Read On the Wing for Free Online Page B

of,” I confessed. “This is trouble of my own making, and the making of it began when I chose to travel without a map.”
    â€œThat’s quite eloquently put,” the fisherman said.
    â€œI’ve been practicing,” I said. “I’ve been rehearsing that for the last hour or so, while I was trying to retrace my steps.”
    â€œIn the manner of all lost people.”
    â€œI suppose so.”
    â€œIt’s a pity we didn’t speak earlier, the first time you arrived here at the dock.”
    â€œI didn’t notice you.”
    â€œPerhaps.”
    â€œReally. I didn’t.”
    â€œPerhaps you were reluctant to ask directions. It’s a common failing.”
    â€œNo. Really. I just didn’t notice you.”
    â€œAnd yet I have rather an unusual aspect, wouldn’t you say?”
    â€œWell, no, not really, to tell the truth. Back home, in Babbington, there are quite a few grizzled—”
    â€œOld salts?” offered the girl.
    â€œYes.”
    â€œHere I’m considered quite a character,” the fisherman asserted.
    â€œThat’s true,” said the girl.
    â€œWell—”
    â€œI make a considerable contribution to local color.”
    â€œI’m sure.”
    â€œAnd I’m considered an important source of folk wisdom.”
    â€œThat’s the way it is back at home. There are many—”
    â€œIf you had asked my advice,” he said, with an unmistakable note of irritation in his voice, “I would have offered you a bit of that wisdom: I would have told you not to try retracing your steps.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œRetracing one’s steps is repeating old errors. It’s a miserable way to live one’s life.”
    â€œI only spent a couple of hours—”
    â€œNow you take me,” he went on. “I’ve made mistakes in my life—who hasn’t—but do I dwell on them, do I keep returning to them and regretting them? No. Certainly not. What’s done is done. You can’t change the past. You can’t go back to the place where things went wrong and make them go right.”
    â€œBut what should he do, Grandfather?” asked the girl.
    â€œYeah,” I said. “What should I do?”
    â€œYou should go on from where you are.”
    â€œBut it’s getting dark. It feels late. And I’ve been on the road so long.”
    â€œHow long have you been away from home?” asked the girl, placing a gentle hand on my arm.
    â€œHours,” I said importantly.
    â€œGrandpa,” the girl said to the grizzled fisherman, “this boy must be tired and hungry. I’m going to take him home, give him a hot bath, cook him some supper, and tuck him into bed,” and then she simply faded away, vanished, returning to the land of wishful thinking, from which she had materialized for the few moments that she’d been standing there.
    â€œDid you?” asked the fisherman.
    â€œWhat?” I asked, bewildered by the way the girl had disappeared.
    â€œI said, ‘You must have had many adventures,’” the fisherman repeated. “Did you?”
    â€œHuh?” I said, still befuddled.
    â€œNever mind,” he said. “Time for me to pack up and head for home—a hot bath—a hearty meal—and a good night’s sleep.”
    I needed a place to stay. I’d been away from Babbington for only a few hours, but I had already begun to feel the chill of separation. I missed the place—my home town—and the people in it. I felt very much alone and in need of someplace that would make me feel, if not at home, at least in a place like home. I had intended from the start to rely on the kindness of strangers, to ask the people I met along the way to give me shelter, and to exploit the good impression that I, a daring young flyboy, was likely to make on the easily awed populace of the towns I would be passing through.