Velva Jean Learns to Fly by Jennifer Niven

Author:Jennifer Niven [Niven, Jennifer]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-101-54375-7
Publisher: Penguin Group USA, Inc.
Published: 2011-07-03T21:00:00+00:00

On the afternoon of July 20, just before mess, I was in the latrine washing my face and hands, trying to get the dust off me, when I heard a crash from our bay and, right after that, another. I dried my hands and walked into the room to find Loma lying like a dead person, facedown on her cot, her books and shoes scattered on the floor. Mudge was standing in front of her wardrobe mirror, brushing her hair.

I said, “What happened?”

Mudge said, “I don’t know. She just came in here throwing stuff.” “Loma?” I sat down beside her on the cot. Her shoulders were shaking and she was making little sounds into the pillow.

Suddenly Sally and Paula came running in. “We just heard,” said Paula.

“Heard what?” Mudge shut the door to her wardrobe.

Loma said something into the pillow.

Mudge said, “What did you say, Lolo?” She looked at us. “What did she say?”

Sally sat down on the other side of Loma and started rubbing her back in little circles. “She washed out.” She cracked her gum like an exclamation point.

“What?” More and more girls were washing out—31 from our class of 112 already. But those were other girls in other bays. Loma was one of us.

She rolled over, her face red, her hair sticking to her cheeks. I brushed her hair away and handed her a handkerchief. She wiped her eyes and then cried harder and then wiped her eyes again, and then she sat up and said, “I knew it. Didn’t I tell you all along? I knew I was going to wash out.”

Paula sat right down on the floor beside Loma’s cot and said, “Tell us what happened, Lo.”

“I was up for a check ride today, but no one told me ahead of time, and they gave me three, one after another. Three! The first one was okay, but the second was bad, and I blew the third one by coming down bumpy and overshooting the runway.”

“There’s got to be something we can do,” Mudge said. She was looking at us. “Talk to Puck? Go to Miss Cochran?”

Loma said, “You think no one else has tried that? You know as well as I do that once you wash out, you’re out.”

We sat there, all of us, not talking. And then Sally cracked her gum—one, two, three times—and started to cry. Suddenly Mudge was crying and I was crying and even Paula was crying a little. We wrapped our arms around Loma in a big group hug and just rocked back and forth, back and forth.

When we pulled away, all of us sniffling and snuffling, Loma said, “I can’t go back to making supper and cleaning the house. My little girl and my husband are so proud of me. Now I’m nothing but their stupid old wife and mother again.”

This made me think: Why wasn’t it enough for Loma to be a wife and mother? Would it be enough for me? For any of us? Could we go

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