Pa turned back toward the controls and started the engine up. Mom stood below on the ground, shaking her head in disapproval.

“Prepare for takeoff!” Pa shouted as the propeller began to spin and the engine rumbled, causing my heart to jump with nervous excitement. Less than a minute later, we lurched forward and began to drive along the endless stretch of grass behind our house. Rolling down the field, our speed increased and the plane zigzagged to each side, as it usually did the minute before we took off. Pa gently pulled back on the stick and I could feel the plane’s wheels lift up off the ground with a jolt as we began our ascent.

As we lifted up and over the cornfields off in the distance,the wind whipped my hair in all directions and the force of gravity pushed me back against the seat as our pace increased and we gained altitude.The air in my lungs plunged to the pit of my stomach as the nose of the plane tilted up toward the clouds,and the earth below dropped farther and farther away from us.

I looked at the altimeter, just like he taught me to. We were at 13,000 feet. I could feel the plane turn to one side. We were about to do a spin.As we tilted toward the left side, I stared down at the world below us. I could see our farmhouse and the neighbor’s horses. The cornfields stretched out in all directions and intricate patterns, and with the sun shining down, it looked like a giant sea of gold thread. It was the first crop of the summer.

Above us, the clouds danced all around, and I imagined what it would be like to live in a house made of clouds. And to eat clouds instead of food. They would taste like cotton candy. Or mashed potatoes.

“Thinking about the clouds again?” Pa yelled at me. I nodded. “You’ll be the next Amelia Earhart, and I’ll make sure of it!” I smiled. Pa always told me things like that. He loved how excited I was about flying.

“Dive, Pa. Please,”I pleaded.

Dives were my favorite. I loved the way they felt. All the breath in my body would leave for a moment, and I would become a little light-headed.It was better than the roller coaster ride at the Iowa State Fair.

“Hold on tight!” Pa yelled. But instead of holding on, I raised my arms high above my head and tried to touch the clouds as they zipped by us, faster than the speed of light.

“We’ll be back!”I told them.

We began to fall downward, and my heart danced. Down, down, down we went,and I allowed my eyes to close as the wind ran its spin- dly fingers through my hair and rippled against my eyelashes. And that’s when the shaking began.

I tried to open my eyes but they wouldn’t budge. Neither would either of my arms. I could feel the wind flapping against my face. It was faster and stronger than I had ever felt it before, and a thundering noise echoed in both of my ears. When I called out for Pa, I couldn’t even hear my own voice.

And then everything suddenly turned to black.

The train pulls up to the station, right on time. The conductor helps lug my trunk up the stairs and into my compartment. I sit down on the gorgeous plush red velvet bench where I will be spending the next 12 hours. I run my fingers over it, realizing how long it has been since I felt anything so wonderful.

Outside the window the Iowa sun is starting to come up all purple and orange over the horizon. I think about Mom and my sister, Charlotte, and I wonder if they are awake yet and if they’ve noticed I’m gone.And then I think about Pa, and it hurts, so I open my trunk and find my favorite and only book I own, West with the Night, by Beryl Markham. I get lost reading about her adventures flying her plane across the Atlantic. Then, without realizing it, I am asleep.

I can never sleep long because the fire always comes.When I doze off, my eyes fill up with orange and red. They burn, and someone is always screaming my name,and my head feels like it’s going to explode. Right before it does, I wake up.

For a moment I am disoriented and forget where I am until the grumbling clatter of the engine jogs my memory, reminding me that I’m on the train.I shake the fire out of my head.My stomach is growl- ing and sore with hunger,so I pull out the apple I pocketed.I am about to take a bite when I look up and become aware of a set of eyes watch- ing me attentively.

A girl is sitting across from me. She is around eighteen, the same age as me.Her hair is a bright shade of auburn-red and her eyes are the color of ginger.She’s wearing a crisp white blouse tucked into a pair of blue pants and freshly polished black and white saddle shoes.I stare at her,realizing I had never seen a girl wearing pants before.Mom would be appalled.

“Got any more food on you?”she suddenly asks,her eyes fixated on the apple in my hand.

Takes me a moment to remember that I also brought a banana. I rummage through my bag and hand it to her. She peels it open and then looks down at my book, which has fallen onto the floor between us. She reaches and picks it up.

“Beryl Markham sure is fearless isn’t she? Imagine, being the first to fly across the Atlantic. I’ve probably read this book at least twenty times myself,”she says,turning the book over in her hands.Gently,she presses her finger on a large brown smudge on the book’s spine.

“Looks like you’ve read this a few times, too.”

The smudge was actually from our oven.I had saved all my money for a month to be able to afford the book. I had to hide it safely away from Mom and Charlotte because it was about flying. One day I was sitting in the kitchen, engrossed as Beryl is about to leave her native land of Africa for her flight across the Atlantic, when the front door opened. I was so involved in my reading, I didn’t hear it. And then Mom came into the room.She had gotten off work early from her shift at the Red Cross because they ran out of bandages for her to roll.

“You’re reading about flying again?” she asked, quickly grabbing it away from me.“You know how I feel about this.Why you keep insist- ing on defying my rules, Bernadette, is beyond me.” She opened the oven door and tossed my book inside. When I snuck back into the kitchen a few hours later to retrieve it, the heat from the gaslight had cooked the spine, leaving a smoldering black mark.

Thinking about it all,I am ready to burst into tears.If the auburn- haired girl wasn’t sitting in my compartment I would be able to close the door and have a nice cry. But instead, I choke back the tears.

“What’s your name?”she asks abruptly.

I hate this question, because I always feel the need to offer an ex- planation after I answer.“Bernadette Thompson. But nobody calls me that, except my Mom. I hate it, actually. She gave me a rich sounding name, hoping it would help me get a rich husband. Everyone calls me Byrd. It’s better that way.”

“Byrd. I like that. So where you headed, Byrd?”

“Texas.”

She laughs. “Well, that I figured. We’re already in Texas, by the way.You must have slept all through Oklahoma. That’s when I got on. You ain’t going to Sweetwater, are you?”

I slowly nod. I didn’t even know we were outside of Iowa yet.

“Me too,” she says, and our eyes meet. And before I know it, the tears start streaming down my face, and for a moment I feel like I’m watching myself from outside of my body.

She sits down next to me.“What’s the matter? Are you nervous about going to Sweetwater?” she asks. And then I know why I am crying.

I shake my head.“It’s just that I’ve never met another woman pilot before,”I tell her, the honesty surprising even myself.“I was convinced I was the only one, except for Amelia Earhart and Beryl Markham. That’s why I’m going to Sweetwater. To find the others. To belong somewhere.”

The girl nods, and when our eyes meet, I know she understands.

We sit together in silence as the train rattles on, taking us closer to our future.