Lena Earns Her Wings E-Book

Judith E. Spörl

• Herausgeber: tredition
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 309

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

Lena used to be able to talk about anything, anytime with her best friend Kim - school, other friends, hobbies, love, boys… But since Kim moved away, everything's just boring and tedious - until Lena stumbles across gliding and dives in head first! The airfield is a new world for Lena: freedom, independence, endeavour, achievement, belonging to the airfield-family… and then there's Maxl… Lena's heart beats faster whenever he turns up. Hopefully she won't crash-land! And how does a girl find a new best friend? Fly with Lena and share her exciting times at the airfield. A book for exceptional girls with a yearning for adventure!

Leseprobe

Judith E. Spörl

Lena Earns Her Wings

Translated by Brendan English Cover and illustrations by Doreen Goedhart

© 2018 Judith E. Spörl

Cover and illustrations by Doreen Goedhart

Translation by Brendan English

Proof Reading by James Cowling, David English, Joanna Rain Vincent, Abbey Martin, Marie English, Ailsa McMillan

ISBN

Paperback:

978-3-7439-4676-7

Hardcover:

978-3-7439-4677-4

e-Book:

978-3-7439-4678-1

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher and author.

For Merle

1. At School

It was much too warm and stuffy in the classroom. Lena and her classmates had been breathing stale, stagnant air and concentrating, more or less, on their English for over an hour. Outside, a typical German April snow flurry was sweeping over the schoolyard. Mrs Ott, their year 8 English teacher, didn’t want any windows opened in this weather. While the students sweated over their test, she sat there, frozen as ever, and sipped at a cup of milky tea. It was a strange old habit of hers. She never came to class without a large thermos of tea.

Naturally everyone had suspected that there might be more than just tea in the thermos at first, until one time, one of the boys had dared to have a taste when Mrs Ott was out for a while. Disappointingly it hadn’t turned out to be an alcoholic delicacy. It really was just tea with milk as was only proper for a true Briton.

‘Only another ten minutes kids, time is ticking!’ trilled Mrs Ott. Lena sighed. Isabella, who was sitting next to her, stretched her back briefly, pulled her blond ponytail up a bit tighter and bent over her work again.

I wonder what Kim is doing right now? Lena’s thoughts drifted off. I wonder if she already has new friends? In an email Kim had vaguely said the new school was OK. Kim’s family had moved from Holzhausen to Berlin two months ago. Her father had been transferred at work. Kim planned to visit Lena in the spring and summer school holidays and in the meantime they kept each other busy with emails. Lena kept Kim up to date with every detail from school, especially about Philipp. Kim had ahuuugecrush on Philipp. Lena glanced briefly behind her. At that moment Philipp was staring at the back of Isabella’s head with a vacant expression on his face. When he noticed that Lena had caught him at it, he grimaced and kept writing. So hewasafter Isabella after all. She should have known. Lena started composing her next mail to Kim in her imagination.

Once, they had all been a cool clique. Kim, Lena, Philipp (who lived three doors down), Philipp’s buddy Martin and Isabella with her shadow and best friend Katy. Somehow that had all melted away. Philipp was always somewhere or other with his football team, presumably dragging Martin along with him. Isabella and Katy were just, simply, annoying. They acted like overly chic smart alecs all of a sudden. They were somehow totally “in”. That wasn’t Lena’s world. Now Kim had moved away too! Philipp wasn’t much better than Isabella, so very cool and full of himself. Isabella and Katy lapped it up, at least they were always giggling whenever he was nearby. Martin didn’t seem to mind as much as Lena did though.

‘Have you finished, dear?’ asked Mrs Ott.

Lena had been daydreaming and hadn’t written anything for several minutes. She blushed.

‘Sorry Mrs Ott.’ Lena mumbled her apology and quickly scribbled the last few sentences before the bell rang. Mrs Ott always used English in class and expected the pupils to do so too.

‘Everybody put down your pens now!’ called Mrs Ott over the rising din. The first few students were already handing in their papers and charging out the door. Others were still trying to squeeze out one or two extra points in the last few seconds. Lena laid her work on the stack on the teacher’s desk and followed Isabella and the others outside. Isabella immediately started chewing over the whole test with Katy.

‘What did you put for number 9...yeah I don’t know, it was likesoeasy, did I miss something or what?’

Lena rolled her eyes and hurried to overtake them. She hated these post mortems. It was done now and that was good. She didn’t want to let herself be driven crazy by hearing any more about it. One music class to go and it would be the weekend.

After Music, Lena was first onto the school bus to Holzhausen and hid herself in the corner of the last seat. She pulled a thick book out of her bag and buried herself in the story. Without Kim, her favourite pastime had become reading. Lena’s mother worked in a bookshop, so she had no shortage of books. The bus would have to take a long circuitous route to Holzhausen. There were a lot of stops to make on the way, so Lena had almost half an hour’s reading time. Isabella held court up the front of the bus and was the centre of attention as usual. Lena realized, not quite without envy, that Katy, Philipp, a couple of his football mates, Martin, everyone and everything naturally revolved around Isabella.

She buried her nose deeper in her book.

Lena, actually her full name was Lena Maria Reisenberg, lived with her mother Barbara, Barbara’s partner Johannes, and Lena’s seven-year-old half brother Jakob. Her parents had split up when she was still quite small. However, she had a very good relationship with her father, Paul Reisenberg. Fortunately, her parents had managed to part on good terms. When Jakob had arrived on the scene, the patchwork family had moved into a semidetached house in Holzhausen. Johannes didn’t have too far to go from there to the hospital where he worked as a ward physician.

Paul Reisenberg lived some distance away from Holzhausen. He was a pilot with a private company and always travelled a lot. Paul came to Holzhausen two or three times a month and he and Lena always did something together: cinema, swimming or just ambling around and talking. Sometimes on the weekends, Lena went to his place in Kirchheim. She got on well with his partner Regina and the three of them went walking or cycling together. A few times they had even taken Jakob along. He found it so unfair that his big sister always got to go on these special outings without him.

Lena was glad when the bus finally arrived. She let the others get ahead of her and slowly dawdled home. Grandma Liesl, Barbara’s mother, was bustling around in the kitchen frying potato pancakes. Lena gave her a kiss on the cheek on the way past.

‘Hello Grandma!’

Jakob was already sitting at the kitchen table munching appreciatively with his mouth full.

‘Hello Sweetie,’ Grandma Liesl greeted her cheerfully. ‘Come here and sit down! Your mother’s coming later. How was school? Your father called, he says he’ll pick you up on Sunday morning and – Jakob get your fingers out of the apple sauce, the spoon is THERE and…’

‘I want to go too,’ interrupted Jakob, unmoved, with a whine, and continued to make a mess of the applesauce.

‘Don’t be silly, you don’t even know what they’re going to do dear, just you wait and see – and Lena your mother says you should please make sure you get out the books, she says you know which ones, for the flea market on Saturday, and you got an email from Kim, she wants to call you tonight – Jakob please!’

‘But I want to go Grandma.’

‘Work it out with Paul, you’ll see him on Sunday morning

anyway. Now come on Lena, sweetie, you haven’t told us about your day yet. Do you want sugar?’

Lena sighed and started eating. She let Jakob and Grandma talk on. She couldn’t get a word in edgeways anyhow. Straight after the meal, she briefly talked about her day at school and then ran up to her room.

2. Missing Kim

‘Where’s the box with the fantasy stories, Lena?’ asked Barbara on Saturday morning. They had already put loads of cartons in the bookshop delivery van. Johannes was just bringing the next box up from the basement.

‘It’s already here, Mama.’ All year they collected second hand books donated by friends and family for the spring flea market. The bookshop, where Lena’s mother worked, held the flea market and the proceeds were given to charity.

Lena liked flea markets and enjoyed coming along and helping her mother every year. What she liked best though was fossicking around in the crates of old stories for herself. She always came home with a huge stack of new books.

This year she was also supposed to keep a lookout for new titles for Kim, who had given her a long list. They had talked on the phone last night – and afterwards Kim had written everything out again in detail in an email.

On the phone she had been quite ecstatic. Philipp had actually emailed her as well, now Kim was totally over the moon and even more infatuated than ever.

Lena had listened to her endless rave. Kim had been diligently deaf to the fact that Philipp had been worshiping Isabella’s ponytail in class. His arrogant behaviour didn’t disturb her overly either. She analyzed every word of his mail and wanted Lena to tell her how she should answer. Lena found that quite uncomfortable.

‘Just write something about your new school,’ she advised cautiously.

She was glad to be able to distract Kim a little with the flea market. Had Kim been here they could have worked over the subject much more easily. She and Kim would have gone to the flea market together, Grandma would have brought them warm apple pies and a pot of tea, they would have first made themselves quite comfortable behind the display table and then been able to talk freely. Mornings were often not so busy. Over such a distance though, she was starting to find her best friend’s enthusiasm somewhat trying.

Soon all the boxes were in the van and they headed off. It was cold again, but it had finally stopped snowing. Lena had pulled on a parka over her denim jacket as well as gloves and a woolly hat. She didn’t like how she looked in that outfit at all. Generally she never wore a beanie. She didn’t think it suited her.

‘Like the Michelin Man,’ she railed. Her mother remained adamant though:

‘You’ll be standing around outside the whole day, IF YOU PLEASE!’ By her tone of voice, she clearly wouldn’t tolerate further objection. Two single strands of Lena’s brown curly hair, her large brown eyes, and her nose were still visible. The rest of her was completely bundled up.

The book table was quickly set up. Barbara was still moving the car. Lena pushed the unpacked boxes under the table and distributed the books. Apart from themselves, other helpers were busy setting up and the first curious customers were already out and about looking for the best bargains.

Johannes and Jakob were going to come along later. They were sure to be at home making the most of the opportunity to play on the computer. Lena’s mother didn’t think much of that. She often sent the boys outside and of course it was always just at the moment that they found the most exciting.

Barbara came back with two steaming mugs.

‘I’ve brought hot cocoa. Here you go. Brr, it’s fresh today.’

They both held their noses over their mugs and inhaled the warm steam, ‘Do you want to take a look around for yourself Lena? It’s not so full yet!’ Lena sipped her cocoa. It was good.

‘OK, I’ll go soon.’

A little later she meandered off with Kim’s list. Only two stands along she found the first book for Kim and another two for herself. The atmosphere at the flea market was friendly. Most of the visitors already knew each other from previous years.

Out of the corner of her eye, Lena saw that her mother too was already chatting to the other sellers and the first customers were looking through her books.

‘Hiii Lena!’ Someone called to her all of a sudden, ‘you here again too? Let’s see that. What’ve you found already?’

Lena turned around to see Isabella standing there, complete with flicking ponytail, pink earmuffs and a bright red jacket.

Of course, Lena realized, she was here last year too.

At the sight of Isabella, Lena mentally cursed her thick beanie and shapeless parka.

‘Our stand’s over there,

we’ve already sold heaps; I won’t have to stand around here much longer today. It’s such a drag, but my mother insists on it,’ sighed Isabella theatrically and glanced at the books in Lena’s hands.

‘No way! They can’t be for you surely? I read them all two years ago. We’ve got one of those subscriptions you know.’

‘Err,’ answered Lena feebly ‘I don’t know, I think they’re OK, and this is for Kim, I’m still looking around …’

‘Oh yeah Kim,’ interrupted Isabella, ‘haven’t heard from her for ages, how’s she doing these days? But tell me, your mother works in the bookshop, you’re virtually at the source. Oh, here comes Philipp. About time too, I’m freezing, we’re going into town you know.’

Sure enough, Philipp was casually walking towards them with his hands buried deep in his pockets. He had his long dark hair tied back and his ears were bright red from the cold.

‘Hi girls.’ He kissed Isabella on the cheek and nodded to Lena. ‘Can we go?’ he asked Isabella.

‘No, I’m sure my mother won’t let me go yet, but you have to give us a hand to move the table further into the sun anyway, come on! Ciao Lena, see you later. Why don’t you have a look on our stand? You’re sure to find cooler books there.’

Lena shifted her gaze from Isabella to Philipp, dumbfounded. Isabella had taken Philipp’s hand and was snuggling up beside him.

‘Hey Philipp,’ Lena had composed herself quickly and remembered her brief, ‘Kim said to say hello. She was very glad to get your email.’ Isabella frowned. Philipp blushed.

‘Are you coming?’ Isabella was already pulling him away and the two of them disappeared into the maze of book tables.

Lena snorted angrily. Who did that bimbo think she was anyway? What you read might be important, but when you read it certainly wasn’t. What was the smug, superior act all about? What about Philipp? Did he really think that was so great? Yeah, and what about Kim? Lena’s mood was thoroughly ruined. She so wished she had been quicker on the comeback and retaliated better. What would Kim have to say about the whole story?

Lena looked around for a bit longer, but she gave Isabella’s table a wide berth. Later she saw Philipp and Isabella leaving the flea market, headed for town arm in arm. She scuttled back to her own bookstall and slammed the new books into one of the empty cartons.

‘Tell me dear, you’ve got a terrible scowl on your face, what’s wrong?’ wondered her mother.

‘Mama, can I maybe go home early with Johannes and Jakob, the whole thing’s not so much fun this year somehow and it’s so cold and …’ Barbara looked at her daughter sympathetically. She could imagine where this change of mood had come from.

‘Of course Lena, you’re missing Kim, hmm? It’s not the same, is it? Today’s not as busy as usual, I’ll manage.’

Lena sighed, ‘Thanks Mami, you’re right, somehow or other everything’s just,’ she paused, ‘pointless.’

Barbara grinned,

‘Yeah yeah, it’ll work out all right. Tomorrow you’ll be out with your dad. You’ll find other things to think about.’

3. A Surprise at the Airfield

On Sunday morning at Moorbach airfield, Lena was freezing. She had now been standing beside a Cessna, a small single engine aircraft, in the hangar for half an hour. She was bored and the shoptalk about planes and engines irritated her. It was her day, what was going on?

‘We’ll just drop in quickly, I have to give these papers to a friend.’ Dad had said on the way to the airfield. He had picked her up in the morning at home as agreed and then treated her to breakfast at the Waldcafé. Jakob had stayed home under protest. After breakfast they had gone to the airfield.

Lena was still in a bad mood about Isabella. Of course she had called Kim straight away yesterday afternoon and told her everything. Kim had been upset too, but said she wanted to answer Philipp’s email as if nothing had happened and not mention it. They had both thought that was the smartest move.

‘He’ll find out soon enough what a cow she is,’ Kim had said. She’d sounded more dejected than self-assured as she said it though.

Lena was correspondingly pensive and uncommunicative today. Her father came to terms with that cheerfully enough, however. They had cinema tickets for the afternoon.

‘I’ll just go and look around outside,’ she called to the men, who were leaning under the wing and tinkering with something or other.

‘Yeah yeah, I’ll be finished in a moment,’ answered her father absent-mindedly.

Lena stepped back outside the hangar door. It was a wonderful clear day with puffy white clouds, but she still found it quite cold and windy. Outside the hangar was a huge asphalted area. On the edge of the asphalt were two fuel pumps for filling the planes. Further away behind the pumps, near the airfield entrance was another large hangar. Its doors were wide open, and it was mostly empty. There were only two planes, right at the back. An asphalt path for the planes ran between the areas in front of each hangar towards the runway. That was why they had walked around the outside of the hangar for safety earlier. Beside the other hangar there was a kind of kiosk or clubhouse. Lena wasn’t sure if she could walk straight over or had to go around the outside again. The warning signs had been only outside the airfield, but she was inside now, wasn’t she? She couldn’t see anything anywhere. From somewhere behind the hangar she could hear engine noises.

For a couple more minutes, Lena stood around feeling uncertain. Just as she was about to muster her courage and simply march over, a completely rusted out, ancient hatchback car shot around the corner with its motor screaming. Lena took a step backwards, shocked. The car pulled up at the pumps with a tyre chirp. Then the engine stalled. The old car hopped forward one last time and then came to a stop. The driver’s door opened and to Lena’s infinite astonishment, a tall lanky boy with brown hair, glasses and a thousand pimples sprang out: Philipp’s best friend, Martin.

Martin waved to her a little awkwardly. He was red in the face. ‘Hi Lena! What are you doing here? Cool wheels, hey? I haven’t quite got the hang of changing down yet, the brakes are so old, we’re not really supposed to go so fast...’

‘Martin, are you mad? You’re not allowed to drive a car alone!

What are you doing?’ replied Lena indignantly, still a little shocked. She walked over to Martin and the car. A strange looking contraption was fitted to the roof: a heavy metal bar with two hooks, one on the left and one on the right. ‘What is THAT thing?’ she asked, curious in spite of herself, and added: ‘Oh yeah, hello, I’m here with my father, he’s tinkering with something or other with a friend in the hangar and won’t finish.’ In the meantime Martin had started fuelling up the car. Lena looked on. She was quite impressed.

‘Oh, we all have to be able to drive here or we’d never get anywhere, you know? Retrieving cables, launch point bus and so on. It’s private land after all, it’s allowed. And they’re all only old bombs – this is our Lepo,’ said Martin. Lena didn’t understand a word.

‘Your what? What are you all doing here anyway?’

‘Gliding of course, what do you think? We tow out the winch cables with the Lepo1here, we have to get off the ground somehow – and it’s called aLepojust because it’s Opel backwards, you know, the brand of car,’ grinned Martin, hanging the hose back on the fuel pump.

‘YOU can fly?’ Lena couldn’t help being astonished. ‘You’re only fourteen, is that possible? Is Philipp here too? I always thought you played football,’ she asked, wide-eyed.

‘Ah don’t be silly, you know Philipp has nothing in his head but football,’ replied Martin.

‘I thought you both…’ said Lena.

‘Nah,’ Martin cut in, ‘not really, I’m not so fast, and anyway…’

He blushed again and was silent for a moment, then he set about explaining, ‘I’m learning. I fly with an instructor in a two-seater. I’ve been allowed to fly since autumn last year when I turned 14. It’s so cool.’

‘For real?’ Lena was lost for words. Somehow she wouldn’t have thought Martin was capable of doing anything like that. He was in his element.

‘Do you want to come to the launch point?’ he asked excitedly, ‘I’ll show you everything. Your dad will need a while yet for sure, Lima Zulu has been out of service for ages…’

‘Um…’ Lena didn’t understand everything he’d said, ‘OK, I’ll just quickly ask.’ She flitted back into the Hangar. The men were still discussing the problem.

Her father thought it was a great idea.

‘I’ll follow you in a little while.’

When Lena came back out, Martin had already started the engine.

‘Are you really sure you know what you’re doing?’ she asked dubiously as she got in. Martin grinned and set off.

The launch point was at the other end of the airfield.

‘Why don’t you take off from the asphalt runway right in front of the Hangars?’ asked Lena, ‘wouldn’t that be more practical?’

‘Then we’d be launching to the East,’ explained Martin, ‘from Zero Niner, that’s what that runway direction’s called, that means on a heading of 090 degrees if you imagine the points of a compass. But aircraft always have to take off into the wind, otherwise they won’t develop the proper lift. Today we have a west wind, so we’re taking off on a heading of 270 degrees, from runway Two Seven. Understand? And we often launch the gliders from the grass runway – after landing it always takes a while to push the glider back with the others, on the grass we don’t block the asphalt runway for the power planes.’

‘Ah-ha, I get it! Now I understand. I’ve never really thought about it – did you learn all that here?’ Lena was amazed.

‘I’ve always thought flying was fantastic,’ answered Martin, ‘and you can learn everything here. We’ve got four gliding instructors in the club, so usually one has time to train with us at weekends. In winter there’s theory lessons once a week and you have to practice for the radio licence too. We maintain our own gliders as well, the weather’s too cold anyway and there’s no thermals.’

‘No what?’ Lena couldn’t keep up – he seemed to know such a lot about it…

‘Thermals – rising air masses, for example when the sun heats up the ground in a field and the ground heats the air above it. Then the warm air rises – that rising air mass is the thermal. You try to find thermals like that in the glider. Then you circle in them, climb with the air to gain height and once you’ve got the height, you can glide on. You have to work your way from one thermal to the next to get along.’

‘Wow – that sounds pretty complicated. So how do you know when you’ve go to the top? It sounds a bit like a lift. And what if you don’t find any thermals?’ marvelled Lena.

‘Oh you can see that, you have a vario in the cockpit, it tells you: zero lift. Good pilots can feel it anyway, in their behind so to speak. And if you don’t find anything, you have to land. Back at the airfield if you’re not too far away, or in a field if you are. But you should only fly further away when the weather’s right!’ Martin warmed to his subject. He was really proud to be able to explain everything to Lena.

1 You can find explanations of aeronautical details at the back of the book!

4. At the Launch Point

They had arrived at the launch point, where the gliders took off. A couple of cars were parked a few hundred metres further along the asphalt runway from the hangars, near the trees. In front of the cars were a camping table and a few chairs under a beach umbrella. Three gliders were waiting to one side, parallel to the runway. The two at the back had one wing tip weighed down with an old tyre. Several people were standing and sitting around the table. Two men were sitting in the front glider. A boy who might have been about Martin’s age stood at the wing tip and seemed to be waiting for something to happen. He had just put his free arm up in the air vertically. Martin brought the car to a stop and managed to stall the engine again.

‘Oops, sorry. We’re here,’ he announced, ‘come on!’ They got out and walked towards the table. At that moment the glider moved and the boy at the wing tip started to run. The glider picked up speed amazingly quickly and the boy let go of the wing. After only a few metres the glider shot up into the air almost vertically. Only now did Lena see that there was a rope hanging from underneath the glider. The other end must have been somewhere at the other end of the airfield.

‘Cool,’ said Lena in amazement, ‘does it always go up so steeply?’ The glider climbed into the sky like a kite on a string. When it had apparently gone as high as it could on the rope, it tipped forward into a normal flight attitude and the rope fell back to the ground, getting shorter all the way.

‘That’s a winch launch, the winch pulls in the cable and the glider climbs till the cable gets released at the highest point. It looks dramatic, but you get used to it pretty quickly. That was our two-seater, the good old 21, it’s our trainer, an ASK-21.’

‘Martin, there you are, will you retrieve the cables? Oh – you’ve brought a visitor! Hello, I’m Marianne.’ A young woman came towards her and offered Lena her hand.

‘This is Lena, from my class at school,’ Martin introduced her. ‘Her father’s working on Lima Zulu with Mikey, out the back.’

‘Yeah that can take some time,’ laughed Marianne.

‘Come with me to the launch table Lena, Martin will be back in a minute. Have you been to a gliding field before?’

‘No, never,’ answered Lena, following her. Martin climbed back into the Lepo and belted away, this time along the grass runway.

‘Come on boys, make room, we’ve got a visitor – this is Lena, a school friend of Martin’s, she’ll be watching us for a while.’ Marianne sat down. On the table in front of her sat an antiquated telephone, a two-way radio and a couple of lists. She pointed to the chair beside her. A tall, grey-haired, extremely thin man was just getting up from it.

‘Hello,’ Lena nodded to the group in general.

‘And good day to you… now let’s see here,’ the grey-haired man shook her hand. ‘I’m Piet and this is Stefan, Karl, Bolle and Markus – but you don’t need to remember their names, they can’t.’ He winked at her.

The boys mumbled some greeting or other and started pushing the second glider onto the runway.

‘I’m Lena, my father is out the back in the hangar with Mike…’ began Lena, by way of explaining her sudden appearance.

‘No! You’re SMALL PAUL’s kid? Well, it’s about time he brought you along! I’ve known your dad for twenty-five years; he came here to learn to fly back then. Hasn’t been here for ages – always the same when they grow up, no time, no time… oh yeah…’ Piet was really pleased and was still gripping Lena’s hand.

‘Look out Lena, you can prepare yourself for a long story now,’ grinned Marianne. ‘When old Piet gets going there’s no stopping him.’

‘Why is he called SMALL Paul?’ asked Lena curiously.

‘Back then, we had two Pauls in the club and your father was a pipsqueak 14-year-old when he started – he always had to fly with lead weights or the centre of gravity wouldn’t have been right. So he picked up the name pretty quickly, and he kept it too when he got bigger.’ Piet had let go of Lena’s hand and sat down on the other side of the table. The Lepo came back into view along the grass runway.

‘Look, Martin’s back with the winch cables,’ said Marianne. The Lepo drove up the grass runway and stopped just in front of the glider. A cable hung from each side of the roof. At the other end of the airfield, Lena could just make out a kind of truck. Attached to the truck were two drums with the rest of the cables wound on to them. Apparently that was the winch.

‘What’s that hanging on the ends of the cables?’ asked Lena.

‘Parachutes,’ explained Marianne, ‘otherwise the cable would fall to earth much too quickly after we release, and the winch wouldn’t have time to roll it up properly.’

‘Have you ever flown in a glider with your father?’ enquired Piet. Lena shook her head.

‘No, I didn’t even know he flew gliders, it never came up.’

‘I don’t think Paul’s still actively involved,’ said Marianne,

‘what with the shift work in his job he really wouldn’t have much time for the club at the weekends any more. And he surely hasn’t got a private plane hidden away anywhere either…?’

‘No, definitely not,’ confirmed Lena.

‘Well then Lena, it’s about time young lady!’ exclaimed Piet, laughing. ‘What do you say to us two good-looking types taking a turn together?’

‘What? I don’t understand…’ At first Lena didn’t know what he meant. Then the penny dropped.

‘Oh, you mean in the glider? Can we really fly, just like that?’ She was wide-eyed again.

‘Well, Lena, in a few moments our 21 will be back, then we’ll sit you in and off we go! You have never sat in a glider and that state of affairs must not be allowed to continue. It will be my honour, young lady. And I’ll let your father know what I think of his negligence later.’

‘Piet, you don’t miss a trick, do you?’ Marianne chided him, ‘she might not even want to fly. Leave her to just sit and watch what we do here for a while in her own time.’ Then, turning deftly to Lena, ‘but if you really would like to – Piet is our oldest and best instructor. You really can get in with him anytime without thinking twice. Oh wait – the K8’s ready.’

In the meantime, one of the gliders was now ready to fly. Martin had attached one of the cables to it and was driving the Lepo around behind the launch table. The other boys stood behind the glider and one had taken up position at the wingtip. Marianne reached for the radio:

‘Moorbach Info, a glider launch.’

‘Launch area clear,’ came the crackling answer.

Now Marianne picked up the telephone handset and turned a crank handle on the phone body where the keypad should have been with her other hand.

‘Right, we’ve got the K8 on the north cable ready to launch.’

‘So, how’s it going?’ Martin sat down next to Lena.

‘Take up slack,’ directed Marianne over the phone. The cable started to move forwards slowly in the grass. ‘All out! All out!’ The glider rolled forwards and the boy started to run again. The glider was in the air in a moment. Everyone watched the launch until the cable was released. Marianne put down the phone.

The cable sailed back towards the winch under its parachute, the rotating drum on the truck pulling it in.

‘Those are the winch launch commands, our Maxl’s driving the winch today, the commands tell him when to put on the power and so on,’ Marianne explained.

‘Well? Have you thought about it?’ asked Piet.

‘Thought about what?’ Martin wanted to know.

‘Well, actually, I think I’d really like to have a go,’ said Lena tentatively.

‘Well that’s settled then, Lena. It looks like there might already be a few bubbles, thermals you understand, with a bit of luck we can stay up for a while,’ beamed Piet.

‘You’re flying with Piet? I should have known. Leave them alone together for two minutes – you would never have done that with me,’ quipped Martin.

‘Ah, but you’re not Paul’s daughter. Why don’t you run along and help the others push the 21 back?’ retorted Piet. The larger glider had landed, and the other boys were already helping to push.

‘Yes Sir!’ Martin saluted with a laugh and hurried away.

‘You’ve always got to keep those boys busy or they only get up to no good,’ said Piet with a twinkle in his eye. ‘Come on Lena, we have to tell Fritz he’s having a break now.’

A younger man wearing a white sun hat and a parachute was walking alongside the glider as it was being pushed back.

‘Fritz, take a break from circuits! I’ve got a guest here to fly,’ Piet called to him.

‘In that case…’ Fritz shed the parachute and walked towards them.

‘Thank you my friend,’ Piet accepted the parachute and pulled it on directly.

Lena was shocked.

‘Is it that dangerous, that we have to wear parachutes?’ she asked.

‘Nah, they’re only really important when you leave the training area and fly cross country and thermal with lots of other gliders. Then you can get really close to the others – and faster than you’d like, so it’s nice to have one with you,’ Piet attempted to reassure her.

Lena wasn’t quite convinced, but she didn’t want to chicken out now. The two-seater had arrived back at the launch point and Martin helped her on with the parachute.

‘Martin, would you get the lead for us please? Lena takes after her father, we’ll need to pack in some extra weight,’ said Piet grinning. Then he briefly explained the cockpit and the various handles, buttons and levers. By now, Lena was so excited, she couldn’t take anything in – most important was where she could hang on and what she shouldn’t touch at all. Martin bolted the lead into the cockpit floor and then Lena could get in. Piet was already sitting in the back, putting on his harness. Martin helped her do the harness up. There was not only a lap belt, but also shoulder harnesses and a middle strap between the legs.

‘So, Lena, sitting comfortably? Nothing pinching? You can hang on here for the launch or just grab your shoulder harness – the first time is pretty exciting. And in case you need it later – there’s a sick bag here in the pocket,’ explained Martin considerately.

‘Don’t put the girl off Martin, she’s got pilot’s genes, she’ll cope. Let’s go! Close the canopy!’ ordered Piet.

Martin closed the canopy and locked it. Lena heard Marianne making the radio call. Her heart fluttered.

‘Everything OK, Lena?’ asked Piet once more, to be sure. Lena only nodded. She had a lump in her throat and couldn’t say anything. Everything was going unbelievably fast now. She looked forwards and couldn’t really see the cable in the grass. The wing tip was lifted up. Martin gave her a thumbs-up and grinned encouragingly.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw her father arrive at the launch point. She was just about to wave when the glider sprang forward, accelerated and before Lena knew what was happening to her, she was pressed firmly into her seat and couldn’t see anything but sky. She held on tight to her shoulder harness and instinctively wanted to keep her head down. It felt like she couldn’t move at all.