Only Nick seemed to understand her love for them, but even he had never succeeded in convincing her father that it was a suitable pastime for her, and he shrugged now, as he went back to some work on his desk, and Cassie went back out to the runway. She had learned long since that if she stayed away from Pat, she could hang around for hours at the airport.

“I don't know what's wrong with her… it's unnatural…” Pat complained. “I think she does it just to annoy her brother.” But Nick knew better than anyone that Chris didn't give a damn. He was about as interested in flying as he was in getting to the moon, or becoming an ear of com. He hung out at the airport occasionally, to please his dad, and now that he was sixteen, he was taking flying lessons, to satisfy him, but the truth was, Chris didn't know anything, and didn't care, about airplanes. He had about as much interest in them as he did in the big yellow bus which took him to school every day. But Pat was convinced, or had convinced himself, that one day Chris would become a great pilot.

Chris had none of Cassie's instinct for it, or her passionate love of the machine, or her genius about an engine. He only hoped that Cassie's interest in planes would get his father off his back, but instead it seemed to make him even more anxious for Chris to become a pilot. He wanted Chris to become who Cassie was, and Chris couldn't. Chris wanted to be an architect. He wanted to build buildings, not fly planes, but as yet, he had never dated to tell his father. Cassie knew. She loved the drawings he did, and the models for school.