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By Thanksgiving time, George had learned to read short words and add single digits.

She had learned that hair ribbons weren’t just for special occasions, that other mothers actually liked ruffly dresses, and that other girls were learning to sew.

And, after bragging to Helen about helping her mother work on the truck, she learned that her fascination with cars was considered odd.

“But that’s all right,” said Helen. “We just won’t tell anyone else. ”

Instead of the cross-stitch hoop and floss she’d asked for, George received a bicycle for her birthday.

“Can I take it apart?”

“ May I take it apart, and no,” said Adele. “It’s for riding.”

Riding a bicycle sounded hard. George wanted no part of it. She wheeled the bike into the garage and ignored it. Every sunny weekend she prayed that Adele had forgotten its existence, but her mother was relentless.

George straddled the thing and put one foot on a pedal.

“I’ve got you,” said Adele. “Go on, other foot up.” George did as she was told.

A ladybug landed in the middle of the handlebars and crawled toward her right hand.

She watched it, fascinated. Would it climb onto her? Would its tiny legs tickle when it did?

“You’ve got to pedal.” Her mother waggled the bike. The spotted insect raised its orange wings, and George saw that it had plain, more delicate wings beneath the fancy ones. It launched into the air and whirred past her ear.

“Do ladybugs have engines?”

“No. Come on, now. You’ve got to try.”

“Then how do they go?”

“The same way birds and other bugs go—with their wings. Stop stalling and pedal.”

She pedaled, frequently glancing back to make sure her mother hadn’t let go of the seat.

“You’ll never get anywhere if you keep looking behind you,” said Adele.

“I don’t want to get anywhere.” This wasn’t true.

She yearned to fly off with the ladybug.

Which would be much more fun than riding a bicycle.

She pedaled slowly, swiveling her head, looking for the ladybug.

Maybe it would come back. A metallic whine filled the air.

A crop duster buzzed low along the horizon.

George put both feet on the ground to watch it.

“Mother, does that airplane have an engine?”

“Of course. Anything that makes that sound has an engine.”

“Is it bigger than the truck’s engine?”

“I suppose so. But I’ve never seen an airplane engine.”

“Is someone driving it?”

“There’s a pilot flying it. Come on, now. Feet up.”

The plane turned, and George saw the pilot’s head.

She willed him to look at her and wave, but he steered away from them, flew off out of view.

She wanted to ask how he told the plane to turn, but her mother waggled the bike again.

George sighed and put her feet back in place.

The pilot didn’t have to pedal. Lucky him.

“Maybe you should just let her take it apart,” she overheard her father say one night. She couldn’t catch her mother’s muffled response.

The following Saturday, Adele said, “Let’s make a deal. Today you look straight ahead—no looking back at me—and pedal your very hardest. And if you do that three times, you can use my tools and do what you like with the bicycle.”

“Really?” asked George.

“Really.”

On the second try, George made it halfway down the driveway, pedaling hard, before she realized Adele no longer huffed behind her. She stopped pedaling. The bike wobbled. “Mother?”

“Pedal!” yelled her mother from much too far behind her. She steered into the azaleas and let the bike fall.

“That was great, George! You did it!”

“You let go of me!”

“Of course I did. That’s how you learn to ride. And you did it!”

Her mother, that traitor, beamed at her.

“Come on, now. One more time. That was our deal.”

She sighed. Most of the time it was easier to give in and do whatever it was her mother wanted.

“I’ll hold you up to get you started.”

Fine, thought George. I’ll just fall over as soon as she lets go.

Then I’ll be done. But she didn’t fall over.

She kept on pedaling down the long driveway.

Wobbly at first, but steadier as she went.

This time, she didn’t steer into the bushes.

She pumped the pedals faster and felt the wind on her face and the joy of making a machine do what she wanted it to do.

As she neared the end of the drive, she coasted until the bike slowed, then dragged her feet until it stopped.

She walked the bike back to her still-beaming mother. “ Now can I take it apart?”

“Yes, George. Now you may take it apart. Or you could ride it some more. Wasn’t that fun?”

George just glared at her and wheeled the bike into the garage. She heard the crop duster again, buzzing over the neighboring property. A machine that flew—what a thrilling idea.

She took the bike apart and reassembled it, repeatedly.

Occasionally she rode it, but mostly she treated it as a mechanical experiment, adding and removing parts, playing with the gear configuration and the brake rods.

Over the next several years, she did the same with any other machinery her parents allowed her to mess with.

She never mentioned this hobby to the girls at school. Only Helen knew. “That’s fine, George,” Helen said. “I mean, it isn’t surprising, considering your mother. But we’ve got to do something about your fingernails.”

Helen rubbed her thumbs across George’s nails. Each cuticle was rimmed with a thin, dark line of motor oil. No matter how hard George scrubbed, she could never get them to look clean like Helen’s.

She was fretting about the state of her nails, and the fact that she’d worn a skirt with no pockets where she could hide her hands, as she and Helen, now both fifteen, strolled the fairgrounds looking for boys they knew.

“Or might want to know,” Helen added. George was terrified of unknown boys, and even of some she knew, but she trailed in Helen’s perfumed wake, trying to look game and keeping her hands out of sight.

An engine roared above them. The plane buzzed low over the crowd. “Oh!” said Helen. “A barnstormer! The boys will be over at the airfield. Let’s go!”

At the airfield, the boys had no attention to spare for girls. George had none to spare for them either. Not with the plane rocketing high above them, corkscrewing down into a dive, then pulling its nose up and climbing again.

The barnstormer flew figure eights and loop-de-loops.

George felt as if she herself were at the controls, sending the plane higher and higher, tracing beautiful curves in the sky.

All too soon, the plane landed and taxied to a stop in the middle of the field.

The pilot climbed out and pulled off his leather cap and goggles.

The crowd gasped to see a cascade of dark hair tumble down.

The boys hooted and whistled as the lady pilot took a bow.

Then she pulled a lipstick from her pocket and applied a touch-up.

She wasn’t as tall as George—other than Adele, George never saw women who were—but as the pilot strode toward the crowd, she gave the impression of towering over everyone else.

There was nothing soft or retreating or .

.. ladylike ... about her posture, and yet, she seemed every inch a lady.

It was only her clothing—jodhpurs and a man’s leather jacket—that had fooled everyone into believing she was a man.

She began signing autographs. George had nothing for her to sign but pushed toward her anyway.

“Georgeanne, where are you going?” asked Helen.

“To meet the pilot.”

Watching the plane as it spiraled and swooped above the crowd, George wished she were up in the sky, commanding the machine herself.

Despite having Adele for a mother, she had immediately written off this longing as impossible, simply because she had the misfortune to be female.

But this pilot’s very existence said otherwise.

She wasn’t exactly sure what she’d say when she reached the front of the line—she only knew she had to meet this lady pilot.

Some of the boys also wanted to meet her, so Helen didn’t argue.

While they waited their turn, a mechanic checked over the plane. Once he was satisfied, he set up a signboard. Airplane Rides $3. George regretted the funnel cake she’d bought earlier. She was twenty-five cents short. “Helen, do you have a quarter?”

Helen was too busy tossing her hair for Frank Bridlemile to respond.

“What do you want a quarter for?” asked Frank, turning his attention to George.

“Really, George.” Helen scowled at her. “You can’t possibly be hungry again. Not after all that funnel cake.”

“I’m not,” she lied. She was always hungry, which was embarrassing.

Almost as embarrassing as being too tall.

“I need it for that.” She waved a hand toward the Airplane Rides $3 sign and quickly wished she hadn’t.

Three dollars was a fortune. Especially these days.

Especially for some of the boys standing around Helen.

George understood that recent years had been brutal for certain families in a way they hadn’t been for hers and for Helen’s.

Adele insisted George and Helen must always bear this in mind but never, ever speak it aloud.

Asking for a quarter, along with admitting she had purchased food from a stand, rather than bringing a biscuit from home, was basically speaking aloud what should have remained unspoken.

Frank’s family didn’t have much—George suspected he’d be lucky to find a lonesome dime in his pocket. So she didn’t take offense when he said, “You’d have to pay me to go up in that plane with a woman flying it.”

“Georgeanne Ector, you can’t be serious,” said Helen.

“I’m completely serious.”

Frank’s attention settled on her now. “Wowza, George. Hey, you know, you have the strangest eyes.”