Sarah, pls!
Rated G • 500 words • @samsseptember Prompt 4 • Siblings
The only reason Sarah's involved is to keep her from talking. Because they're in Daddy Wilson's tools despite it being forbidden. On top of that, it's dangerous. Sam and Sarah are under Gideon's supervision, who's home from college for Sam's fourteenth birthday. He promised to help Sam build a hang glider.
The boy loves to fly but he’s too young for piloting and even if he weren't, who has money for flight lessons? Not the Wilsons. The kids saved their allowances, Sam mostly, to buy aluminum tubing, plastic drop cloth, Gorilla tape, wiring, bolts, T-connectors, rope, and a harness. At ten dollar per week, it's taken Sam two months to save. Gideon made up the difference when Sam fell short at the hardware store. Sarah's money paid for ice cream and a few bars of chocolate. She's otherwise unhelpful and mostly in the way. But the boys don't mind. Having an annoying little sister is better than having none at all.
Gideon outlined the wing using the aluminum tubes, which are already assembled and latched. The wingspan is twenty-five feet and once Sam’s done painting the tarp red and sketching fake feathers with black paint, he and Gideon will tape it to the tubing.
“I’ll look like the biggest red falcon in the world.”
“You’ll look like an idiot if the wind doesn’t get to at least ten miles per hour.”
“He looks like an idiot anyway,” Sarah says, laughing.
One of the reasons they needed Sarah involved and not out yapping to their parents is because there are no steep hills in Delacroix. So, Sam’s on the roof, clad in black jeans, sneakers, and a t-shirt. He’s even wearing safety goggles. It feels official. But it isn’t and since Sarah’s with them, she can’t tell anyone that Sam’s just run across the roof and jumped off with this makeshift hang glider harnessed to his back. At least he’s in a harness. Unfortunately, they did a bang-up job on the wing so Sam’s being pulled from the water just before their parents get back. Instead of helping the boys disassemble the glider, Sarah’s in the house pretending she’s been there all along.
“I’m not even gon’ ask why you’re half naked in my living room and dripping water on my just-cleaned hardwood floors,” Darlene Wilson says to a soaking wet Sam. Gideon’s quietly giggling a few feet behind him where he’s also wet and carrying a pile of drenched clothes.
“What did yalll do?” Paul Wilson asks.
“We didn’t do anything,” Gideon lies.
“Just playing in the lake, dad,” Sam adds.
“Well—” Sarah starts but is cut off by Sam yelling, “Sarah, please!”
She snitches. Not a detail left out. While confined to his room for the next week, Sam draws various wing designs for a new and improved hang glider, as well as a pair of fantasy wings he wants to fly when he’s older and trained. Someday, he’ll show everybody he was always meant for the sky.
