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The First Flight
‘Clarence!’ Aunt Amelia called.
In his bedroom, Clarence closed his book and sighed. ‘Coming!’
A month ago, he’d come to Kitty Hawk, in the American state of North Carolina, to live with his aunt and uncle, who ran the village shop. Since they’d been kind enough to take him in, he wanted to be helpful. Still, he wished he didn’t have to run quite so many errands.
When he entered the shopfront, Aunt Amelia was placing cans of peaches in a wooden crate.
‘I need you to deliver these supplies to the Wright brothers,’ she said.
‘Wright brothers?’ Clarence thought he’d met the majority of Kitty Hawk’s inhabitants, but that name wasn’t familiar.
‘They’re two brothers from the state of Ohio who are attempting to build a flying machine.’ Aunt Amelia laughed. ‘Imagine humans flying around like birds! Almost everyone I know thinks it’s pure foolishness.’
Clarence shrugged. Last year in school, he’d learned about a German engineer who’d designed a glider that could carry a person long distances. Clarence’s teacher had declared it wouldn’t be long until someone found a way to motorise it.
Aunt Amelia handed him the heavy crate. ‘The brothers’ camp is six kilometres south, on the shore near the sand dunes.’
As Clarence trudged out of town, he passed Kitty Hawk’s one-room schoolhouse and thought again of the huge brick school he used to attend. Clarence had hoped to go to university after he finished school, but he could not afford to go. Until he could save up enough money, his dream was dead. He would probably end up working in his uncle’s shop instead.
An hour later, when Clarence reached the dunes, his hands were numb. Shivering in the frigid winds, he peered across the sand to where a small group of men were gathered around a giant metal contraption with wings. It looked similar to a photograph of a glider that Clarence had seen, but at the centre of this glider, there was a large black metal tube attached to two propellers.
Curious, Clarence ventured closer. Two of the men, dressed in suits and ties, appeared to be city folk. Clarence realised those must be the Wright brothers. The brother with the red tie climbed onto the glider and lay flat on his stomach, nodding as the brother in the black tie spoke to him. Then, above the sound of the wind, Clarence heard a clatter, and the glider began shaking. It rumbled slowlyforwards, propellers spinning.
Moments later, it rose into the air! Clarence held his breath, counting the seconds. One, two, three . . . On twelve, the flight was over.
Cheering and throwing their caps in the air, the men raced towards the flying machine. Clarence followed, wanting to examine it up close. As the red-tie man descended from the machine, his brother slapped him on the back, saying, ’17 December 1903, 10:35 a.m. We will remember this moment forever, Orville.’
Orville grinned. ‘The first flight, Wilbur,’ he answered. ‘Not bad for two brothers who work in a bicycle shop!’
Clarence’s mouth dropped open. He had thought they were scientists at a famous university.
Later, after Clarence dropped off the supplies and returned home, he told his aunt and uncle about the first flight. Aunt Amelia was surprised, of course. But his uncle wasn’t.
‘Those Wrights spend half their time reading and the other half doing experiments, from what I hear,’ he said.
That night, back in his bedroom, Clarence pondered that. Maybe he would have to work at the village shop for a while, but he had plenty of books. Looking up at the empty sky, he relived the brothers’ achievement that day.
No, maybe his dream wasn’t dead, after all.