Silver Wings for Vicki

CHAPTER II | Beginner’s Luck-2

THE HANDSOME LATIN put his hand on the speeding plane’s door. He would jump, he threatened, he would not go on living, if she persisted in being so heartless.

“No, that’s a shade too melodramatic,” thought Vicki. She was sitting cross-legged under an oak on the wooded hill back of their house. She fitted her spine more comfortably against the tree trunk and started to revise her daydream.

The handsome Latin flagged her as she cautiously made her way down the aisle of the swaying plane. But Vicki did not like the handsome Latin very much, after all. Very well— A bell rang faintly, continuously. Another passenger was summoning her. With a polite nod to the disappointed young man, she moved farther down the aisle. There sat a paunchy middle-aged man, his lap full of photographs. He studied the girl with piercing eyes.

“Turn your profile,” he ordered. “Have you had any acting experience?”

Vicki sighed. “Possible if not probable. It’s actually happened to stewardesses. Doggone that bell—our phone, I guess. Oh, my stars, maybe it’s for me—maybe it’s Miss Benson—”

She was on her feet in one leap, running fleetly up the wooded hill, flashing in and out between the trees, hair streaming. “Here I am!” she shouted. “Don’t let them hang up!”

Her mother appeared for a moment on the side steps. “It was only Mr. Brown asking if we’d want butter and eggs from his farm this week end,” she said, and disappeared.

Vicki bit her lip. Freckles galloped up, but Vicki felt so discouraged that she would not even look at him. The spaniel’s feelings were hurt. His liquid eyes reproached her, his bit of tail wagged only tentatively.

“Oh, all right,” Vicki said, and threw a twig for him. “No use making you feel bad, too.”

Freckles bounded down the driveway and out of sight beyond a hedge. He returned presently, walking sociably beside the mailman. Vicki let out a moan and ran once more.

“Mr. Wiggins! Oh-h, Mr. Wiggins! What have you got for me?”

“Expectin’ a love letter?”

“No, more important!”

“Well, here’s a letter for your mother, a free sample of smelling salts for Ginny, a magazine advertisement for your dad—”

“Don’t do this to me,” Vicki begged.

“Now don’t you hurry me, young lady. A free sample of dog biscuit for Ginny and a letter for you.”

Vicki tore it open immediately. It was a notification that Frazier’s Department Store would consider restoring her to the perfume counter.

“It’s fate, warning me,” Vicki thought wretchedly. “Oh, pooh, it’s no such thing. I won’t be superstitious.” She wadded the letter into a ball and let Freckles chew up her only career possibility to date.

The Barrs’ telephone rang again, the long, insistent shrilling of a long-distance call. This time Vicki got there first. It was Miss Benson, calling from another city.

“Miss Barr? I have good news for you. The verdict is yes!”

Vicki let out a whoop of delight that brought her mother hurrying into the hallway. Ginny peeked in from the kitchen.

“Of course, Miss Barr, you will have to prove during the training period that you are mature enough. And you must bring with you a letter of permission signed by both your parents.”

“Yes, Miss Benson! Of course! Certainly!” Vicki promised wildly, wondering what her parents were going to say. Her mother stood by, looking puzzled.

“The airline will give you a free flight to New York,” Miss Benson’s crisp voice went on. “You’ll leave this Saturday from Chicago on the six P.M. plane. I’ll mail your tickets and instructions, air mail, right away. Is that all clear, now?”

“Yes, Miss Benson, it’s clear—and it’s wonderful! Oh, thank you, thank you!”

“I’ll see you in New York,” Miss Benson said. “Have a good flight.”

Professor Barr opened the door of his study and appeared at the top of the stairs, holding a book. “What’s all the whooping and hollering about?” he asked.

“Who’s phoning you long-distance?” Mrs. Barr inquired.

“It’s—a friend, a supervisor—that is—”

At this point Ginny emerged with a peanut-butter sandwich and a wise expression. The twelve-year old planted herself where she could see and hear everything.

Vicki gulped.

“Well, as a matter of fact, Mother and Dad, I have something to tell you,” she started. “To ask you—I mean, if you—”

“Don’t tell me you’ve still got that Chriscraft on your mind?” her mother groaned.

“Naw,” said Ginny, her mouth full.

“You’re going away,” her father said cautiously.

“If I have your okay—to New York—my very first flight—this Saturday—” Vicki sputtered. Then she threw out her arms and cried, “It’s wonderful! I’m going to be an airline stewardess! If you’ll give your permission. Come into the living room, all of you, and let me tell you about it!”

“Well, I’ll be hornswoggled,” said Professor Barr, half an hour later. He was impressed by the idea but still couldn’t get used to it. And he had about run out of arguments. “I’d like you to complete your schooling,” he went on, “but we’re all individuals. If this is your great opportunity—I’m disappointed, Victoria, but I wouldn’t stand in your way.”

Mrs. Barr was even pinker than Vicki. Freckles had caught the excitement, too, and his tail thumped the carpet. The only unruffled Barr was Ginny, very dignified on the couch.

“Looks like Vicki’s going,” she commented.

“All right,” Professor Barr said reluctantly.

“Mother and I will write the letter of permission.

You didn’t want to go on with college anyway and I suppose, while this is risky, you could fall out of a tree right here at home.”

“It’s not a bit dangerous,” Mrs. Barr corrected, shaking her curls. “There’s a lower percentage of flight accidents than auto accidents. Not even as dangerous as me on that half-broken mare I’ve been training for the Curtises.”

Vicki hugged her mother and cried, “Let me get a word in edgewise! Jehosaphat, isn’t it marvelous! Did you ever hear of such luck!”

“Beginner’s luck,” said Ginny. “You haven’t ever been up, even. You’ll prob’ly be airsick.”

Vicki ran over and yanked her pigtails. There would have been a tussle, except that Ginny threw her arms around her sister, shouting, “Hurray for you! Hurray!” The tussle turned into a furious waltz around the living room.

“This calls for a celebration!” Professor Barr exclaimed, enthusiastic at last. “Wait—I’ll make grape-juice punch and my special whatcha-ma-callums. We’ll all toast Vicki!”

“Make plenty of punch!” laughed Mrs. Barr, starting for the hallway, “because I’m going to call up all our friends!”

Friends began to trickle into The Castle—family friends, Vicki’s schoolmates, neighbors. Word spread. Even a reporter from the Fairview News bustled in, wrote up Fairview’s first flight stewardess, and snapped a picture of Vicki.

When that picture appeared next morning—a very satisfactory one, Vicki considered, since it made her look five years older and nothing like herself—the telephone started to ring. It rang and rang, all day and all evening, and so did the doorbell. Vicki was torn between pride, embarrassment, excitement, and plain fatigue.

Freckles, who had assumed the job of greeting all visitors, was one exhausted little dog. Even imperturbable Ginny found it advisable to escape, at intervals, into the branches of the apple tree to rest. Vicki’s hopes of getting some packing done and her thoughts sorted out were swept aside in the excitement. And Saturday was only day after tomorrow! She announced she would duck whenever the bell rang, and locked herself in the room she shared with Ginny. She took inventory of her closet and bureau, made lists of what to take along, lists of people to whom she must write thankyou notes for their going-away gifts, and read again the letter that had followed Miss Benson’s telephone call:

“Here are your plane tickets. You are allowed forty pounds of luggage. You will need clothes for classes at the Stewardess School, a coat to wear on the airfield, clothes for your free time in New York. Publicity pictures probably will be taken. Please do not have a permanent wave.”

Vicki did not understand that last stipulation, but obediently dug out and packed what clothes she had. She longed to buy a new dress, but it was not really necessary since—joy—she would soon be in that pert blue uniform.

“Besides,” she thought, as she stuffed stockings into slippers, “I’ll soon be able to buy a new dress out of my own salary! Imagine not having to ask Dad for things. Being master of my fate and captain of my own pocketbook.” She foresaw bankbooks with her name on them, an apartment with her name beside the bell, herself nonchalantly signing a check.

“I s’pose I’ll have to make out an income tax report, too,” she thought importantly, and giggled.

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