Read Takeoffs and Landings Online
Authors: Margaret Peterson Haddix
Takeoffs and Landings
Also by
MARGARET PETERSON HADDIX
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Among the Impostors:
A Sequel to
Among the Hidden
The Girl with 500 Middle Names
Turnabout
Just Ella
Among the Hidden
Leaving Fishers
Don't You Dare Read This, Mrs. Dunphrey
Running Out of Time
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SIMON & SCHUSTER BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS
An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing Division
1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com
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Copyright © 2001 by Margaret Peterson Haddix
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
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IMON
& S
CHUSTER
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OOKS FOR
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OUNG
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EADERS
is a trademark of Simon & Schuster.
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Book design by Paula Winicur
The text for this book is set in Officina.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Haddix, Margaret Peterson.
Takeoffs and landings / by Margaret Peterson Haddix.
p. cm.
Summary: An overweight, timid fifteen-year-old boy and his popular
fourteen-year-old sister begin to overcome their guilt over their father's
death and reconnect with each other and their emotionally-distant mother
when they accompany her on a two-week speaking tour.
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ISBN 0-689-83299-0
ISBN: 978-1-4424-5779-9 (ebook)
[1. MothersâFiction. 2. Brothers and sistersâFiction. 3. TravelâFiction.
4. Farm lifeâOhioâFiction. 5. OhioâFiction.] I. Title.
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PZ7.H1164 Tak 2001
[Fic]âdc21
00-052222
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With thanks to my brother, John Peterson, for his helpful advice and agricultural information
Lori stared at her lap. They hadn't even gotten on the plane yet, and already her sundress was a mass of wrinkles.
She'd been warned.
“Oh, that won't travel well,” her mom had said when Lori came downstairs for breakfast that morning.
Gram had barely glanced up from flipping pancakes to add, “Why don't you wear one of those outfits your mother bought you?”
That was all Lori needed to hear.
“No,” she said. “I want to wear this.”
She hated the way she sounded saying thatâlike she was four, not fourteen. Gram only made it worse.
“She's so proud of making that dress in 4-H last year. Won an Outstanding of the Day ribbon, you know?” she said to Mom, as if Lori weren't right there listeningâand perfectly able to speak for herself.
Lori wasn't proud of the dress. She knew the right side seam was just the tiniest bit wobbly, and the facing in the bodice never had lain right, no matter how many times Lori smashed it down with the iron. Plus, she was totally sick of the red-and-white flowered pattern of the material. She'd spent so much of last June and July cutting it, pinning it, sewing it, ripping out bad stitches in it. . . . Her hands went sweaty just looking at it. But, with both Mom and Gram suggesting she change, she absolutely had to wear the dress.
Now, sitting in a contoured plastic seat at the airport, waiting to fly to Chicago, she wished she'd just put on one of her new outfits to begin with. Even though they came from Mom, those outfits were cool, in style, right. Already, Lori had seen six other girls wearing shirts and shorts just like the ones folded up in her suitcase. (For the record: No one else was wearing a squashed-up, homemade cotton sundress.) Mom had shopped at the Gap, Old Navy, even Abercrombie & Fitch. Some of Lori's friends would practically kill for the clothes Lori was refusing to wear.
What had she been thinking?
It was too bright in the airport. In the half-light of dawn that morning, as she'd tiptoed down the hall at home to peer in the full-length mirror without waking everyone up, Lori had had everything figured out. Her reflection had been perfect in that mirror. Her light brown hair arced just right, flowing to her shoulders. Her
gray eyes sparkled. None of her stress-zits showed. Half in shadow, the dress was beautiful, perfectly fitted, maybe even the tiniest bit sultry. She'd watched a little fantasy in her mind:
Lori walks into the airport with an air of confidence, striding as casually as if she'd been flying all her life. The crowd parts to make way for her. Everyone is in awe of her beauty, her style, her
je ne sais quoi.
Then someone steps forward. It is an incredibly handsome manâTV-star handsome, movie-star handsome, better looking than any guy in all of Pickford County. His fingers brush Lori's arm, and the mere touch sends a thrill through her body.
(Did that ever really happen outside of romance novels? Lori decided it could.)
“Excuse me,” he whispers. “I am a fashion designer. I must knowâwhere did you get that incredible creation?”
“This old dress?”
In her fantasies, Lori is humble as well as gorgeous.
“I made it. It's a Butterick pattern.”
“Oh, but you have transformed it,” the man says. “You have genius as well as beauty. Will youâ”
And then Lori was stuck. Did she really want this fantasy man admiring her sewing skills? She didn't even like to sew that much. And what was he going to offer her? A job? Not very romantic. A date? Come on, how old would this fantasy man have to be to be a successful fashion designer? She was only fourteen. It was kind of gross if he was too much older than that.
This was a problem Lori often had with fantasies. After a certain point, they just weren't very practical.
Lori might have changed her clothes right then, before she went downstairs. But there was already another fantasy playing in her head:
Lori walks into the kitchen. Mom takes one look at her and stops short.
“You are not wearing that,” she says. “Go change.”
“What's wrong?” Lori taunts her. “Are you ashamed of me? Scared someone will find out you've kept your kids locked up in dinky old Pickford County while you're out traveling the world?”
Maybe Lori really would have had the nerve to say something like that, if Mom had out-and-out ordered her to change.
Maybe not.
Lori and her mother didn't really talk. Oh, they spoke in each other's presenceâ”Please pass the orange juice,” “Can I see your report card?” “Do you want me to do the dishes?”âbut it had been years, probably, since they'd exchanged any words that actually meant anything. Mom was never around long enough for Lori to move from “Please pass the orange juice” to anything she really wanted to say.
Lori toyed with one more fantasy. She could imagine having a different kind of mother, the kind Lori could sit and talk with for hours. The kind who could help Lori figure out what was going on inside her own head. Lori could imagine telling this perfect mother,
You know what? I think maybe Gram was right. I did wear this dress because I was proud of it. I wanted people to see I was the
kind of person who could make her own clothes if she had to. Like I'm as good as anybody out there, outside Pickford County. Noâlike I'm better. How could I have been so stupid? Why didn't anyone tell me how awful I looked?