could be involved in this. He wouldn’t put it past the thug. Throughout the day Ben and Josh had been trying to muscle in on Allan to see what was going on. Like everyone else, they had been impressed with his posh reporter voice and modern camera. Most of them had probably never seen a camera that could take VHS cassettes.

  At one point, Ben had come up to Allan and demanded, ‘So how come they think there’s a Nazi hiding around here?’

  Josh, who must have been listening closely to Allan’s various takes, rounded on Ben, ‘Cause the Nazi had high tech skills, so they reckon he came to work at AWRE.’

  ‘Whaa?’ Ben had gawked.

  At that moment, a small plane had flown over the village.

  ‘Look,’ Ben had pointed up and growled, ‘That jerk’s father probably hid the Nazi!’

  ‘You’re spouting out a whole lotta bullshit again, Ben,’ Josh had replied, either irritated beyond the bounds of his normal sucking up to the bully today, or trying to impress Allan.

  ‘No way!’ Ben had bellowed. ‘If anyone’s a Nazi lover, it’s him!’

  The crowd of locals either loved the Balmaine family or hated them. Personally Matt agreed with the detesters, but he kept quiet about it.

  But Ben had been angry that Allan had more or less ignored him, and that Josh had made him look stupid. Ben and his mates were known at school to take any fancy new stationery off little kids, which was bullying to the point of minor theft. Stealing larger items would be an easy enough transition, and so maybe it had been Ben who’d broken in, hoping to get his revenge.

  He was thankful Luke had quickly dropped his friendship with the fat thug after the accident.

  And a fancy camera was a desirable item. Of course, they couldn’t keep it, as everyone would know who it really belonged to, but that was the sort of thing that could be sold for instant cash.

  For the next hour, after the coppers left, Matt helped Mum to right all the overturned furniture, clear up the smashed glass and fix the picture frames that were all askew from where someone had searched behind them.

  Mum had now started on a cleaning frenzy. She waggled the duster behind the telly, causing a dust storm to rise. Particles hung in the air, suspended in the late afternoon sun’s rays streaming through the window.

  Matt went into the kitchen and poured water into the kettle, lit the gas and put it onto the burner. While the water boiled, he reached into the cupboard and pulled out teabags. He yanked on the fridge door and grabbed the milk.

  The vacuum suddenly roared into life in the lounge as Mum took out her anger with the Hoover.

  The kettle’s bubbling and boiling competed with the drone from the lounge. As the kettle whistled and he switched off the gas, the vacuum’s whirring suddenly stopped, and the house was silent.

  ‘Matt!’ Mum shouted. ‘Where’s Dad’s toy aeroplane?’

  ‘It’s on the mantelpiece. Where it always is. Come on Mum, it’s been years since I last took it.’ He filled two teacups with the steaming hot water, being careful not to scald his fingers, as he often did.

  ‘No, it’s not.’

  ‘Then how would I know? Maybe Luke has it.’ He ambled back to the lounge.

  Mum pointed to where Dad’s toy war plane had stood ever since he could remember. He followed her gaze and together they stared at an empty space on the mantelpiece, and then it hit him.

  Dad’s antique aeroplane had been stolen!

  That had Ben written all over it, taking some stupid, sick revenge on Matt for winning the school prize.

  ‘Nothing else is missing,’ Mum murmured. ‘If the thief only wanted the aeroplane, then why trash the room and look behind pictures to make it look like a robbery? The plane is right there in an obvious place. If they were vandalising the house, then why just the lounge?’

  Now he whispered, worried, ‘Do you think this has anything to do with Allan’s documentary?’

  ‘If it does, why would anyone want to steal Dad’s old war plane. It was only a toy.’

  Mum shuddered, ‘Maybe they are sending Allan some sort of message, a threat.’

  ‘That’s a bit dramatic, Mum!’

  ‘Not if someone has something to hide! Some sinister secret. Like the one Allan’s talking to everyone about and trying to uncover.’

  Matt could see her point, so he remained silent. Or had someone noticed he was acting as his cousin’s guide and suspected him of also being the secret informer? He hadn’t even thought about any possible risks while he’d been showing Allan around, and Mum didn’t seem to have either, or she would have panicked and told him to stop.

  ‘Allan has ruffled lots of feathers in the village. This whole thing about a Nazi hiding around here has stirred up a real fuss. Again!’

  Intrigued, Matt was about to ask her when it had happened before, but she threw her hands in the air and demanded of the ceiling, ‘What if someone broke into our house to find out what Allan really knows about this Nazi? Although why take the plane, for heaven’s sake?’

  ‘Dunno,’ Matt stiffened, ‘but I have to find out. I won’t have anyone invading our private space!’

  The only way was to stick to Allan and help him as much as possible to dig deeper into this weird story that there was a Nazi hiding in the area. And he had to find out who Allan’s informer was. Whoever they were, they would know the truth.

  In fact, the identity of the informer was the key to all this. But Matt didn’t tell Mum that, either.

  33

  The next morning, Matt woke from a sweaty dream. Hearing Mum on the wooden stairway, he scrambled for the bathroom.

  Luke had disappeared soon after waking and he couldn’t tell Mum where he’d gone. Although he didn’t agree with what Luke was doing, they now had an unspoken rule: stand up for each other. No matter what.

  And as for Allan, he was being highly secretive about his source. To be fair, when he’d found out their lounge had been ransacked, he had immediately returned to his father’s empty house. Although he hadn’t wanted to go back there, to an empty home because Uncle Syd was away campaigning for something or other, he’d said it was safer that way. With him gone, no one could think the Buttrick family house contained anything about his documentary, the missing Nazi or his secret source of information.

  Still, Mum insisted he should come for dinner each night, saying that he must eat at least one home-cooked meal each day.

  Allan agreed and was expected each evening, unless he had interviews to do or some other very good reason.

  Matt hopped into the shower and shaved the few bristles under his chin.

  His brother took after Mum with almost Viking good looks. Maybe that was what attracted the girls, because there was no doubt that Luke had been getting increasingly popular over the last couple of years. He, on the other hand, had thin, dark features and his soft whiskers were hardly noticeable, so shaving was hopefully going to harden them and give him a tough guy look, like Crockett in Miami Vice.

  At first, he thought about spending the morning reading about WWII combat fighter planes, but then decided against it. After their walk, Cami had left by giving him a wink and placing a little piece of paper in his palm. When he’d had the courage to open his fingers, he’d seen a telephone number with a little x at the end.

  A kiss.

  That’s what had sent him into a night frenzy. Instead of the nightmares that usually woke him, he’d stirred from the sweat on his sheets.

  Was it true? Could someone as gorgeous as Cami actually like him? Ever since he’d met her, he hadn’t been able to get her out of his mind. At every thought of her, his stomach fluttered. It was usually his stupid foot
that caved in for no good reason, but now his knees were acting crazy and doing the same thing. When he spoke about her, he became tongue-tied. And of course Luke had quickly cottoned on and started teasing him.

  Worst of all was the sudden hyper-awareness of his body, besieged by tingles and electrical jolts when he thought of her, and more than that when he dreamed of her.

  He had to see her again. She’d said she wanted to find all her old school friends at the Air Fest, so now Matt ambled into the airfield and stood watching Luke cutting a hedge. He strolled up to him and said, ‘Hey, let me give it a go.’

  Luke peered down at him with a dazed look on his face, ‘And you are?’

  ‘Okay, okay. I’ve been a moron lately. It’s just the fitness test worrying me.’

  ‘Well, it doesn’t have to. Either you try or you don’t. And you’re such a dip-stick, you won’t even enter the flying lesson competition!’

  ‘Listen, you may be right―’

  ‘May be? Or I am right?’

  Matt reached up to thump Luke’s bicep. ‘You’re bloody well right, okay. Happy now?’

  Luke grinned. ‘I’m right about a lotta things, so which one do you mean?’

  ‘Sticking around. Maybe helping out. Seeing what goes down over the summer.’

  Luke leapt off the rickety ladder and stood eye-to-eye with Matt. For an awkward moment, Matt just smiled and then grasped Luke’s shoulder. ‘Listen, thanks for putting me right.’

  Luke smiled and held out the shears to Matt. ‘Okay, start here. Bomber wants these hedges cut back.’

  ‘What for?’

  Luke eyeballed him. ‘You wanna go ask him?’

  Matt grabbed the shears and climbed the ladder.

  Luke strolled away, whistling merrily.

  After cutting the hedge, Matt found Luke sweeping the hangar. ‘I’m done with the hedge…do you want me to take over here?’

  ‘Sure, I’ve got a ton of other things to do,’ Luke tossed the broom at Matt.

  In his haste to catch it, Matt slipped on a puddle of oil and landed in the black slick. Grimacing, he leapt up and looked down at his ruined jeans.

  Luke pulled a face. ‘Okay, affirmative. Mum will be pretty pissed off with that.’

  Matt just stared at the stain. They were his new Levi 501s, and Mum had only just been able to afford to get him and Luke a pair each.

  Luke snorted with suppressed laughter. ‘Maybe you can spatter oil in other places and make it look like a new fashion.’

  Matt grimaced. That probably wouldn’t work.

  Strolling out, Luke pointed to the side of the hangar door. ‘Grab some overalls. Those step-in ones are the best to protect your clothes.’

  Matt pulled on an overall and heard the pilot’s cabin door open and shut behind his brother. As he started sweeping, he tried to be silent, but his clumsy foot accidentally knocked over a tin. He quickly cleared up the mess, then, without being ordered to do so, he sorted out the tools scattered all over the hangar. The airfield’s peace was shattered as he dropped them into the toolbox.

  As he stood up, he bumped into a metal chain with a large meat hook on the end. It clanged against the hangar aluminium wall, and then swung back into place. Matt’s eyes followed the heavy links rising to the roof. High on the wall above him, an iron ring clasped the chain.

  His eyes settled on a lopsided picture frame hanging from a silver nail shunted into the wall. In the picture, a hand-drawn dog sailed on a boat with the words “Zen Dog” above him and more text under him.

  Although the crooked frame bothered him, he ignored it and set about tossing the various empty oil cans scattered about into a black bag. When he had finished, he grabbed a low ladder, brought it over to the chain and climbed up to adjust the picture frame. He leaned back.

  At last it was straight.

  He worked solidly for another hour until he suddenly noticed Bomber watching him. He really didn’t want to speak to the man, but he had to do it so that he could impress Cami. And get his own back on Luke for taking a job at an airfield before him.

  ‘Come on,’ Bomber waved Matt towards him. ‘You ever mowed lawn?’

  ‘Of course!’ Matt curled his lip, ‘All the time at home.’

  ‘Been on one of those?’ Bomber pointed towards a tractor mower.

  Matt blurted out, ‘I can drive, I only have to get my license. So that thing should be a piece of cake.’ He didn’t say that Bomber’s family had to be pretty rich to afford one of them. He hadn’t seen it used anywhere else, but of course it must be useful with all the grass that needed to be kept trimmed.

  Bomber chuckled at Matt’s expression.

  Matt suddenly felt bold enough to ask, ‘Hey, aren’t you pissed off that I’m back?’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘You know…I went AWOL the other day.’ He had heard Dad using that term with his air force pals.

  Bomber shrugged as if nothing had happened and marched towards the mower. After a few quick instructions, he dropped the keys into Matt’s palm.

  Matt started the motor. The mower jerked forward, spluttered and cut out.

  Bomber hesitated, then shook his head and strolled away, a smile tugging at his mouth.

  Matt started it again, this time slowly pulling his foot off the clutch. He weaved the tractor around the back of the planes and up and down the field in front of the pilots’ cabin. After a moment he stopped to wipe his forehead and gazed at a nearby Cessna. He hunched over the tractor wheel.

  Would he ever fly? How could he, if he couldn’t get his RAF wings?

  They were what he had been aiming for all his life.

  From the corner of his eye, he saw Bomber watching him again, so he quickly carried on mowing.

  He was on the very last line, right next to the fence, when he spotted Josh and Ben ambling up the dirt track alongside the airfield. Honestly, did they really have nothing else to do?

  ‘Hey, Spazz!’ Ben hollowed. ‘You stealing that fing?’

  ‘Cool!’ Josh sniggered.

  ‘You better clear off,’ he lifted his chin high, thrust his shoulders back and his chest out in a sudden burst of confidence. ‘I’m working.’

  ‘What?’ Ben snarled. ‘You? Working here? No way! They’d never let a spazz work at an airfield.’

  ‘Well, then, proves I’m not a spazz, doesn’t it!’

  Matt let the tractor surge forward past the two boys, leaving them with gaping jaws and legs covered with grass cuttings.

  His lungs expanded. Yes! He wanted to do an air-fist but kept the triumph to himself. It wasn’t often that he had the feeling of being able to conquer the world.

  With a gleam in his eyes, he parked the tractor and, so pumped up that he didn’t even consider who he was talking to, called to Bomber, who’d gone back to tinkering with an engine. Not just any engine, the Percival P56 Provost was the basic trainer aircraft for the RAF in 1950, so it thrilled Matt to be so close to it. He asked, ‘When are you taking her up?’

  Without looking at him, Bomber shouted back, ‘The hangar needs cleaning!’

  ‘But I―’

  ‘Not good enough. It has to be spotless for the weekend. Do it again. And this time try not to trip over the oil barrel!’

  Huh? Talk about being taken down a peg or two. He went back to work, yet with a smile on his face as he relished his earlier triumph.

  Throughout the morning Matt carried countless huge black bags full of rubbish to the skip outside the airfield’s gate. He had to put gloves on to stop the chemicals burning his skin. In one morning, he had used more detergent than Mum used in a month at The Cinnamon Stick. And double that in grease remover on the hangar floor. Wiping up black oil stains wasn’t the best part of the job.

  Yet he was determined to get the last of the rubbish done so he could do a more interesting job tomorrow. Like help Luke clean the planes.

  When he spotted Bomber leaving the pilot’s cabin, he limped up to him, too tired to stop his aching foot dr
agging uselessly. ‘Hey, have you heard about the documentary being filmed in the village?’

  Bomber spun around and scowled at him. ‘I didn’t think you’d listen to that kind of nonsense.’

  ‘It’s my cousin doing it. He’s onto a story about a Nazi―’

  ‘I don’t care who’s doing it. It’s just gossip and it’s complete rubbish. I thought more of you than to listen to rumours and village small talk.’

  ‘If it was nonsense, then why would they be doing a documentary on it?’

  Bomber glared at him and then just turned and marched away.

  Luke came over, wiping a spanner on a dirty cloth. ‘What’s up with him?’

  Matt shrugged. ‘I guess Bomber is worried that the Nazi rumours could stop people coming to his air show.’

  ‘Or,’ Luke dropped his voice, ‘that they find another hidden bomb shelter like the one at the campsite.’

  Even though the coppers had sealed the shelter so nobody could go in there again, Matt didn’t want to be reminded about that place. ‘You have a wild imagination, brother.’

  Luke shrugged and marched off, grumping that it could be true.

  Matt went back to de-greasing the hangar, but the thought was in his head. Any of it could be true. He had been stunned by Allan’s story, but there were enough facts to make it seem possible. He couldn’t wait to tell Cami about all the latest news. An abrupt emptiness gripped him deep in his belly. He needed to see her again. The only one person who had ever made him appreciate their little village was her. Her keen interest and need to be back amongst her old friends had spiked a totally unexpected loyalty for the place. Like her, he now saw all the little things that seemed normal and boring were also rewarding in a comfy sort of way.

  He had started becoming more aware of his surroundings rather than just being stuck in his own private world.

  Trying not to daydream about her, as he had done since meeting her, he pulled out the folded-up piece of paper and stared at her telephone number.

  And the kiss.

  34

  The Cinnamon Stick was buzzing. News of a film being made in the village had set the cat among the pigeons. People who rarely came for coffee were now sipping away. Locals who commuted to London and never frequented the village were suddenly milling about. Even the Vicar was ambling around The Fairground, chatting to all the shop owners.