Family Tradition – Mondays Finish the Story

Photo by: Barbara W. Beacham

Family Tradition

Delphine always wanted to pilot her father’s plane and when he forgot his keys on her tenth birthday, she knew that taking off would be easy. And it was easy. The controls came to her instinctively. Life often came to Delphine like that.

When kids her age learned to read, “See George run,” Delphine blasted through Heinlein’s “Starship Troopers.” When other kids struggled with Legos, Delphine hacked into the FBI’s mainframe. An angry visit followed, and another by DIA agents.

At least, when DARPA arrived, they offered her a job.

She often wondered why her brilliant father flew a common Piper Pawnee crop duster. As she flew high above the farm fields over Wisconsin it all became clear.

That’s when she pushed the blue button.

Navigating back from the star, Procyon A, proved challenging for the 10-year old, but she managed it.

When she returned home, her father was waiting.

“Are you mad?” she said.

He grinned. “On my birthday, your grandfather ‘forgot’ his keys…”
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Author’s Notes:

If you read my stories often enough, you already know this stuff. Just in case…
FBI = Federal Bureau of Investigation
DIA = Defense Intelligence Agency
DARPA = Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency

Procyon A: Part of a binary star system 11.46 light-years from Earth: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procyon
Just for fun, the 26 nearest stars: http://www.astro.wisc.edu/~dolan/constellations/extra/nearest.html

Barb, you really must know me well. I’m a big airplane fanatic, and I knew this airplane (Piper Pawnee) right off. Of course, I had to turn it into a starship. Generally I know military planes much better. If you’ve a pic of one of them, I might take a different angle.

Each week, it’s time to finish the story. Photographer Barbara W. Beacham provides a picture and an opening sentence as promptsfor flash fiction. This week, the story must begin with, “Delphine always wanted to pilot her father’s plane and when he forgot his keys on her tenth birthday, she knew that taking off would be easy.” Look for more stories right here: https://mondaysfinishthestory.wordpress.com/2015/07/13/mondays-finish-the-story-july-13th-2015/