So I taught Ariel Brentwood to “fly.” Look, those so-called wings they let tourists wear have fifty square feet of lift surface, no controls except warp in the primaries, a built-in dihedral to make them stable as a table, and a few meaningless degrees of hinging to let the wearer think that he is “flying” by waving his arms. The tail is rigid, and canted so that if you stall (almost impossible) you land on your feet. All a tourist does is run a few yards, lift up his feet (he can’t avoid it) and slide down a blanket of air. Then he can tell his grandchildren how he flew, really _flew_, “just like a bird.”
An ape could learn to “fly” that much.
I put myself to the humiliation of strapping on a set of the silly things and had Ariel watch while I swung into the Baby’s Ladder and let it carry me up a hundred feet to show her that you really and truly could “fly” with them. Then I thankfully got rid of them, strapped her into a larger set, and put on my beautiful Storer-Gulls. I had chased Jeff away (two instructors is too many), but when he saw her wing up, he swooped down and landed by us.
I looked up. “You again.”
“Hello, Ariel. Hi, Blip. Say, you’ve got her shoulder straps too tight.”
“Tut, tut,” I said. “One coach at a time, remember? If you want to help, shuck those gaudy fins and put on some gliders then I’ll use you to show how not to. Otherwise get above two hundred feet and stay there; we don’t need any dining lounge pilots.”
Jeff pouted like a brat but Ariel backed me up. “Do what teacher says, Jeff. That’s a good boy.”
He wouldn’t put on gliders but he didn’t stay clear, either. He circled around us, watching, and got bawled out by the flightmaster for cluttering the tourist area.
I admit Ariel was a good pupil. She didn’t even get sore when I suggested that she was rather mature across the hips to balance well; she just said that she had noticed that I had the slimmest behind around there and she envied me. So I quit trying to get her goat, and found myself almost liking her as long as I kept my mind firmly on teaching. She tried hard and learned fast — good reflexes and (despite my dirty crack) good balance. I remarked on it and she admitted diffidently that she had had ballet training.
About mid-afternoon she said, “Could I possibly try real wings?”
“Huh? Gee, Ariel, I don’t think so.”
“Why not?”
There she had me. She had already done all that could be done with those atrocious gliders. If she was to learn more, she had to have real wings. “Ariel, it’s dangerous. It’s not what you’ve been doing, believe me. You might get hurt, even killed.”
“Would you be held responsible?”
“No. You signed a release when you came in.”
“Then I’d like to try it.”
I bit my lip. If she had cracked up without my help, I wouldn’t have shed a tear — but to let her do something too dangerous while she was my pupil. . . well, it smacked of David and Uriah. “Ariel, I can’t stop you . . . but I should put my wings away and not have anything to do with it.”
It was her turn to bite her lip. “If you feel that way, I can’t ask you to coach me. But I still want to. Perhaps Jeff will help me.”
“He probably will,” I blurted out, “if he is as big a fool as I think he is!”
Her company face slipped but she didn’t say anything because just then Jeff stalled in beside us. “What’s the discussion?”
We both tried to tell him and confused him for he got the idea I had suggested it, and started bawling me out. Was I crazy? Was I trying to get Ariel hurt? Didn’t I have any sense?
“_Shut up!_” I yelled, then added quietly but firmly, “Jefferson Hardesty, you wanted me to teach your girl friend, so I agreed. But don’t butt in and don’t think you can get away with talking to me like that. Now beat it! Take wing. Grab air!”