Change is in the Wind
“How can anyone be pleased about leaving Chicago?” asked Samantha. She was still shocked, even though she’d known about the move for weeks. The idea was so bizarre it hadn’t seemed real to her. It was only now, sitting on the bed and watching her friend packing, that she could actually believe it.
“Chicago isn’t the whole world,” replied Dawn.
“Of course, it is,” snapped her friend. “We’ve got everything here, and I mean everything. You’ll be bored out of your mind in Stinkwater.”
“Sweetwater,” said Dawn, patiently. “It’s called Sweetwater, and Texas is the bee's knees you know.” She didn’t want to argue with her friend. She knew Samantha was upset because she was about to move over a thousand miles away. Dawn felt guilty that she didn’t feel as upset to be leaving Samantha. She just felt excited . . . and a bit scared.
“In any case,” said Samantha. “Just tell your mother you don’t want to go. Tell her you’ll miss your friends and, well . . . everything.”
Dawn didn’t answer. She knew what Samantha meant by “everything.” She meant skyscrapers and roads and cars and crowds and noise. Samantha was a city girl through and through. Maybe that was why, deep down, Dawn knew she wouldn’t miss her friend too much. It was lonely being a cowgirl in the big city!
After all, what was there to miss? Not school, for sure. She’d been happy enough at Throops Elementary but had become a target for the bullies at her new school, Kilpatrick Junior High School. If only she could go back and change that first day. It had started well enough but then she’d opened her mouth. That was when it began to go wrong. Very wrong.
The children had been asked to introduce themselves to the rest of the class.
“Hi! I’m Dawn Springfield and I’m the sassiest cowgirl ever to ride the prairies.” Had she really said that? She still cringed with embarrassment at the thought. The second mistake had happened immediately afterward when she’d explained to her laughing classmates that she was going to be a fighter pilot when she was older.
The rowdy group of boys at the back of the class were thrilled. They had a victim! Dawn Springfield had just volunteered, whether she knew it or not.
“A cowgirl? I bet she’s never even seen a cow . . . or a horse.”
“A pilot? Just imagine it. A girl flying a plane.”
Even the teacher had grinned.
Dawn had felt her face grow hot as she listened to the teasing. She knew she was blushing. But that was who she was, and that was what she was going to do. The big city wasn’t big enough to hold her dreams. She needed wide-open spaces and never-ending skies.
“Why there, anyway?” asked Samantha, as Dawn struggled to close her stuffed suitcase. “I could understand it if you were moving to New York or Los Angeles, but I’ve never even heard of Stinkwater.”
“It’s Sweetwater, and my Grandpa’s ranch is there, so I can go riding whenever I want, and there’s an airfield so I can watch the planes, and there’s . . . well, there’s loads of stuff.”
“But Chicago has an airport,” complained Samantha. “And we’ve been horse riding here. Your mother took us on your birthday, remember.”
Dawn flinched. Samantha didn’t need to remind her of that day. It was burned into her memory forever.
Dawn had spent last summer at her grandpa’s ranch in Texas, helping look after the horses. To a city girl, they all seemed so huge and scary. That was why she’d dodged out of Grandpa’s offer of riding lessons. That and the fact that all those Texans had looked so confident on horseback. They’d probably learned to ride as soon as they could walk. She regretted not facing up to the challenge once she was home, though. Now, she felt ashamed whenever she thought about it. What was the use of dreaming of a life of freedom and adventure if she was a coward?
Back in Chicago, she missed the ranch so much it hurt. Within days of her return to the city, she’d started to pester her mom for riding lessons. The next time she visited Grandpa, she’d be ready!
Mom had told Dawn that lessons were too expensive. Her hat business wasn’t doing well, and it was tough making ends meet. Dawn had refused to give up, and eventually, Mom had promised her a horse ride for her birthday.
Dawn had looked forward to it for weeks. It was her greatest dream come true. She wouldn’t back out this time. She imagined herself galloping across fields, leaping fences, her hair blowing in the wind.
The big day finally arrived. Dawn had found herself being led around the local park in circles, sitting on the back of a little pony. So much for Round ’Em Up Dawn, the sassiest gal to ever whirl a lasso.
That was the day she’d decided that the big city was too small for her.
Not that her birthday had been a complete disaster. She’d been thrilled to receive a birthday card and a long letter from Aunt Georgia. The envelope had landed on her hallway floor after traveling all the way from Great Britain.
Fancy that! Dawn Springfield receiving messages from the other side of the world. Even the envelope was thrilling. The little stamp, dated November 10th, 1941, showed a man’s face with a drawing of a crown and the name George. King George of Great Britain! She couldn’t believe there were really places in the world that had kings and queens and castles and . . . well, dragons and wizards and whatever. Everything about Aunt Georgia just oozed adventure.
Her aunt was overseas, volunteering with the British Royal Air Force. The letter had been full of news about what she and her friends were doing to help the British in their fight against Adolf Hitler and the evil Nazis who ruled Germany. America had not officially entered World War II yet, but Aunt Georgia certainly had. Dawn was fascinated. Her heart ached with the thought that the war would probably be over by the time she was old enough to volunteer.
Aunt Georgia had included a drawing with the letter. Dawn carefully taped it to the wall next to her bed. It was a picture of a Spitfire fighter plane, just like the ones Aunt Georgia flew. With the picture by her bed, she could fall asleep and drift off into dreams of soaring through the clouds over enemy territory.
Squadron Leader Springfield to base . . .
Dawn didn’t know anyone like Aunt Georgia, apart from herself. It was her aunt who reminded her that a life of adventure wasn’t just a stupid daydream for bullies to laugh at. The daydreams could come true. There was more to life than a tiny house in a poor Chicago neighborhood, with a mother struggling to pay the bills and a dad who . . . well, Dad was another story.
“Are you listening to a word I say?” Samantha’s annoying voice brought Dawn’s thoughts back to the present. She realized that Samantha had been talking to her while her mind had wandered off.
“Sorry, Sam. What was that?” She smiled at her friend.
“I was saying that it’s only two days away,” said Samantha, her voice choking with sobs. “And then . . . and then, I’ll never see you again. Not ever! I mean, Texas is right at the other end of the country. You might as well be going to Mars.”
Dawn felt guilty. She loved her friend but was too excited to be sad about leaving. She gave Samantha a hug and remembered the friendship they’d shared for so many years.
Was moving to Sweetwater the right thing to do? She’d be leaving her friends. She’d be leaving everything and everyone she knew. It was exciting, but it was also worrying. Maybe the bullies in Texas would be bigger and meaner than the bullies in Chicago. Maybe the Texan cowgirls who’d been born in the saddle would laugh at the pony girl from up north. Maybe . . .
“I promise to write, Sam,” she whispered to her friend. “I’m going to miss you so much.”
“Do you really have to go?” asked her friend.
“I can’t ask Mom to leave me here alone, can I?” she said, softly. “Since Grandma passed away, Grandpa’s been on his own, and Mom wants to move there to be near him.”
“Can I ask my mom to take me to the airport so I can see you leave?” asked Samantha. “I know she wouldn’t mind. She’s always liked you.”
Dawn explained that they wouldn’t be flying to Texas. Grandpa had entered his finest racehorse, Midnight Angel, in the country’s most famous race, the Kentucky Derby. She and Mom would be making a three-hundred-mile train journey south to Louisville, Kentucky. They’d meet Grandpa at the racetrack, watch the race, and then travel onward to Texas with him.
After Samantha left, Dawn finished packing. The moving van would be arriving in the morning.
Once all the hard work was done and pretty much everything was safely packed away, Mom took her out for a meal at a nearby restaurant. “Our last taste of the high life before we move to sleepy Sweetwater,” she’d explained.
As soon as they got back home, Dawn told Mom she wanted an early night and went upstairs. She’d made sure not to pack away her sketching book and pencils and lay on her bed drawing. It was a picture of herself charging across a prairie on a huge, jet-black horse. By the time she’d finished, she was struggling to keep her eyes open. She put down her pencil and closed the drawing pad. She got under the covers and lay, staring at Aunt Georgia’s Spitfire.
Cowgirl or pilot? Pilot or cowgirl? Life was full of tough decisions.
