Once upon a time, there lived a girl. She had brown hair, blue eyes, and freckles on her arms. She hates reading and the smell of ink, and keeps a ragdoll in her backpack at all times. She doesn’t eat eggs and loves trumpet music.
Her name is Sadie, and she believes she can fly.
She plans to take off some day – just run up to the beach cliffs near her house and fly away. She’ll run right off the edge of the cliff, dip down, catch her breath and shoot away into the sky.
One day the sun dawned to find Sadie already awake. She was lying in bed with all her day clothes already on, staring at the ceiling. The sunshine was glowing through the blue curtains in her room, and she waited for the sun to rise high enough to cast a ray of light across her face.
She jumped out of bed, pulled on her socks, grabbed her backpack, and quietly walked down the stairs. Her aunt was cooking scrambled eggs in the kitchen. Sadie wrinkled her nose at the smell and resolved to skip breakfast. It was probably difficult to fly on a full stomach anyway, she figured. Still in her socks, she crept across the wood floor of the entryway, carefully opened the front door, and stepped out into the morning sunshine.
The cliffs were only a few minutes away, beyond the out-of-place grove of trees and down the road. She’d forgotten to grab her shoes, but didn’t even care. The morning breeze grew stronger as she neared the cliffs, the wind from the ocean breaking against the rock and sending the scent of salt water high up into the air.
Some twenty yards from the cliff edge, she came to a stop. Letting her backpack slide off of her shoulders, she closed her eyes, paying attention to the timing of the wind. Gust, quiet, gust, quiet, gust, quiet. She waited for perfect timing, so that the wind would push her up just as her feet left the cliff’s edge.
Gust, quiet, gust, quiet, gust, run.
Sadie bolted towards the edge of the cliff. She ran as fast as she could, pulling deep breaths of salt air into her lungs, beating the sandy ground with her feet, propelling herself towards the edge.
The point of the cliff grew closer with unnerving speed, the ground disappearing from sight with every breath she took.
The edge continued to race towards her, and Sadie readied herself to launch off. One more step, one more step, one more step, jump.
The gust of wind that was meant to carry her into flight carried something else. Just as Sadie reached the terminal edge of the cliff, she was thrown back with a yelp as a giant contraption of wood and fabric shot up the cliff face.
Flat on her back in the sand and completely out of breath, she watched the contraption arc up into the sky, dip back down, and glide to a stop some yards away. She sat up, watching as a boy climbed out of the contraption and stood, watching her.
“You ruined it!” She shouted hoarsely, still very much out of breath. The boy took off his goggles. “What is that?” She asked.
“My glider. The ridge lift on these cliffs are amazing.” He responded. He tilted his head. “Why aren’t you wearing shoes?”
Sadie got to her feet, brushing off the sand that stuck to her shirt.
“What exactly were you doing, standing on the edge of the cliff?”
“Nothing.” She said bitterly. “How does it work?”
“Catches the wind.” He replied.
Sadie waited for a moment, itching to know more about the contraption. There was a long, strange silence as the wind blew.
“I should be going.” The boy said finally, putting on his goggles again. Sadie didn’t want him to go, she wanted to know about the glider. She wanted to know how to fly.
“Do you want some breakfast?” She asked quickly.
He stopped, pushing his goggles up on his forehead. “What are you having?” He asked curiously.
“Eggs.” Sadie replied. “We’re having eggs.”
