Taxiing presents a challenge for first-time Skylane fliers since instinctually everyone used to driving a car tries to steer with the wheel instead of the foot pedals. But Colton knew that. (And hell, he didn’t have a driver’s license either.) In fact, with all his previous study and experience, the most complex part of the entire episode to this point was adjusting the pilot’s seat to his gangly six-foot-five frame.
With so many private planes based on Orcas, none of the neighbors took special notice of the Cessna’s early-morning growls. Colton released the parking brake, taxied out of the hangar farm, and turned south toward the still-sleeping town of Eastsound. He then spun the thirty-foot-long plane until its nose aimed straight down runway 34. Blue lights focused his view down the black strip, which ended abruptly in the cold, dark waters of the Salish Sea.
Colton Harris-Moore knew more than enough to fly a small plane—in theory. Reality reared up when he pushed the throttle to the firewall. The engine roared, his heart raced, and the Cessna began to roll forward down the narrow airstrip. Lightly loaded, the plane picked up speed quickly, the blue lights flashing by faster and faster. Colton’s eyes darted back and forth between the airspeed indicator—watching it climb toward the magic number—and the end of the runway, which came closer and closer.
This was a kid, an outcast, who’d been bullied and beaten, forgotten and failed, expelled, medicated, incarcerated, and seemingly doomed to society’s lowest rung. He’d already blown a number of chances in his young life, but he wasn’t going to blow this one.