Free Conquerors of the Sky by Thomas Fleming

Ponty and a half-dozen other third formers to dinner in his rooms. He talked about things having “gone wrong” but would be “ripping” now, he was sure of it. He said he hoped they would all try to be more friendly to their American guest, who had proved himself a “brave fellow.”
    â€œBravissimo!” Ponty said. The other boys rapped their tea mugs on the table and said, “Hear, hear.”
    The next day, something even more remarkable happened. A biplane zoomed low over the school and climbed high into the sky to do a series of spectacular dives and banks. The pilot landed on the north playing field and the entire student body rushed there for a close look at the machine. The pilot climbed out and everyone gasped. It was Peter Tillotson, who had graduated two years ago.
    â€œWhere’s my friend Van Ness?” Peter asked.
    Adrian was shoved forward by wide-eyed third formers. “Get in,” Peter said in his rough way.
    Adrian climbed into the front seat and Peter buckled a thick belt around his waist. He asked Mr. Goggins to spin the propeller. In a moment they were bouncing down the playing field toward a line of trees in the distance. “Hang on!” Peter shouted, and they cleared the trees by a foot.
    Aloft, Adrian looked down on the school and marveled at the way it was dwindling, exactly the way Shakespeare had described the men and boats below the cliffs at Dover in the scene where Lear went mad. Everyone was mouse-size and the buildings looked more and more like toys. The sadness started to fall away from him. He began to feel proud and free and happy.
    â€œHow do you like it?” Peter shouted above the roaring motor.
    â€œRipping!” Adrian shouted.
    â€œThis is only the third time I’ve been up alone. Soloing, they call it. You can get killed with no warning but it’s worth it. Hang on, we’ll try a loop.”
    He pointed the nose of the plane toward the sky and climbed straight up. Instead of flipping over, they hung there for a second, then fell off to the right in a screaming dive. “Afraid I’ve got to practice that,” Peter said, after they pulled out.
    They made a rather bumpy landing. The entire student body swarmed
around them again. “I’ve only got time for one more ride. Who will it be, Adrian?”
    â€œPonty,” Adrian said.
    Peter took him up and this time completed a loop. Ponty said it was the most remarkable sensation of his life. He vowed to learn to fly as soon as possible.
    From living dead man, Adrian soared to leader of the third form. No more was heard of Von Ness, son of the German spy. The next two months were the happiest of his life.
    One afternoon in mid-May, as Adrian sat in the library reading about the Battle of Waterloo, Ponty tapped him on the shoulder. “The head wants you, Van.” He puffed his cheeks and stuck out his stomach and waddled away in a perfect imitation of Mr. Deakwell.
    In the headmaster’s office, his mother sat alone. She looked unusually beautiful in a jet-black suit. Adrian often thought she resembled one of those tall, proud Gibson girls in magazine illustrations. “Oh, darling,” she said. “I’ve got some bad news. We have to go home.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œYour father’s dead. He was killed in an accident. Foxhunting. He ran into a low-hanging limb and broke his neck.”
    Adrian waited for her to weep, to let him weep. But she did nothing of the sort. She told him to go to his room and pack. They were catching the fastest ship home, the SS Lusitania. It was sailing from Southampton the next day.
    Adrian trudged across the quadrangle, suddenly remembering everything. Von Ness the spy, the months as a living dead man, the sadness. He felt angry at his mother for having exposed him to these ordeals. Beneath that anger was a deeper, colder enmity for her refusal to weep for his ruined father. He found himself wishing he