Part VII: Finish Gate
Chapter 37

A sailplane was an uncommon sight for the airport at Auburn. Even though the place wasn’t busy a number of people gathered around to watch the four kids take the wings off and put it on the trailer, then put all the gear from Bree’s seat in the car into the cockpit. Hardly anyone believed that Bree could have flown it nearly four hundred miles from central Iowa! After all, several agreed, teenagers weren’t all that big on flying anymore; they’d rather sit in front of a computer screen.

Bree just smiled; she knew better.

It was Autumn who got thinking as they were loading the Schweizer back on the trailer. “Hey,” she said, “we’re not all that far from Hawthorne, maybe an hour or two. Do you think Summer and Alan would take us in for the evening?”

“You’ve got a cell phone,” Bree replied. “Call her and ask.”

It was getting close to dark when they pulled the overloaded car and trailer into Hawthorne. None of them had been to the apartment before, but Summer coached her sister in over the cell phone.

Jack and Vixen were still down in southern Indiana, but Summer and Alan seemed pleased to see them pull in; apparently they’d been missing friendly faces from home. To have four show up literally out of mid-air made a nice break for them; Cody and Jan even joined them for a while. It was close to midnight before they tired of catching up and headed for bed. Summer and Alan were sleeping together, of course – that hadn’t been a secret for a while, and Bree, the hero of the day, drew Jack and Vixen’s bed. Autumn got the couch, and the guys, being gentlemen, unrolled sleeping bags on the floor.

With six of them it was pretty crowded in the apartment; it must have seemed very tight indeed for four to be living there more or less permanently, but it appeared that Summer and Alan had gotten used to it.

Still it was good to see Summer and Alan, but also to get on the road the next morning. All of the four of them had called home the night before to report in, and the consensus of opinion was that they weren’t going to hurry on the way home. They added that they might spend an extra night on the road, maybe taking the opportunity to look at a college or two just on general principles. They did make a fast pass through a couple places they’d talked about a little, but didn’t do much more than that.

The amusing thing to them was that a sailplane on an open trailer was not a familiar sight anywhere they stopped; they commonly drew people checking it out, and got some really funny questions. What with everything, it was getting along in the afternoon before they got to a camping place out in the woods near Mackinaw City that Cody and Jan had told them about. They set up their tents, pulled on their swimsuits, unfastened the trailer, chained it to a tree, and took off for a swim in nearby Lake Michigan. Back at the campground, they set up their tents, made some dinner, and then built a fire to sit around in the evening.

“Bree,” Howie asked as the flames burned high, “I don’t know if you’ve thought about this, but you’ve now got your diamond badge. What’s next?”

“The Academy, I hope,” she said. “Oh, I’ll fly some to keep in practice, but I don’t think I’m going to be attempting any more big flights for a while. We’re better than halfway through summer as it is, and football and cross-country practice are going to be getting under way before long. That ought to keep us all busy until after the snow flies.”

“It sure got here quick,” Jared said. “God, I can hardly believe it. Do you think you’re going to go to state again this year?”

“I won’t know until I get there,” she replied. “It would be nice to have a state medal to add to my résumé. I don’t know if it would mean anything for my appointment, but it can’t hurt.”

“You’re not missing many opportunities on that, are you?” Autumn smiled.

“Everything counts,” Bree told her. “That’s still my number one goal. Nothing has changed. It’s been that way since long before I started hanging out with you guys, but the chances of it becoming reality are so much better now than they were then, it’s not funny. A lot of that has been your doing, like your encouragement to get into cross-country and I couldn’t have made the flight yesterday without your help.”

“You know, Bree,” Howie said, “that still sort of bugs me a little. Not you I mean, but the way you set a goal and stick with it. I guess I’ve known since I got to know you that you set your goals a little higher than the rest of us. I mean, me, I want to go to Ford Field in November, and see if we can do better than we did last year. That still kind of grinds me that we fell on our asses at the Yooperdome. But, win or lose, football season will be over pretty damn quickly, and I still don’t have much of a clue of what I’m going to do after that. I envy you the way you’re looking ahead.”

“Howie, I don’t know what to say,” she told him. “I guess my drive to work toward getting into the Academy came little by little. I sure hope I make it, because if it doesn’t happen I’m not sure what I’m going to do, either.”

“I still don’t know,” Jared shrugged. “I don’t want to say I’m getting pressure toward architecture or construction management, or maybe both, but, well, it seems like the obvious thing to do. I guess I wouldn’t mind it if I wind up doing it, but I sure wouldn’t mind coming up with something else. And really, that hasn’t changed in a couple years.”

“That’s one thing we have over Bree,” Autumn pointed out. “We’re still in positions where we can be flexible. Bree doesn’t have options like we do.”

“Yeah, I guess that’s pretty true,” Bree agreed. “Maybe you’re all better off than you think you are. It’s not going to tear you up too much if you have to change your minds. Me, well, it’s a little different. If I had to give up flying and do something else, I don’t have the slightest idea what it would be.”

They sat around the fire and talked until it got pretty late; the conversation only died out as the last of the burning coals of the odd sticks of firewood they’d gathered died with it before they headed off to bed.

It was still fairly early the next morning when they got up. “I don’t know about you,” Howie said, “but I’m for tearing down, loading up, and heading into town for a decent breakfast, rather than just the stuff we’ve been having in the mornings. Then, maybe we can catch the boat over to Mackinac Island and mess around there for a while before we get headed back home.”

He got three other votes without comment; soon the tents were down and the whole rig was getting loaded up again. As usual, they drew some interesting looks when they parked the trailered sailplane in front of a restaurant in Mackinaw City – it really wasn’t a common sight, after all – and again later in the parking lot for the ferry. The boat ride was fun, and they spent a while wandering around the village on Mackinac Island before catching a boat back to the mainland, then going over the bridge back to the Upper Peninsula.

It was still a long haul, mostly over two-lane roads, on to Spearfish Lake, and it would be not long before dark they arrived. “You know,” Howie said at one point, “it’s hard to believe that it’s not going to be that long before we’re getting together in the lunch room every day, eating that same old crap. At least I’m glad it’s going to be the last year for it.”

“Yeah,” Jared agreed. “At least it’s not the same crap every day, but all of it’s the same old crap.”

“We don’t have to eat it, I suppose,” Bree said. “We could bring our lunches.”

“That almost turns into the same old crap thing,” Howie protested. “I mean, sandwiches, maybe a few chips, an apple. It would be all right for a while, but I think it’d get just as boring.”

They rode along in silence for a mile or so before Autumn spoke up. “It doesn’t have to be the same old crap,” she said. “We’ve solved a lot of problems by working together. Why don’t we do it here?”

“Autumn,” Bree asked, “what are you thinking?”

“I’m not sure,” she said. “Maybe we could kind of rotate the lunch duty. I mean, each of us could make up a couple thermoses of stuff for everybody every day. Soup, stew, I don’t know. Something that tastes good.”

“You might have something there,” Bree agreed. “Maybe we could do some sort of a potluck thing, too.”

“Yeah,” Howie smiled. “Maybe we could do a lot of different stuff. I mean, we’re all in this together, we agreed that a long time ago. It sounds like a good idea.”

The discussion took up several miles of a long trip, but by the time it was over with they’d had several ideas. They’d decided to give it a try; it might not work, and they might not want to do it every day, but it offered the prospect of being something different at least sometimes.

The sun was getting low in the west before they finally pulled into the yard at Bree’s house. Mark and Jackie were there, of course, but a little surprisingly so were the rest of the parents, having a little cookout on the deck. “Jeez,” Jared commented as he got out of the car, “turn our backs on them for one minute and they have a party.”

The group was a little more than to just to get together and compare notes; it was to welcome Bree home, and to welcome them all home from their first big adventure without the adults being around. Everything had gone very well, almost better than anyone could have hoped, and everyone was back safely; it was something to be celebrated, after all. The adults all knew that it wouldn’t be long before each of the kids was going to be out on much bigger adventures without their parents’ supervision, and the way this trip had gone said good things about the future.

While it was a good celebration, it ended with everyone tired; Bree was glad to be back to her own bed again. The next morning she took it a little easy and even managed to spend some time in the chair with a book and with Perky in her lap, but by midmorning she felt like she wanted to do something else. She went out, said hello to Jackie in the shop, unloaded the rest of the stuff from the car and glider, and headed for town to see what anyone else was up to.

Big accomplishment though her trip was, it meant next to nothing to anyone else in town except her friends, of course, and no one knew much about it. Soon, the glow began to fade; besides, they had things to do. All of them had been pretty much off their training for a week, and they had catching up to do. She soon found herself out doing some miles with Howie, Jared, and Autumn. Before too many more days had passed, it had become a routine again, and the trip faded some more.

Very soon it was early August, and practices got under way. Bree was in very good shape when the girls’ cross-country team gathered at the school; once again, Mr. Emerson was there to greet them, and told her that he expected big things out of her this year. “You’re pretty obviously the team captain by default,” he told her. “The other girls look up to you a lot, and I’m sure you’ll do your best to set a good example for them.”

She’d known ahead of time that she was going to be considered the lead runner, since she pretty much had been the year before. Soon they were out getting some miles on at the cross-country course, and Bree indeed was much faster than the rest of the girls; she set a new, if unofficial, personal record on her first trip around the course, and didn’t feel quite loosened up yet. It clearly was going to be a good year for her, and several other girls had also improved. To top that off, there were three new freshman girls who were almost as fast as she was. All that gave the potential for a very good year.

At the same time cross-country practice was getting under way, Autumn was at cheerleading practice, and the football team got going on the football field. “I know we were all a little less than totally thrilled at the way last season ended,” Coach Kulwicki told the gathered players, “but when you get down to it, we lost on a fluke. The important part is that last year we learned how to play and win, not just get lucky and win. In high school football you don’t often have the chance to do what we’re going to do this year. We’re going to be able to go into the season with pretty much the same team we had, not just last year, but for the last two years. All of us know what we’ve got to do, and as far as I can tell you’re all ready to do it. Let’s get working on it.”

There were, of course, new plays, new strategies – but there were the same basic skills to be worked on too. While Howie could see things that needed improvement, he thought they were starting from a pretty good position, even compared to last year. This year they could go far, he thought. Some luck would be involved in going all the way, but there was a good chance of it, and their luck would be improved the harder they worked.

One thing was different this year with them, too. For practical purposes Howie had been pretty much the team leader for two years – or at least the leader of the offense. The first year on varsity he’d suggested that the team captains be seniors Steve Sarmeinto and Mike Kovacs, two of only a handful of varsity players who hadn’t gone to the infamous beer party that resulted in the reshaping of the team. After Howie and his friends set up the official pre-practice party the previous year, he’d pretty well been acknowledged as the leader of the team, although again he’d deferred the team captain job to a senior, Jimmy Gogolen. This year, Howie was a senior, and he couldn’t get out of it. It was his turn, after all, and to at least some degree the shaping of the team was going to be his responsibility.

He’d already started on that; he and his friends had once again held an official pre-practice party down by the lakeshore, but extended it beyond the football team to the other teams playing, both boys and girls. It really hadn’t been a big deal; about all they’d had to do was to push the buttons and everything fell into place. As far as anyone knew, no one had a pre-practice beer bust; maybe that tradition was gone once and for all. Certainly, Howie heard no one on any of the teams lamenting its passing, although there were some sour grapes heard at places like the Frostee Freeze from people who had been on the team in past years. That didn’t bother Howie in the slightest.

Once again, the fall sports season wasn’t kicked off by the football team, but by the cross-country teams, with a preseason meet, which had rotated around to be at Spearfish Lake this year. Bree was ready, ready as she had ever been, and pretty much tore up the course, winning by a good margin. The three freshmen girls all finished well, helping the team a lot, and when everything was added up, Spearfish Lake won the opener by a good margin – the first time in many years the team had an outright win in anything but a dual meet. It was clear that things were off to a good start.

The following Friday the football season got under way, also on the home field, against Coldwater, the traditional season opener. The Icebergs came in talking a good fight but it was all talk; for the third year in a row the Marlins won the season opener, this time by a wide margin, a mercy kill in the second half. Coldwater had never, not once, been the subject of a mercy kill, and they weren’t very happy about it; no one in Spearfish Lake let their attitude bother them very much, considering the number of mercy kills the Icebergs had managed over the Marlins in the past two decades.

The following Thursday, the weekend before Labor Day, the Marlins traveled to Warsaw. Howie and the starters only played the first quarter, letting some of the younger players handle the rest of the game. They needed the practice, but still came close to a mercy kill before the game was over against the smaller school.

In that time, the girls’ cross-country team ran two more meets; Bree won one of them outright, and was second in the other, a record also matched by the team. It was already proving to be the strongest girls’ cross-country team in school history, and the prospects for the rest of the season were good.

The Labor Day weekend meant something of a break for both the teams, although they held a practice on two of the four days. It was notable to Bree because of the fact that the month before Becca had come back from California with her friend Myleen, but had spent the intervening time at practice for the volleyball season down at Athens. They’d had a good season against some tough beach volleyball competition in California; as expected, they hadn’t had any outright wins, but they’d managed to place well several times. As a test season, it had worked out very well for them.

Bree didn’t get to see Becca as much as she wanted to, since at least part of her sister’s weekend was spent out at the nudist place, where Becca and Myleen completely cleaned up on the local competition to absolutely no one’s surprise. Becca spent much of the rest of the weekend putting her summer stuff away, packing up her winter gear, and anticipating classes and the college volleyball season getting under way. Bree hung around for a lot of it, trying to freshen contact with her sister, but it was clear that they’d grown apart a bit over the year since they hadn’t seen each other very much. If Bree wound up going to the Air Force Academy as she hoped, she knew she might not see her sister very much again, and that hurt a little bit, considering how close they’d been for years.

Howie was also glad to have Jack back, Vixen coming along with him; he’d only seen him a little in the spring, and of course not at all when the group stopped at Hawthorne back in July. Now, there was some catching up to do; both Jack and Vixen reported that they’d found out much more than they’d ever wanted to know about cowbirds and the problems they caused songbird populations, but at that it was an interesting problem to follow. There was a lot more to it, he admitted, than just watching birds.

Autumn, of course, had seen her sister and Alan when they all stopped at Hawthorne, so there wasn’t quite the catching up to do. Summer had complained then, and continued to complain, that working in a nursing home wasn’t exactly what she’d had in mind for nursing, and that she was having second thoughts about going ahead on her Registered Nurse certificate. She hadn’t made up her mind what to do about it, but wanted to do some investigation of alternatives over the course of the next semester. That surprised Autumn more than a little, since Summer had been enthusiastic about wanting to be a nurse for years, and now seemed a little bit at a loss about what to do next.

The four headed back to Hawthorne early Monday morning, taking the shorter but normally busier route through Chicago, rather than having to fight the crowds at the annual Mackinac Bridge walk, and the heavy bumper-to-bumper traffic they knew would be homeward bound later in the day. It had been good to see them, as short as the visit had been, even though Howie also knew he probably wouldn’t be spending much time with his brother again. It didn’t hurt quite like it had the year before; he’d had time for reality to set in.

School started the next day. The four of them were seniors now, and it gave them a little different perspective on school. They wouldn’t be coming back here another year; this time next year they’d be doing something else, although none of them were sure what it would be.

Bree had loaded herself up with some challenging classes, mostly Advanced Placement classes, and that guaranteed she was going to be doing more studying than previously. That was at least part of her intention; she needed to get used to the heavier workload she knew she’d be facing if she went to the Air Force Academy, and this was the best way she could think of to do it.

Starting the first day the four friends gathered at their usual table at lunch hour; Autumn broke out a thin cooler that would just fit in her locker, handed out some excellent tortilla wrap sandwiches and potato fritters, along with cups of iced tea. There were envious looks from some of the other students who were faced with the usual tasteless pizza, but all of the four pretended not to notice. The first experiment with the new system went well, but it was easy to see that there was going to be some friendly competition for exotic lunches over the next few months.

It didn’t take them long to get settled into school, mostly because all of them were busy, Bree especially so. She had two, sometimes three cross-country meets a week and occasionally they involved long bus trips, but both she and the team continued to score well; she won several meets outright, and was usually near the top of the finishing order. With the three freshman girls backing her up, they managed to score well as a team, too.

On top of that, she didn’t miss a football game, which ate up another night each week. She had a lot of studying to do, more than she’d ever had before, and she had to work to keep ahead of it.

September passed in a blur like that, one day quickly following another. She only managed to get out in the 1-26 a handful of times, and then only for local flights; there wasn’t time to do anything else. One time when she went out to get the sailplane ready, she noticed her Aunt Jackie had been at work: on the nose there was now a nicely-painted image of the diamond badge, with the dates of her three diamond flights neatly lettered below. Bree thought that wasn’t exactly right; after all, one of her diamonds had been earned in the 1-26 out at Deer Park, but it had still been a 1-26 and the sentiment was right. Once again, it was something to be proud of, although very few people beside glider pilots would ever be able to appreciate it. This little sailplane, more than twice her age, had indeed carried her far.

The football team continued its winning ways. They were even more dominant than they’d been the year before; they were behind only once in the whole regular season, and that on an early-game fluke runback at Rochester, the first time they’d been scored on all season. Five plays later a Howie-to-Jared pass followed by a Jared extra point restored order, and the Marlins never looked back.

The Marlins ended the regular season 9-0 again, with an even better record than the year before. Once again, for the third year in a row, they faced Moffatt Eastern in the pre-regionals, at Spearfish Lake again, and this time the Cougars weren’t quite as arrogant as they’d been in previous years. They’d come up to Spearfish Lake knowing they had their hands full, and indeed they did. Perhaps buck fever on the Cougars part had something to do with it; the Marlins again won in a walkover.

Bree barely made it to the Eastern game; since it was on a Saturday, she had her own regional meet for the cross-country team that morning. Once again, she won it, although not easily; she only made the top spot on a pass in the last hundred meters, and then only by a step or two, but she – and the team – were the regional champions. They knew they’d be missing the next football game, since they’d be heading south to Michigan International Speedway for the state meet the following weekend.

This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.