“Grandfather says girls are only good for doing housework and gardening.”
“I doubt that those were his exact words,” added Dad. “I know he’s a bit old fashioned, but he doesn’t say that. What he usually says is that there are jobs for girls that are suitable.” Nobody added that anything interesting, like flying, was not, in his view, “suitable”. Billy looked as if he would like to say something else, but a glare from both parents sent his attention back to his plate.
Jessica went back to the question Dad had asked before Billy butted in. “I’m not giving up.”
“Then what do you want to do next?”
If she had to wait six years before she could take flying lessons, Jessica was not sure what she could do next. She thought for a moment. “I could learn things I’d need. Like, how planes work, and what it takes to get my licence.”
“Yes, that’s not a bad place to start. Do you have any idea what you might need?”
“Um, navigation skills? Being able to fix an engine?” She ran out of ideas.
Mum grinned. “Sewing.”
Jessica looked horrified. “Why?” Sewing was awfully girly and Jessica had resisted being able to do more than sew on a button.
“Most planes have fabric covered wings and bodies and when they need fixing, you might have to sew them. Machine and by hand.”
“Really?” Sewing might not be fun, but she supposed it might be necessary. Dad went off into a dream as he chewed some bread. Mum had always said that Dad had his head in the clouds, but luckily his feet remained firmly on the ground. Jessica waited to hear what he was thinking this time.
“For a start, you should keep up your horse riding. That will help with the ‘seat and hands’ that flyers need.” He thought again. Jessica wondered if she should start taking notes. “Then there’s mathematics. And astronomy. And geography.”
“But I hate sums.” She thought with horror of Mr Bates. Erk!
“I know, but you need to be able to calculate all sorts of things. Oh, let’s see. How far you can fly on a tank of petrol. How long it will take to fly from A to B. Angles, lift, drag, geometry, all that sort of thing.” Jessica sighed. Sums were not her favourite subject. But she suspected Dad was right. “And then, you can learn more about planes themselves.”
“How?”
“By seeing how they work and by reading about them.”
“Oh,” said Jessica, thinking that this might be a lot of work.
“Well,” said Mum, spooning some mush into Elspeth’s mouth, “whatever you want to do in life takes effort and there are always things you have to learn. Dad and I will see what we can do to help.”
Billy was ready for cake and bored, especially as no one was paying any attention to him. “Seeing as I’m learning about the farm every day, how about I give up school? I don’t need any of that rubbish to run sheep and wheat.”
Dad laughed. “Nice try, son, but no chance. You need lots of what you learn at school. Like maths. All farms are businesses and you need to be able to add up and plan. You need to calculate how much seed you need, and how much feed for sheep, how much to pay shearers and whether you can afford it. All that, and then there’s learning about soils and wool classing.” Billy shrugged and kept eating.
“You mean you’ll really help me?” Jess’s eyes glowed with excitement.
“Yes,” said Mum, “we will. We’ll help our children become whatever they want to, as far as we can.” She did not add that becoming a female pilot was not going to be easy, even if her family supported her ambition.
“And what about Grandfather? Do I tell him that I’m still going to become a pilot whatever he says?”
Dad sighed. “I think Jess, you’re old enough to be sensible about this. I’d keep quiet about it. For now, anyway. You don’t have to lie, but I doubt he’ll ask you. He’ll just assume he’s made his views clear and that you’ll do as he says. In any case, there’s not much you can do about it for awhile yet. And who knows what will happen before you’re old enough to get a licence.”
“Yeah,” said Billy. “Grandfather could die.”
“Billy!” thundered his father.
“Well, he could.”
“Or he could learn to think that planes are wonderful and want to have a pilot in the family.”
“And pigs,” said Billy emphatically, grabbing another piece of sultana cake, “could fly.”
Jessica had a lot to think about that week. She set herself the goal of taking maths seriously and tried really hard to listen in class and to do her homework. She still found adding up boring, and she knew that the next stage of long division was even more boring, not to mention a lot more work. But she’d show her family that she could do what it took to become a pilot.
Chapter Six
The next Sunday morning, Dad woke Jessica up early. “Come and have some breakfast, then we can go down to the airstrip.”
“Why?”
“It’s a surprise.” The airstrip, about two miles north of Argyle Station, was an ordinary, flat piece of land, graded smooth for planes. Narromine was one of the first towns on what was called the New South Wales plains, about 280 miles west of Sydney. To the east, one could see the occasional hill which gradually became the Blue Mountains of the Great Dividing Range. This day the strip was crowded with people as they waited for a plane to land, watching westward for the first sight of wings against the clouds. To the west, it was completely flat; nothing appeared to break the monotony — apart from trees — between Narromine and the horizon.
In summer the view was often hazy with the red dust that arose with any wind, but today the broad expanse was clear. Jessica’s mother said it was so flat that your feet seemed to be sucked over the horizon if you watched it, like being at the end of the world.
“Who is it, Dad?” Jessica was jumping up and down with excitement.
“It’s Mr Lester Brain, with the photos of the Southern Cross after they found it in Western Australia.” The whole nation had been holding its breath when Charles Kingsford Smith’s plane disappeared on a flight from Australia to England. With their emergency supplies stolen, they lived on water from a muddy creek and some baby food for days before they were found. Many people had given ‘Smithy’ up for dead when the plane was sighted with Kingsford Smith and his crew.
Mr Brain was on his way to Sydney with the photos and had stopped to refuel. Everyone in Narromine who was interested in aviation had taken the opportunity to meet the plane and see the photos. Jessica, being short, needed her father to lift her up to see Mr Brain climb down from the plane, photos in hand, but she was able to catch a good glimpse of some of them.
“Lucky to survive that,” said someone behind her. “Smithy’s invincible.”
Mr Brain did not stay long and was soon taxiing for takeoff. Jessica joined in the farewell waves. When the crowd was thinning, Dad took her hand and went over to a group of men talking together. “Gentlemen,” he said, “I’d like to introduce my daughter Jessica, who wants to be a pilot when she grows up.”
“Crikey, Angus, you do start them young, don’t you?” The other two laughed.
“Yes, Tom, but it was all her idea. So how can we help her?” Tom Perry and Bowden Fletcher were aviation personified in Narromine. Mr Perry had given the land for the airstrip and Mr Fletcher, who had flown in the War, wrote a weekly column for