The Boy Who Could Fly Without a Motor by Theodore Taylor Read Free Book Online Page A

around. He was past being weary of the red lead.
    There was a knock on the door, and the FBI agent stuck his head in. "Mr. Jeffers, the president of the United States wants you to go to Washington, D.C., immediately. He wants to be the first person to be photographed with the boy who can fly without a motor."
    Mr. Jeffers?
Less than an hour before, Jon had been just a stupid kid who'd breached the security of the nation. Now the president wanted to meet him. Adults were strange. Jon said to Agent Forbes, "
You
were the first person to have your picture taken with me. You brought that photographer."
    Agent Forbes said, "I'd appreciate it if you'd forget about that picture. Don't tell the president. Now, we must hurry. There's an aircraft fueling up."
    Jon said, "What about my Ether? He'd like to meet the president."
    The Coast Guard lieutenant said, "We don't have time to go out and get him. He'd have to be relieved. We'll fly him there tomorrow. This will be a breaking story all over the world."
    Jon said, "I have to take my mother and Smacks."
    Agent Forbes nodded and said to Dr. Buxtehede, "I'll bring your patient back in a few days."
    The doctor was smiling widely. It wasn't every day he had a patient who would be photographed with the president. He said, "Be sure to mention my name to Mr. Roosevelt."
    Then he said to Jon, "I'll be working night and day to find a way for you to keep on flying and at the same time have landing and takeoff control. I promise you, night and day!" He sprang up from behind his desk and shook Jon's hand and kissed a surprised Mabel Jeffers on the cheek. He even reached down to pat Smacks.
    Off they went, with the usual guards and even a motorcycle escort, to the airport.
    Neither Jon nor his mother—or Smacks—had ever thought they'd fly in an airplane. But then again Jon never thought he'd fly, period. Soon they were cruising east at ten thousand feet in a navy twin-engined DC-3.
    As they crossed the Grand Canyon, the plane bouncing all over the sky, Jon realized he could never again call himself the loneliest boy on Earth. He was about to be known from Washington to Tibet.
    Bucking strong headwinds, the DC-3 had to be refueled twice before it landed at Anacostia Naval Air Station at about 4:00 A.M. Agent Forbes said, "I'll bet you sleep in the Lincoln bedroom the rest of the night." Jon had heard of Abraham Lincoln but not his bedroom in the White House.
    "And you'll probably have breakfast with the president and first lady in the morning."
    "Will you be there?"
    "I doubt it very much. If anybody discovers I was photographed with you, I'll be assigned to Arkansas."
    Jon had begun to like Hiram K. Forbes, and he said, "I'll keep our secret, but I won't tell the president how I fly."
    The agent sighed and thanked him and shook his hand as White House people rushed to the DC-3 stairway to greet the first human to fly without a motor.
    Agent Forbes said that Secret Service agents would be taking care of him as long as he was in Washington. Jon had read about them in
Popular Science.
They followed the president everywhere he went. They even watched the chefs cooking his food before the president could take a bite.
    Two stern-faced Secret Service agents got into the limousine with them, and Jon noticed two other black cars, one ahead and one behind, loaded with men in black suits.
Even a Martian might not get better protection,
Jon thought.
    Soon Mrs. Jeffers, Jon, and Smacks arrived at the White House and were offered a snack before being shown to the Lincoln bedroom. Mrs. Jeffers said, "Never in my life did I think this Nebraska girl would sleep where the Lincolns slept."
    There was a temporary crisis when she asked a maid for all the safety pins in the White House.
    It had been another exhausting day for Smacks, and he jumped into the bed between Jon and his mother, perhaps the first four-legged creature ever to nestle down on the fancy spread under which Abe and Mary Todd had spent their