In this chapter, Roy Ray makes his first big breakthrough and meets his first big temptation.  One follows closely after the other, but you have to get to the end of the chapter to see what it is.  Fantasy heroes always have to face temptation: Frodo (in Lord of the Rings) is tempted first to abandon the quest and then to hang on to the ring, Harry Potter is tempted several times to use his magical powers for selfish purposes--you get the picture.  But Roy Ray, who still imagines himself an ordinary kid, has to deal with an ordinary temptation.  Or so it seems!

The training continues, and I think all the focus on training is necessary.  Roy Ray has to learn what we all do: that nothing important is ever accomplished without lots of work.  But are you getting tired of it?  In this chapter also we get concrete information about something only hinted at before: the existence of other avials. I'm wondering, does this add more interest to the story for you, or does it make Roy Ray less "special"?  Let me know about these questions, or any other thoughts you have, here.  By the way,  "Gunther" is pronounced "GUN-ter." 

Air (and breath) is another theme that's already been introduced, in Chapter Three. Mr. G goes into why air matters so much for a bird person, and the subject will appear in later.  Also, an important prop makes its appearance in this chapter: the radio.  How do you know it's going to be important? 

If you're interested in Bernoulli's Law, you'll find a link to more into and some cool experiments here, here, and here.

Chapter 5

AGAINST THE WIND

But he had to wonder.  Flew too high?  Fell too hard?  The more Roy Ray thought about it, the more it seemed Mr. G was telling him he'd made some mistakes in life.  Of course he knew by now that grownups made mistakes, and sometimes even admitted to them.  But they never revealed details.  Like it or not, Roy Ray would just have to wait for "another time."

            For sure, he wouldn't be waiting in idleness.  Based on his notes from the day before, the coach had drawn up a plan: "First we get you in shape.  Muscle tone and lung capacity.  Then we work on technique, starting with the basic wing stroke.  In four weeks you should be ready to take to the air--"

            "Four weeks?!"

            "--provided you stick to training and do what I say and don't talk back.  It takes twenty-eight days to break one bad habit, and you've a sackful of them.  Now, to the mat."

            Mr. Rappaport had brought in a carpet remnant to cover the oil spot; that was "the mat."  With Roy Ray lying on his stomach, Mr. G firmly took hold of his wings by the carpal joint and guided them in the figure-eight pattern his arms had practiced the day before.  "Start slowly at first.  Vital to get the form right, hey?  This is foundational--everything else you learn piles on top.  Now you do it: One.  Two . . ."

            Every time Roy Ray thought he was doing it, the coach found something else to correct, and then he'd have to start over: "Higher on the lift!  One, two . . ."  "More thrust on the downstroke! . . . Three . . . Four--  No pause!  The instant you've done with one cycle you start on the next: One!"

            Mr. G was everywhere: lying on one elbow beside Roy Ray, crouching behind him, standing over him.  Once his voice came from the ceiling: "Even up! Your left side stretches farther than the right!"

            Roy Ray rolled over on his elbow to see the coach perched overhead, peering creepily

down at him like a buzzard.  "How'd you get up there?"

            Mr. G uncurled his feet and hopped, landing lightly on the carpet.  "Same way I got down.  Ready?"

"No!"  Roy Ray collapsed on his stomach.

"Time's a-wasting, boy.  If you slack you'll never stick."

"It's just for a minute."

"Right, and minutes turn to hours and hours to days and before you know it you're in front of the telly with the clicker in your hand wondering how you got to be thirty-five without a feat to your name.  A lazy avial is an oxymoron, boy, like a . . . like a Charger that won't charge."

A pause followed, during which Roy Ray sat up slowly to see his teacher standing beside the Dodge.  "What's ado with the car, anyway?"

There was a story behind the car, which Roy Ray was glad to tell if it would delay the workout for a few minutes.  "Nobody can figure it out.  My dad bought it when he got out of the army, and he was gonna drive it from California to St. Louis to meet some old girlfriend, only when he got this far the car broke down and nobody could fix it.  But it didn't matter because that's how he met my mom and forgot his old girlfriend.  So he stayed, and so did the Charger.  Even though my mom complains it takes up too much room.  Dad says he's gonna fix it some day."

"Interesting," Mr. G remarked thoughtfully.  "So it's safe to say that if this car wasn't here, you wouldn't be here?"

"Uh . . . I guess."  Though it was kind of spooky to think about.

"And it's even safer to say that if you don't continue your training you'll still be here twenty years from now."  He slapped the Charger's hood.  "Ready, up!"

They spent the next three days on breathing and basic strokes, which seemed totally pointless, except that on Friday at exactly two-forty-four p.m. Mr. G said, "Very good.  I believe you're beginning to grasp the technique.  (Beginning?! Roy Ray thought but didn't say.)  Now rise up on your elbows and toes like this--"  He demonstrated.  "Flatten your back like a table.  Ready?  Stroke: One!"

            Roy Ray could only do four of these "table strokes" without collapsing.

            "Breathe a sec.  Now try again: One!"

            "It's impossible!"  Roy Ray collapsed again.

            "It's anything but!  In a week you'll shake the rafters, you'll stir up a cyclone!  You'll be racing to match Gunther Kempgartner."

            "Who?"  Roy Ray turned his head, and Mr. G was right there, propped on one elbow.

            "My student in Brazil.  Born and raised in the Amazon jungle but as German as schnitzel.  Or is schnitzel Austrian?  No matter--a stroke machine, that boy.  Could go at it for hours: Whoomph!  Whoomph!"  Mr. G blew out with enough force to ruffle Roy Ray's primaries.  "Give it another go.  Ready, up!"

            "Where's Gunther now?" Roy Ray gasped between downstrokes.  (Whoomph)  "How old is he?" (Whoomph)  "What's he doing?"

            "Don't know--Two!  Almost sixteen--Three!  We've lost touch--Four!  One more--Five!"

            Flat on the mat again, Roy Ray panted, "Did he get mites a lot?  Did he scratch under his armpits and tangle up his toes?"  The real question: Was he like me?

            Mr. G allowed himself a brief smile.  "All young avials scratch and tangle, Roy Ray.  Just like you."

            "How come you lost touch?"

            "That's a story--" Mr. G sat up.  "--for another time.  Five more strokes, then an oxygen interlude.  Ready, up!"

            By evening Roy Ray could barely keep his eyes open for his favorite TV show, an extreme reality series called Watch This!  While his dad and teacher exclaimed "Rockin'!" and "Holy Dooley!" two teams of truck drivers staged a demolition derby with their semis in an empty warehouse.  Before the winning driver had to wolf down a fried tarantula, Roy Ray was out like a light.

            He didn't remember how he got to bed but it must not have been by way of the bathroom--because sometime after midnight, he woke up having to go.  While taking the long way back to bed to get a handful of saltines, he happened to notice a sliver of light under the garage door.  A static-y sound beyond it caught his attention, but instead of just barging in this time he decided to knock first, lightly.

            "What?" came a startled voice.  Taking that as an invitation, Roy Ray opened the door.

            Mr. G was seated at the broken dinette table, which he'd propped up with cinder blocks to make a "desk."  At that moment he was turning a knob on his old wooden radio.

            "Wha'cha doin'?" Roy Ray yawned.

            "Hold the silly questions and save your lungs.  Isn't it plain that I'm listening to the radio?"

            "At two in the morning?  What kind of music is that?" Mr. G had turned the volume down, but not quite enough.  Roy Ray wasn't even sure it was music--it flowed like water one minute and boomed like an echo the next.

            "You mean this?"  The volume went up again and a perfectly ordinary riff from a steel guitar spilled out of the box. 

            "You changed the station."

            "Do you recall my repeated, er, exhortations on the value of a good night's sleep?  Is this what you call getting a good night's sleep?  Wouldn't think so.  G'night.  Shoo! Shoo!"

            Roy Ray scooted back and closed the kitchen door behind him, but then leaned an ear against it.  After a moment he began to hear the weird music again, very faint.  But before he could grasp it, a screech leapt out and burned his ear.  He jerked away from the door, but the noise still echoed.  A chair scraped the floor.  Roy Ray flitted out of the kitchen and back to bed.

            It took a while to get back to sleep, though; that noise kept ringing in his head.  Once, during the night, it woke him from a dream.

Mr. G arrived on a Tuesday.  By the following Tuesday, he had made himself a part of the family (especially at mealtimes) and the training had become routine: breathing, arm and wing strokes before breakfast, followed by a session on wing care.  Then hovering practice, which meant jumping off the garage and staying airborne in place as long as possible (not very).  After one hour for lunch and a nap (Mr. G's nap, that is) came endurance training with oxygen interludes (the coach's term for just breathing) and more hovering practice.  After dinner, a brisk walk in the bush while the coach lectured on perseverance and motivation and similar topics that followed a swift direct route in one of Roy Ray's ears and out the other.  Finally, TV or video games for as long as he could stay awake.  

Mr. G didn't believe in taking a whole weekend off.  So while every other kid in town was watching Saturday cartoons, Roy Ray was on the garage floor again, with the coach standing over him: "Gunther never shirked his practice."

            Roy Ray wished he'd never heard of Gunther, but that first Saturday he worked up to ten consecutive table-strokes.  Whoomph!

            Three weeks passed.

            One mild evening at the end of June, while briskly walking one of their routes, Mr. G paused on the edge of a cow pasture.  "A lovely twilight, hey?"  It was true: a velvety breeze was caressing stalks of grass, ruffling Roy Ray's feathers like a kindly old grandfather tousling his hair.  The air smelled dry and sweet.  Mr. G said, "See if you can take off."

            Roy Ray looked around for a roof or tree.  "From what?"

            "From right here."

            "The ground?  You know I can't do that!"

            "Do I?  Can't you?"

"Yeah, about like I can walk on water." 

"Ah.  Interesting you should say that, because air is to an avial like water to a fish.  Do you know a fish that doubts the water?"

            "No; 'cause he's born in it."  Pretty good answer, Roy Ray thought, while popping a wad of gum.

            His coach pointed to his mouth.  "Out."  When the gum was wrapped in a piece of soup label and stowed away, he continued.  "You were born in it.  Air is as real as iron.  And like everything else in this, er, wonderfully various, gloriously particular earth, it has its own character.  That's what you must learn.  You must learn to feel it, taste it, trust it.  And that's the thing I can't teach you; only the air can teach you.  So go."

            Roy Ray guessed this was a new step in his training.  He'd tried lifting with the wind many times before Mr. G arrived, and always ended up flipping on his head.  But maybe he knew something now he hadn't known before.  So he turned his back to the breeze and thought, Hey, air: What's up?  Then he lifted his wings, took off running, made a broad leap--and flipped on his head.

            "I have a suggestion," said Mr. G, standing over him.

            Roy Ray thought it might have been nice to put the suggestion before he'd made a fool of himself.

            "This time, face into the wind, not away from it.  Lift your wings, tilt the radius bones a mite, and thrust down hard as you kick off the ground.  Then begin your basic stroke, swift but steady.  Just do it," he added as Roy Ray opened his mouth to protest.

            The boy turned into the wind and did exactly as his teacher said, except his first kick turned into two, then three, then five as he tried to stay up.  He skipped over the ground like a stone on a pond before flipping so hard he landed on his back.

            "Good on ya, mate!" Mr. G exclaimed, sounding really pleased for the first time ever.  "Try it again!"

            They tried it three times, four, seven--until, on try number eight, Roy Ray felt his feet leave the ground and not come down.  Am I up? he wondered.  And then, I'm up!

            Not too up, he discovered when he flew into the side of a cow.  But he was too excited to notice when she flicked him pretty hard with her tail.

            "Wow!" he yelled.  And again, "Wow!"

            Mr. G was bounding his way.  "Good work.  And don't mind the cow; on Nkame's first lift he ran into the back end of a water buffalo.  The beast was so startled he took off with the boy--carried him half a mile before Nkame had the sense to jump off."

            "Nkame who?"

            "Mbotu.  From Botswana.  Bright boy, good thing I found him.  His poor mum and dad thought he was a demon."

            "Where is he now?"

            "Joined a monastery, I believe."  The coach paused to catch his breath.  "What you've just discovered is Bernoulli's Law.  Your wings split the air, see?  Air flows faster over the top because it has farther to go over that curve before it meets with the current behind your wing.  Meanwhile the air below is going slower and creates more pressure so it lifts you up."

            "I don't get it."

            Mr. G took out his notebook and drew a diagram.  "When you go against the wind, you get even more speed on top and more pressure below, so up you go.  In time, you should be able to do it without any wind, fore or aft.  Now try it again."

            Getting lift was harder the second time, and harder still the third, and by the fourth he couldn't do it at all.  "It's not fair!"

            "What isn't fair?" asked his teacher, pulling out a few loose feathers.  "Not fair that you don't get it on the first try and climb onward and upward from there?  Haven't you heard that Rome was not built in a day?"

            "Who's going to Rome?" Roy Ray muttered--but not too loud.

            As he was getting ready for bed that night he heard a noise at the window.  A white finger rasping against the screen made his heart jump from speedy to Olympic-record-setting, until he saw it was just a card stuck to a forsythia branch by a clothespin.  A business card, to be precise: printed on a computer and cut with scissors.  Other than the whacked-out edges, the card looked pretty professional:   

William P. Gecko

Protection Services

            The Punks were going pro?  Roy Ray turned the card over and read, Meet me in at Ike's tomorow 2:00.  I got a proposizion.

"You're looking good, Roy Ray," said Bill the Lizard.

            "I am?"  Roy Ray sprang off his bike and let it sprawl (as his mother was always on to him about) in the ragged grass behind Ike's Auto Barn.

            "Yep."  Bill caught the baseball he'd been bouncing against the shop wall and tucked it in his pocket.  He'd just missed the window, but since the window was already broken it didn't matter.  Ike's had stood empty since 1957, when the owner had been abducted by aliens.  "I hear you're in training."

            "You do?" Roy Ray asked carefully.

            "Uh-huh.  Hard to keep a secret in this town.  Being in training, though, that's good."

            "It is?"

            "I believe you should develop what you've got.  That's one reason I wanted to have a little talk.  You know, Roy Ray, we're more alike than you might think."

            "We are?"

            "Yeah--for one thing, we're both different."

            True, Roy Ray thought--though there were all kinds of ways of being different.

            "And it's the different people that make stuff happen.  They don't run with the herd or follow the crowd--know what I mean?"

            Roy Ray nodded, though he wouldn't mind running with the herd if they'd let him.

            "So I'm thinking, maybe we should partner up.  Sometimes."

            "You mean I join the Punks?"

            "Nah, the Punks are stupid.  Just another herd.  I mean we take my special talent and your special talent and do something with 'em."

            "And . . . what's your special talent?"  Besides meanness. 

Bill tapped the side of his head.  "Schemes, buddy.  Like figuring out how to turn all the venting machines upside down outside Stuff-For-Less."

"That was you?"  Roy Ray recalled his Dad, a volunteer fire fighter, driving himself nuts trying to figure out not just how it had been done, but why.  "What was that all about, anyway?"

Bill smiled.  "I like to make life innaresting.  Not just for me--for everybody.  So you wanna hear what I have in mind?"

            Roy Ray nodded.  And because it didn't involve cottage cheese or dry-cleaning bills, and sounded like fun, and made use of his special talent, and might not even happen, he found himself seriously considering the proposal.

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On to Chapter Six.