Wendy stood on the playground watching the other kids. She heard a plane in the distance. The air smelled like rain. And the sky was building up it's clouds.
She thought of her father.
He was a tall man, all elbows and knees, with dark bushy eyebrows. He'd left home when Wendy was in the fourth grade. He and Mom had been arguing, and their fights seemed to grown more ferocious with each new day.
Finally Wendy couldn't take it anymore. One day she burst into their bedroom and started shouted at the top of her lungs at them.
"Stop it! Stop arguing! You should hear yourselves@! It's pathetic that two grownups should act the way you do! It's disgusting!"
Her Dad and Mom both looked shocked and looked right at her. They looked at each other.
"She's right" Dad said to Mom. The next day he moved out. He moved South. A few months later he bought a small cattle farm in New Mexico. He'd been living there ever since.
She only say him twice a year now, there were many days when she missed him terribly: his silly jokes, goofy songs, magic tricks that were so amateurish even a baby could figure them out.
The rain smell reminded her of one summer day he took her to the playground. It started pouring rain but they didn't leave. Instead, the stayed on the swings singing at the top of their lungs while their clothes got soaked.
Why flying? Mr. Snickerberger had asked her. Why is flying so important to you?
If I could fly, then I could see my Father whenever I want, she thought. But she never said this, not even to Mom.
She kept replaying the sequence of events: her parents argued, she scolded them, then Dad left.
One, two, three.
Even now she had the nagging thought that in some way her scolding had been catalyst for his moving out.
Those fights had been horrible, but she wished he was still living at home, arguments or not.
She wished she had kept her mouth shut.
Back then it had never occurred to her that she had the Right.
The Right to Remain Silent.
YOU ARE READING
Flying Solo {Completed}
Fiksi PenggemarButters Stotch was in love with Wendy Testaburger, obsessed. One night Butters died and when Wendy learns, she stops talking. Six months later Mr. Garrison is sick and nobody shows up to teach them. What happened when Mr. Garrison's eighth grade cla...
