And The Pilot Dies

The bell rang all too soon for Les. She was happy. Her friends didn’t murder her. Dick didn’t even flinch. She couldn’t help but laugh every time she thought of Donald’s commentary. She hung back talking to her friends, and yes she could really call them her friends now, while Dick had slinked off to Latin. She slid through the door just as the bell was ringing. The teacher didn’t even look up from his screen to register that Les had just slid through the doorway and scampered to her seat by the window.

                Dick sat stoically next to her. She looked up at his face for signs of emotion before turning to her book, empty-handed. “You seem awfully stoic,” she remarked dryly as she turned pages.

                Dick seemed to be busy taking notes, for the first time in his life. He had a sheet of paper that he was frantically scribbling words on in blue ink. “We didn’t have homework last night, did we?” Les asked worriedly as she leaned over to look at his paper.

                “No,” Dick shrugged her off his arm that she was leaning on. He slid the paper under his notebook and returned to looking stoic.

                At the end of class, Les and Dick stood up together. She looked way up at him to ask him to move out of her way, but he looked as though he had something to say. “Hold on,” she said to him as she put a hand inside his elbow to support herself as she climbed onto a chair. She measured herself against him and said, “Continue.”

                Dick reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. He started to give it to Les when Mr. Bowserman noticed Les’s unusual height. “Miss Williams, what do you think you’re doing?”

                “Well if you haven’t noticed, sir, I’m a bit too short to talk to the Big Dick over here.”

                “Get off of there and go to class.”

                Les reluctantly dropped to the floor and Dick had pulled the piece of paper behind his back. As they left with their classmates Leslie tried to deduce the contents of the note. “What is that?”

                “It’s nothing.”

                “No. If it was nothing then you wouldn’t be hiding it from me.”

                “I’m not hiding anything.”

                “Then why don’t you give me the note?”

                “Who said it was a note?”
                “Who said it wasn’t?”

                “Well there is nothing now.” Dick took the paper and crumpled it into a ball before throwing it in Mr. Bowserman’s trash can just as they had left through the doorway.

                “You don’t have to be so childish about it,” Les remarked as they pulled away from class.

                Dick stopped in the hallway before Les noticed, but she quickly turned around and came back to him. He looked down at her and merely asked, “Do you have practice today?”

                “Yes, I usually do.”

                “Okay, well I’ll see you then.”

                Les walked out to the parking lot to not find Dick waiting for her. That wasn’t much of a surprise, but she wondered if he would come at all. She leaned against his little Mazda and waited for him.

                Dick appeared moments later and Les waved to him from her place. He waved as he approached the cars and stood awkwardly in front of her. After a few moments he merely said, “I guess that’s what you meant by ‘not my type.’”

                Les was downtrodden, but then she looked up at him trying and failing to conceal a grin. “Yeah, you’re a bit too tall for me,” she said, concealing her knowledge of the joke.

                “What? No I meant—“

                “You worked on that one all day, didn’t you?” she asked as she laughed at his poorly constructed joke, though she had to appreciate his memory. She went to punch him in the arm, when he hit her first in his friendliest way. She gave off an overdramatic look of shock before hugging him tightly around the waist.

                Dick gasped for breath, “You can let go anytime now.”