BRIAN

"Maybe you'd better apologize," I said as the screen door slammed behind us. "Do you think he can get you fired?"

"Not a chance," said Obata. "Whitney's only a vice- president. I'm a test pilot."

"You're a test pilot?"

"Five days a week. Weekends I'm a pilot for the fun of it."

I didn't know what to say to a test pilot.

My sister was playing jacks on the driveway with Meeko. "Hang onto that dog," I said. But for some reason, Meeko didn't seem interested in attacking Obata.

We walked for a while without talking.

Obata said, "Want a cigarette?"

I said, "I don't smoke."

"Mind if I have one?"

"Not at all." Why was a test pilot walking around the block with an ordinary kid like me? "If you're a test pilot," I said, "what are you doing here?"

"Are you kidding? I heard the story and couldn't wait to meet you. I've built a couple of those autogyros myself. The first one took me about a month--working evenings mostly."

"You have to ignore the instructions."

"Don't I know it."

"But you also have to pay close attention to them. Otherwise you end up with extra parts."

"You have to take them with a grain of salt."

"Mr. Obata?"

"Yes?"

"Can I ask you a question?"

"Yes."

"How come? I mean, what are you guys doing here? Don't tell me Whitney couldn't wait to meet me either."

"We want to use you in our advertising."

"What?"

"You know. Brian O'Brien built an autogyro. If he can do it, so can you. And we'll no doubt mention how fast you did it, and let the readers draw their own conclusions."

"I don't get it. The ads you run now say that a nine-year- old could build one in a weekend. I'm older than that, and it took me longer to do it."

"Yes, but you really did build an autogyro. And quickly too. That's a lot more persuasive than a quotation from some journalist who likes to exaggerate. Listen, our mechanics can put a kit together in a few hours. They've done it a thousand times. The journalist watched them do it one afternoon. He's not dishonest. Neither are we. Still, it takes most people a long time to put the kit together."

We talked ourselves around the block. After the first gap in the conversation, there were no embarrassing pauses. Back at home I found Timo sitting in the living room with Mr. Whitney and my father. My mother and grandmother were having their own discussion at the dining room table. My mother had her chair turned sideways. Squirrel was lounging in her lap.

"Your brother's been telling me all about you, Brian," Mr. Whitney put on a big smile and pretended he had never insulted me.

"You can trust Timo to tell a good story," I said.

"Your father has certain objections to my proposition, but your brother has been instrumental in finding answers."

"You mean your company wants to exploit me, and my father objects. But Timo's helping you out."

Whitney gave Obata a dirty look. "Nobody wants to exploit you, Brian."

Obata snorted.

"We intend to give as good as we get," said Whitney.

"Brian," my father said. "They want to let you keep the autogyro."

"And throw in a motor," said Timo. "Better publicity."

I almost didn't want to believe it. I didn't want to have the autogyro taken away again.

"However," my father continued, "I have certain reservations. First of all, as you say, I don't want to see you exploited. I won't have you interviewed on television talk shows."

"Talk shows?" I said.

"I don't care how much money they offer. No television commercials. Notoriety might ruin you. Easy money would ruin you for sure."

"Money's not a dirty word," said Whitney. "How come everybody thinks money's a dirty word?"

"Something else bothers me," said my father. "Any way you look at it, the autogyro came to Brian as a result of a crime. It doesn't seem honest to let him keep it."

Obata said: "The advertising value of Brian's story is a lot higher than the cost of the kit. If anybody's dishonest it's the company, for making such a chintzy deal."

"Still," said my father, "Brian didn't have to work to earn the kit. If I let him keep the autogyro, I'll be teaching him that he can cheat and get something for nothing."

"So I said," Timo interrupted, "let Brian mow the lawn and paint the house and clean the bathroom and wash the car and do the dishes and so on to earn enough credit to pay for the autogyro. A few years of work ought to do it. Meanwhile I can borrow the machine and take some aerial photographs. That way it won't go to waste."

"I have a better idea," said Obata. And I believed him, since practically any idea would have been better than Timo's. "Why not let Brian write the story of how he built the autogyro? Then we could buy it from him. We could use it in our advertising."

"And I could use my pay to buy the autogyro," I said.

"He wouldn't have to go on television or anything like that," said Obata.

"No other obligations?" asked my father.

"Photographs. We'd have to take some photographs."

"It would have to be a pretty detailed story," said my father. "I have to feel that he'd put enough work into it."

"You be the judge," said Obata to my father. "If he doesn't do a good job, the whole deal's off."

"But we can use whatever he writes anyway," said Whitney. "Also, we don't want to wait. We want to start using his name right away."

That night I started writing. My father says I'm doing a pretty good job. Timo says that he could do it better. My mother says I should put in more descriptions of the cat.

Before Whitney left I got him to agree not to press charges against Callie. The computer companies are still pressing charges, though.

Obata said I'd be hearing from him. The next morning the police called and we went to the station to pick up the autogyro. When we got home my mother had a message for me. A mechanic would come over to install the engine. And Obata was going to give me flying lessons.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Some photographers came to take a thousand pictures of me and my autogyro. Ads with my story appeared before I ever got off the ground.

Obata had been married for ten years, but he and his wife didn't have any children. He told me how, in Japanese culture, it is important to have a son. He used to imagine taking his son to baseball games. I went to one game with him, but I can't get excited about sports.

He also used to imagine giving his son flying lessons.

Obata told me to call him Gutso. "G - O - Z - O," he spelled it. "Pronounced Gutso." I could call him Gut if I wanted to. I didn't really want to. But usually when adults ask you if you want to do something, they mean you'd better do it. My mother, for example, says: "Brian, would you like to go downstairs and get me a can of sauerkraut for dinner?" I hate sauerkraut, and I don't especially care to stop whatever I'm doing every time my mother has an inspiration. Ten minutes later, she'll think of beans. Then she'll say, "You don't have to do it right now." But the interruption has already made me forget what I was thinking about, or lose the place in what I was reading. Sometimes she'll say, "Want to cut the grass?" or "Want to wash the windows?" Do I ever want to do these things? But I do them anyway.

Obata seemed to believe that a kid had to listen to a few lectures before he could fly. I appreciate what he did for me. But I expected to go up in the air that Saturday, and instead I had a chance to hear a bunch of stuff I already knew.

Finally he said: "Poor conditions today. Too windy. Eighty percent chance of rain. Besides, you might as well learn from the start that aviation takes a lot of work. You don't just climb in the flying machine and go. If your car breaks down, you get stuck. If your aircraft breaks down, you get squashed like a tomato hit with a baseball bat."

It started to rain.

"You ever jump out of the twentieth floor of a skyscraper? Tomato paste."

We inspected the autogyro.

"You checked it since the cops gave it back?"

"Sort of," I said.

"Sort of? You suicidal or what? You've got to check everything that could go wrong, and then check everything again."

I acted like a robot. I went through the motions in a listless way. I checked every joint, tested every strut.

Then I felt something.

Maybe Zubov did it, or maybe it happened by accident. The master connection between sub-assembly B and sub-assembly C rattled when I tried it.

My mother called out to us from the side door: "Would you two like some tomato soup?"

No thanks, mom. Not right now.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

At last I had my lessons, a good many of them in a two-seat autogyro that made learning easy. Finally came the week I was supposed to go for my first solo flight--towed behind a car, of course, until I got the hang of it.

Timo had his birthday that week. Pizza came over to help eat the cake. I somehow got talked into letting both of them come to the airfield Saturday.

Obata didn't mind. Now he had a whole class to lecture. He started in on the fundamentals of aerodynamics. Timo asked him about aerial photography.

"In a machine like this you have to pay attention," said Obata. "You can't afford to fool around."

I decided not to mention my fantasy about operating a QRP rig from the autogyro.

That day I did get off the ground.

We arrived at the company airfield early in the morning. Nobody else was there. We had all that open asphalt to ourselves. The air was clear and a slight breeze was blowing.

I checked the autogyro one more time. We laid the cable out all the way, 150 feet from the back of Obata's jeep to the front of the flying machine. He had taken the top off his jeep, so Pizza and Timo could kneel in the back and watch me.

I felt the ground move backwards under my wheels before I saw the jeep move forward. Relative to me it wasn't moving--the ground was rolling away behind me. The rotor turned slowly at first, like the big ceiling fans in old movies. The blades produced a loud yet whispery sound. After a minute, I glanced up at them. Nothing but a blur.

The stick I held came up between my legs. It controlled everything. I eased it back and felt the road smooth out. When I realized that I had left the ground already, I relaxed. I must have let the stick move forward again, because I bounced a few times against the runway. I pulled back gradually and lifted off again.

I gained a little altitude and tried to get the feel of the controls. I could bank to the left or to the right simply by moving the stick in the appropriate direction. I saw that Obata was driving in a big clockwise circle around the edge of the empty airfield. I was drifting off to the left. I corrected my course by easing the stick to the right. I felt a little more confident of my control, so I pulled back on the stick and went up a little higher.

The autogyro had no sides--nothing but metal struts. I could look all around me. I could see clouds through the blur of the rotor. Nothing but air came between me and the asphalt. I was wearing a helmet Obata had given me. The airflow was making my eyes water. I pulled my goggles down.

I was also wearing a seatbelt, of course, and a chest strap. Even so, my stomach tried to climb up my throat when I looked straight down. I remembered the debate with my mother.

"It's too dangerous," she said.

But I had statistics. "It's more dangerous to go for a ride in the car," I said. Autogyros don't exactly have the best safety record. But most accidents come from human error, not from any failure of the machine. People land the aircraft and forget that the rotor is still turning. They stand up and get knocked in the head.

An autogyro is quite stable in the air. If the engine fails, it simply glides to the earth unharmed. I told my mother about the stability of the machine. I didn't mention how some people get hit in the head. I intended to behave with good sense. Besides, I'm not quite tall enough for the blades to hit me even if I forget myself and stand up.

Pizza was waving at me. Timo was taking pictures. He wanted the company to use one of his photographs in the ads, but so far they preferred the work of professionals.

After I landed, Pizza said, "It's not even as bad as a roller coaster."

"It's not supposed to be bad," I said.

Aunt Speed came to visit us that evening. She couldn't stay mad forever. She got us all into a game of canasta and distracted us with her version of the ruin of Ireland. The British were to blame for everything my parents didn't like.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Callie had to go to the reformatory. I didn't expect her to do too well. But the reformatory had a few micro-computers and some kids interested in using them. Callie knew more about computers than anybody there. She made friends with some of the toughest kids, and they helped her to survive. She hates the place and never has anything good to say about it in her letters, but I guess she's doing all right.

My father says we can keep Squirrel on a trial basis. He's supposed to teach my sister responsibility and keep the local snakes under control. My mother still calls him Catty. Timo says Meeko's in love with Squirrel. Meeko lets the cat eat his food and curls up next to him when they take a nap. Squirrel doesn't hiss at him any more, unless he's in an especially bad mood.

The company thinks I've done a good job writing the story, and my father agrees that I've earned the right to keep the autogyro.

"Now," said Obata one Saturday in September. "We want you to try another assignment. Do you think you could write a set of instructions?"

"For what?"

"For assembling the autogyro kit."

"What for?"

"You yourself say the old instructions are confusing."

"Why don't you get some technical writer to do it?"

"Did you ever wonder why the instructions are so bad in the first place?"

"Not really."

"I'll tell you. The president of the company wrote them himself. In Japan everybody studies English and the president is extremely proud of how well he speaks it. In Japan you don't tell the boss he's no good. You admire his talent no matter what."

"So what does that have to do with me?"

"We can't replace the president's instructions. But we can include a second set of instructions with every kit. We only need a good excuse."

"You mean you can't tell the president his instructions stink."

"Right. But if you write a set of instructions for us, we can mention it in our ads, and explain it to the president as an advertising gimmick. Then we wouldn't keep getting nasty letters from customers. Bad for business."

"What makes you think I can do it?"

"Give it a try. Then we'll know for sure one way or the other."

"I guess I owe it to you."

"What do you mean?"

"With you giving me flying lessons and all."

I never saw him get mad before, not even when Whitney was giving him a hard time. "Brian, what I teach you comes from one human being to another. I don't do it as part of any bargain. My friendship is not for sale. You don't owe me a thing."

"Well. Maybe I owe it to the company."

"Nonsense. You've already made them more money than the cost of one kit. Sales are up."

"But you want me to do it anyway."

"That's up to you Brian. But I can think of a few reasons why you should. It would be educational."

"Uh huh." When adults want you to eat something, they call it delicious. When they want you to do something, they say it's fun. If it's obviously neither delicious nor fun, they resort to educational.

"And I can think of ways you might use the money."

"You mean they'll pay me for this?"

"Sure. You'll need a savings account full of money to buy gas and make repairs on your autogyro."

So I'm writing a set of instructions now. It's taking a long time. I have to do my homework first, and then my chores. All of these activities are educational. By the end of this winter I'll probably be the most educated pilot in the state.

One cold Saturday in October, I made my first solo flight. The clouds were low that day and dark. As I gained altitude, I felt as if I were coming close to the cloud ceiling. For the first time I was free of the earth.

I forget to pray when I don't happen to be in trouble. This time, for some reason, I remembered. It was peculiar. I gave thanks, sang praise. But I didn't use any words. The way I felt about being there made it a prayer. I can't explain.

It began to snow.

Final Section of Timo's Story.