Birding S snipe Katerina cried S six No S seven The snipe let out their distinctive rasping cries as they rose out of a stand of cattails and Katerina's father in the stern of the rowboat lifted his binoculars Katerina who was on the rower's seat the thwart as her father had taught her to call it didn't bother letting go of the oars She may have had a little speech problem but her eyesight was almost super human and as she turned her head to follow the birds flight she could make out the pointy wings and nail like beaks with her naked eye even when the snipe were hundreds of yards away Fantastic yaw her father said admiringly But they've got a s small fu s selage said
Katerina who didn't mind stuttering in front of her parents True But they do have great stabilizers Mr Farnsworth lowered his binoculars and smiled at her Think we ought to build a Snipe XT Oh yes Uh oh he said checking his watch I'm afraid No It's s still early True but We haven't even been to the s smelly cove yet Mm but it's your grandfather's birthday Just one more s sighting Please Come on now Katya We've got to go home and get spiffed up and then come back and pick him up Katerina buried her chin in the top of her orange life vest Want me to take over sweetheart At this she quit pouting and began working the oars against each other turning the boat around so that the lowering sun was behind her father's head and his mussy gray hair glowed like a halo In the fall she'd had Mr Tupper for math
not Mr Massimino but the day after Christmas Mr Tupper had dropped dead of a heart attack on a rowing machine in the New Haven YMCA at the age of forty nine only a year older than her father True Mr Tupper had been known as Old Tubby whereas her father was thin as a rail and had recently passed the most complete physical in the history of the world Still he'd rowed them over to the wetlands and she didn't like him to overexert When they slid back out into Farnsworth Bay the water grew choppier but she never looked over her shoulder to check their course simply pulled harder on the port or starboard oar accord ing to her father's hand signals They were more than halfway across the bay when a low rumble started up out over Long Island Sound Soon it was a roar The Petrel needs petrol Mr Farnsworth remarked squinting up at a low flying dagger of a jet The Petrel B 3 banked left and zipped down onto the Farnsworth Aeronautics lot One niner said Katerina seeing it was using runway 19 Her arms were beginning to ache and the blis
ter on her thumb burned But it wasn't long before her father's hand signals became more frequent meaning they were near the boathouse Even then she didn't peek over her shoulder it being a point of honor between them to trust the other com pletely Ship your oars sweetheart She did and day turned to night After hav ing the sun in her eyes sliding into the dank algae smelling boathouse was like falling into a well But needles of daylight poked in through chinks where shingles were missing and the inte rior of the boathouse soon came into focus the small sailboat suspended in slings the old red canoe stored up in the rafters They secured the rowboat stowed the oars and car locks and life vests in the storage locker and walked out of the dilapidated structure It was the only dilapidated thing around Except for what looked like the turret of a castle poking up in the distance everything at Farnsworth Aeronautics was ultra modern and state of the art from the rippled fiberglass amphibious hangar home of the sea plane prototypes to the air traffic control tower from the construction plant to the gleaming
