Miss E. by Brian Herberger

Author:Brian Herberger [Brian Herberger]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Birch Cove Books
Published: 2016-02-26T23:37:48+00:00

Twenty Words

If Miss E. meant for the flight in the duster to change me in some way, it didn’t work. Like going back to school after discovering that Miss E was really Amelia Earhart, I expected a change. I thought things would somehow be noticeably different, but the days after our flight were like any others.

Life with my mother was unchanged, and that was the whole point of Miss E. taking me flying. A different perspective, she’d said. Well, other than half scaring the pants off of me, the flight hadn’t done anything to change my feelings toward my mother, and Miss E.’s little pep talk with me in the cornfield hadn’t made me any more understanding toward my mother’s lack of emotion.

I gave it an honest try. I brought up my father a couple times at the dinner table, when I normally would have remained silent. My mother seemed a little surprised, but she dodged the topic as skillfully as ever. I asked a couple questions after she’d read a letter from him one night, hoping to start a conversation, but she only smiled and sighed and folded up the letter. After a week of trying, I let myself slip back into my old routine of keeping to myself and nodding politely when my mother talked about the weather or the neighbors.

School wasn’t any different either, other than my feeling like telling everyone I saw in the hallways that I’d gone flying with Amelia Earhart. Heck, I would have been happy just to tell Anne or Cassie or Susan that I’d gone flying at all. As far as weekend activities went, I figured I could top anyone’s story about softball wins, first dates, or even first kisses. But of course, I couldn’t tell anyone anything.

Our tally in Mr. Flynn’s class was inching higher. I hadn’t given away Amelia Earhart’s identity yet, but it was looking like I would need to soon if we were going to win the trip to San Francisco. We’d been using what I’d discovered in the library that day – what the class had come to call “Flynn’s Rules” even though we’d never talked to Mr. Flynn about them.

1. Look for connections with other famous Americans. This category was ripe with results. We’d found four First Ladies who were definitely more deserving of a place on Mr. Flynn’s wall than their husbands were.

2. Come up with a list of likely suspects. We came up with a list of our top one hundred Americans, and then went through the list crossing names off once we’d double checked their photos and compared it to what we could find in the library. Mr. Flynn had slipped in five that had made our list as well, but we’d missed them on our first run through the library because of rule number three.

3. Look beyond the iconic photos. Theodore Roosevelt before the pince-nez and mustache, Marilyn Monroe while she was still Norma Jean. Yep, those and others had been staring down at us from Mr.

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