Aloft EXCERPT
The tow plane ahead of them started up with a roar, and before she knew it, they were being pulled through the air. After first watching nervously as Jif handled the controls, Callie began to relax, eyeing the city from above, trying to pick out the landmarks that Jif pointed out with enthusiasm. She wondered if he oughtn’t be paying more attention to his dials. Everything below looked miniaturized and unfamiliar, sunlight glinting harshly off silvery metal roofs and boxy little cars. The city resembled a computer’s innards; what was it called? Oh yes, the motherboard. Such a strange name. The sky was completely cloudless, that unreal cerulean of a Colorado summer. She was glad for her sunglasses.
“You’ll feel a little dip now, when the tow plane lets go,” he warned her, but Callie was unprepared for the weightless freefall that seemed to last forever and made a violent impact on her stomach. Unconsciously, she reached for a handhold, then remembered all the things she wasn’t supposed to touch, and against her instinct she folded her elbows well in to her sides.
Obviously enjoying himself, Jif discovered three raptors circling on thermals and joined their party. The animals seemed unperturbed by the large white bird which had appeared, uninvited. The tight arcs he performed in order to stay with them, which could have been beautiful, could have been poetry, made her queasy to the point that she wondered if in fact she would have to, for the first time in her life, resort to the air-sickness bag laughingly pointed out and just as quickly dismissed by Jif while they still sat on the runway.
The constant wind rushing over and across their protective but claustrophobic plastic bubble concentrated the sun and made her long for a Gilligan hat herself. It also hurt her ears and made it hard to hear the young man’s lighthearted commentary and good-natured grumbling about his girlfriend. “I thought it was supposed to be quiet,” Callie couldn’t help complaining, and Jif laughed.