On The Wings of Heroes Read Online Free PDF

a robin on the windowsill.
    Somebody had to go for the janitor. If I’d been sent, I wouldn’t come back. When he turned up with a wrench, he found Beverly crated for shipping. I barely noticed when he unbolted her desk and the ink from her well went everywhere. We dipped pens then. Ballpoints didn’t come in till after the war. I wondered if I could outrun Beverly, and how that would look. I thought about the fire escape.
    Now she was out, expanding in the aisle on legs like kegs. She was big enough to pick up a mule. While the janitor bolted her desk back to the floor, she looked down at me under a single heavy brow. And she made a fist the size of Dad’s.
    I just sat there.
    Then sweet heaven helped me.
    It was nearly noon when somebody knocked on the classroom door. We all looked—anything to take our minds off Beverly. Miss Mossman blocked our view when she opened the door. Then her arms went out.
    â€œIs that Billy Bowman,” she cried, “all grown up?”
    It was. My brother Bill was there. It was the cavalry sent to save me in the nick of time. I heard galloping hooves, flags flapping, a bugle.
    Bill was there to take me home for lunch, a miracle almost too big to believe. I chanced a glance back at Beverly.
    You wouldn’t know her. She was some other girl. She gazed up at my brother. Her squinty eyes were round, bat-ting. Her mouth was open. Her grubby hand stole up to touch her awful hair. And I saw my troubles were over, at least for now.
    â€œWho zat?” she whispered like a prayer.
    â€œMy brother,” I said.
    And looking good. Taller and handsomer than ever. It must be the uniform. He was an Army Air Force Cadet.

The Whole World Was Golden . . .
    . . . with forsythia in bloom that noontime when Bill walked me home for lunch. He’d come off the morning train with just time to see Mom first. His uniform buttons sparked sunlight, and there was a little strut in his step. I rode all the way home on the wings of my hero. So did Scooter, as far as his house.
    When Bill and I got home, Mom had all our favorites. Toasted cheese sandwiches and tomato soup. A pie was in the oven.
    Bill was only home for a few days before he had to report for training. On Saturday he went out to Dad’s station, and I tagged along. I shadowed him the whole time, trying to match his stride and memorize him for later.
    In weather this good all the oldsters in the North End hung out at the station. Every old retired railroader and trucker sat out on the pump island, swapping lies, spouting chaw. When they saw Bill in his uniform, it put them in mind of San Juan Hill and Teddy Roosevelt.
    â€œAfter they get to that age,” Dad said, “they were all Rough Riders.” They looked up at Bill between them and the sun, and their old eyes watered. One glimpse at Dad’s eyes, and I saw he was memorizing Bill too.
    We went out to dinner, the four of us, on Bill’s last night. The band at the Blue Mill played “To Be Specific, It’s Our Pacific.” When they saw Bill, they struck up “Nothing Can Stop the Army Air Corps.”
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    After we were in bed, I said to him through the wall, “How long till you’ll be shooting down planes and releasing payloads, that type of thing?”
    â€œThe training takes most of a year,” Bill said, “though they’re speeding things up.”
    â€œSo you’ll be home again, before . . .”
    â€œOne more time,” Bill said.
    He went the next morning when I was at school. I knew the time the train left and watched it on the clock. When I got home, all the gear was gone from his room, and his bed was made with military corners.
    That was the first night I went upstairs without being told. Then I thrashed in the sheets, sat on the windowsill, thrashed in the sheets some more. Bill was sitting up that night on the train, and tomorrow night and the night after that. I counted miles instead of