Free On The Wings of Heroes by Richard Peck

probably from counting all those dimes. And Janis did all right with her grades.
    Over lunchtime I called Dad at the station to see if he could locate a tire for a ’33 Chevy. He said he’d scout around and put out some feelers.
    Without Beverly in school, it was like a day off.
    In the afternoons, we had music, not Miss Titus’s best subject. When she raised her voice in song, she sounded like her mama cawing from the bed. But we were warbling, “From the mountains to the prairies to the oceans white with foooaaam—” when we got our last visitor of the day.
    It was Dad.
    It was definitely Dad in the door, grinning and doffing his Phillips 66 cap. He and Miss Titus had about the same amount of hair. A recapped tire hung in his good arm. He spotted me, so he was in the right place. Then he saw Miss Titus.
    And Miss Titus saw him. She lowered the pitch pipe and squinted through her specs. “Earl Bowman?”
    I flinched.
    â€œYes, ma’am,” Dad said, somewhat flushed. At home I’d never quite mentioned we didn’t have Miss Landis anymore.
    â€œThat’s my boy.” Dad pointed me out.
    â€œI knew he was yours as soon as I caught him in my barn,” Miss Titus said.
    I hadn’t happened to mention that to Dad either.
    â€œThe apple never falls far from the tree,” Miss Titus observed. “Remember the paddle?”
    Dad winced and reached around behind himself.
    â€œTeaching isn’t what it was,” Miss Titus remarked. “Why are you bringing a tire into my classroom?”
    â€œYou evidently need one, and we give full service,” Dad said. “I have an idea your spare’s shot.”
    â€œTires are worth their weight in gold these days. There’s a war on,” Miss Titus said. “What are you charging for that tire? I see it’s a Goodyear. And your labor, young man?”
    Young man? The class gasped.
    â€œMiss Titus, you don’t owe me a thing,” Dad said. “It’s all the other way. You were the best teacher I ever had.”
    Miss Titus twitched. “I was the only teacher you ever had, Earl Bowman. All eight grades at Sangamon School.”
    â€œAnd the best,” Dad said.

Under Miss Titus . . .
    . . . we learned a lot more than we’d meant to. Spelling counted. Everything counted, and she ran our grade like Parris Island boot camp for the marines. She even brought Walter Meece almost up to speed.
    Also Miss Titus was a St. Louis Cardinals fan, a big one. Months after the Dodgers threw away their lead, and the Cards went on to take the Series away from the Yankees, Miss Titus was using their stats in our arithmetic lessons.
    I asked Dad if she’d had a mustache back when she taught him.
    â€œIt was just beginning,” he said.
    A classroom poster read:
    Â 
    USE IT UP, WEAR IT OUT MAKE IT DO OR DO WITHOUT
    Â 
    To buy toothpaste now, you had to turn in the old used-up tube to the drugstore. Coffee vanished, and President Roosevelt told people to reuse their coffee grounds.
    â€œI will if he will,” Dad said.
    Now the war effort needed kitchen fats and bacon grease. You were to save it up in a container. Then you got extra ration points when you took it to the grocer. Scooter said a single pound of cooking fat was glycerin enough for fifty .30-caliber bullets. A notice in the newspaper read:
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    LADIES: GET YOUR FAT CANS
DOWN TO THE STORE
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which was the first time I’d heard Mom laugh in a while.
    She was counting off the days till Christmas and having Bill home. He was night-flying now, and we were hoping he’d be done with that and home for the holidays.
    But by December when the war was a year old, the army sent him straight on to bombardier school. The army seemed to change its mind a lot. He wrote from Deming, New Mexico, that they were training him on the Norden bomb sight. He had to strip and reassemble it in the dark, and they had to burn their class notes