Delphine always wanted to pilot her father’s plane and when he forgot his keys on her tenth birthday, she knew that taking off would be easy. By that she meant taking off out the door towards the airstrip nestled at the back of the house, the feat of making the plane fly she knew was going to be something else entirely.

There was a slight breeze blowing as she passed through the gate and finally caught sight of the yellow plane, her fathers pride and joy. It was bigger than she remembered, perhaps because she had never been this close before, only admiring it from afar, through eyes squinting at the sun.

Delphine, a book fanatic had read books on aviation from cover to cover, at a push she would probably be able to tell you how to dismantle and rebuild the plane before her, quite a feat for someone only ten years old. She knew the purpose and function of every button on the complex dashboard, how to adjust the seats, and also the location of a cleverly hidden parachute should the need a rise. Let’s hope it doesn’t she thought to herself crossing her fingers behind her back.

Raring to go Delphine walked towards the door, or where she thought the door was. A sealed unit flush with the sides, it was quite hard to spot. All to do with the aerodynamics of the plane she thought recalling Chapter 14. To her dismay however, she could not find a handle and as we all know, it’s very hard to open a door without a handle. Mentally scanning the pages in her head she could find no references to help her solve this conundrum, meaning the biggest thing Delphine experienced on her tenth birthday was frustration.

Just at that moment she heard her father call out asking her if she had seen his keys.

‘No Papa, I will help you look’ she shouted sprinting towards the house, hoping to replace the keys before he noticed.

The moral of the story, it’s always good to have brains, but you also need a dash of common sense. On this occasion it would have helped Delphine figure out that the little arc she thought was decoration, was actually the handle, flush and cleverly concealed to keep it aerodynamic too.

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Written for Monday’s Finish the Story – check the link for all the information. 

Many thanks to Drailman for the introduction.