The Flight Of A Lifetime

• Caroline Quartermain, Grade 5
• Short Story
• 2011

“Humf!” The kids at school said I was crazy, again! I don't see what's wrong with me. After all, all that I want to do is invent human-powered wings. Perfectly normal, considering my dad is the fix-it man and gadget inventor. He even says it's not possible. I go to bed, knowing I've got stacks of homework to do tomorrow. I guess that can wait 'till I invent my super-dooper homework machine. “Must write down my ideas!” I reminded myself. Out came my sketchbook and now for the most interesting and peaceful time of the day. Inventing time! But there was no time to be wasted on homework machines now. There was heaps of explanations to include in my wings to make my dad believe it will work. If I don't, he won't get all the materials I need. How busy I was, recording those plans, until, you can probably guess, in stormed Dad. He growled and he howled 'till I was totally freaked out so, of course, with the the sketchbook gone, it was straight away lights out. How I slept and I slept 'till the very next day, when I was pried out of bed and whisked away. To swimming training. But there was work to be done. I needed to create. Boy, this day ain’t gonna be fun. It looked like I would never make successful wings, but that sentence, of course, was said yesterday. The new day has already begun. Today was my big day. I knew that this day would be day number one. Would they work? Would they fly? Or would heights let me down? But no. when I leaped off my monkey-bars I knew this was it. Oh how I soared over the rooftops, narrowly dodging trees by a minuscule bit. Oh how I fluttered with the birds, how I glided on the breeze. This was the time I realized that my dream had been fulfilled. I was having the flight of a lifetime.