Chuck Yeager took my hand and grinned. "Jes' spell my name right,
ma'am," he said. "so's my kin'll know who you're writin' about."
We sat down on some folding chairs and talked for nearly an hour. Mr.
Yeager took every question seriously and acted like he had all the time
in the world for me. When I mentioned various aircraft he'd flown, the
aircraft Dad had briefed me about, he grinned again and said. "Heck, I do
believe we got an aviation expert on our hands."
In the hallways afterward, the other kids kept coming up to tell me how
lucky I was. "What was he really like?" they asked. "What did he say?"
Everyone treated me with the deference accorded only to the school's top
athletes. Even the varsity quarterback caught my eye and nodded. I was
the girl who had actually talked to Chuck Yeager.
Dad was so eager to hear how the interview went that he was not only
home when I got back from school, he was even sober. He insisted on
helping me with the article to ensure its technical accuracy.
I already had a lead figured out in my head. I sat down in front of Mom's
Remington and typed it out:
The pages of the history books came alive this month when Chuck
Yeager, the man who first broke the sound barrier, visited Welch High.
Dad looked over my shoulder. "Great," he said. "But let's juice it up a
little."
LORI HAD BEEN WRITING to us regularly from New York. She loved
it there. She was living in a hotel for women in Greenwich Village,
working as a waitress in a German restaurant, and taking art classes and
even fencing lessons. She'd met the most fascinating group of people,