Betty Cavanna

by A Girl Can Dream

  Fifteen dollars, in all! Rette couldn’t help translating the money into flying time. She was thrilled at getting the two prizes, but she found to her own surprise that it wasn’t because of the immediate fame. She was excited by the possibilities that lay ahead.

  She let herself dream for a while, as one after another of her classmates followed in her footsteps, then snapped to attention as the really big award, the thousand-dollar Tate Scholarship, was approached.

  “This memorial scholarship,” Mr. Martin said, “goes each year to the senior whose scholarship, leadership, and athletic ability combine to make a fine all-round student. This year the choice of the committee of directors was unanimous. It goes to Jeffrey C. Chandler. Jeff—”

  Rette’s palms stung with the enthusiasm of her clapping. She was so happy for Jeff she could have wept. A thousand dollars! It would be like a fortune! It would smooth the way to a college career, which might otherwise have proved a heavy burden. “O Jeff,” she cried silently, “I’m so glad for you, so glad, so glad!”

  Rette sat through the rest of the program in a beatific daze. With Elise, she accepted her flying diploma from Stephen Irish, and opened it to find a certificate signed by Pat Creatore and bearing a cartoon illustration, most appropriate, of a frantic fledgling being booted rudely out of the nest. It was just the right touch.

  Afterward, at the reception held for the graduating class in the gym, she showed it to her family with amused pride.

  “See, it says ‘alone and unassisted.’ I can hardly believe it myself!”

  The flying diploma really meant more to Rette, by far, than either of the essay prizes, and she was surprised by the congratulations these seemed to merit in the eyes of her classmates and her friends.

  “So now you have a writer in the family!” Mrs. Wynn came up to say to Mrs. Larkin. Then she turned to Rette. “I read your flying essay in the Arrow. No wonder you are walking off with all the prizes, my dear.”

  “Not all,” Rette reminded her with a smile.

  “Well, it seems to me I heard ‘Loretta Larkin’ several times.”

  Tony touched Rette on the shoulder, and Mrs. Wynn turned away to speak to Ellen.

  “Hi, Not-so-small Fry,” Tony said.

  Rette wrinkled her nose at him. “Hi!”

  “Got a graduation present for you,” said Tony, almost gruffly. “But it’s nothing I can hand to you.” He seemed almost embarrassed as he hesitated, then plunged on. “I thought maybe you’d like to have five more hours in the air, with me as your instructor, instead of something like a fountain pen or—”

  But Tony never finished the sentence. Right there before a gymnasium full of people Rette flung her arms impulsively around her brother’s neck. “O Tony, you know it’s the best present of all!” she told him, then stood back a little abashed when he dislodged her arms with a muttered, “Hey!”

  Rette glanced around, suddenly self-conscious. Had anyone seen? But all the graduates were busy with their own concerns, and when she met Tony’s eyes again he was adjusting his tie and grinning as though he weren’t really displeased.

  Two flower boxes were thrust into Rette’s hands, one long, one short and squat. All over the gym tissue paper was rustling as similar boxes were being opened.

  “Eeny, meeny, miney, mo—” Rette counted, and opened the long box first.

  There were a dozen roses and a white card reading, “All our love, Mother and Dad.” The petals were the color of flame, and the flower stems were very long. Rette drew them out gently, touched and appreciative. “They’re beautiful!” she said.

  The small box contained a corsage, a modest arrangement of two gardenias, velvet soft, with waxen leaves. On the accompanying card was a teasing message:

  “To one of my two best girls—Jeff.”

  Rette glanced toward Elise, standing with her family not far away. Elise was just pinning a similar corsage to her shoulder, and she caught Rette’s eyes and smiled.

  “A fine thing!”

  Rette nodded and grinned back. She was glad Elise didn’t seem annoyed.

  Jeff himself was unexpectedly at Loretta’s elbow, and she thanked him for the corsage but couldn’t seem to find any original remark to make concerning the message on the card. Jeff didn’t seem to expect her to be witty, luckily, and after a few minutes he said casually, “Take you home after the party, Rette?”

  Instinctively, Rette glanced again in Elise’s direction. Eric was hovering around her, very solicitous and suave. “I think that would be very nice,” Loretta said to Jeff gravely. She didn’t mind playing second fiddle. She didn’t mind anything any more.

  As Jeff turned away, Gramp gave Rette’s arm an affectionate squeeze. “Look out, Lark, you’ll spill some,” he whispered.

  Rette turned puzzled eyes toward his. “Spill some? What do you mean?”

  “Looks to me as though your ‘cup runneth over,’” the old man said.

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  {1} Reprinted from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s Wind, Sand and Stars. Reynal & Hitchcock, Inc., N. Y.

  {2} Copyright, 1946, by Irving Berlin.