The Amazing Spencer Gray Read Online Free

seats one behind the other.’ Dad put his hands on his seat and said, ‘But this is so much more fun, I reckon, because we can see each other during the flight.’
    Spencer nodded, and then furrowed his brow. ‘Does that mean this glider is quite ... old?’
    â€˜It is old, but it passes all the same strict safety checks that the most modern aircraft do, mate. I have total confidence in her.’
    Around him, the fibreglass cockpit was close, and the sun beat onto his skin. He could see why Dad was so full-on about wearing sunscreen and a hat when he went up. As Reg’s plane began taxiing, Spencer felt his bum must be nearly scraping the tarmac the seats were so low to the ground.
    Spencer sucked a slow ribbon of air through his nose, and tried to relax as Reg towed them along the gravel runway, the wind catching and buffeting lightly under the Drifter’ s wings. As they rose, it felt like the plane was being lifted from its own weight, somehow. Like being in an elevator.
    â€˜It’s easier than driving a car, most pilots reckon,’ Dad said, but Spencer looked at the equipment and controls all around them and couldn’t believe that being in charge of this or any plane could be easy.
    They went up and up and up, hanging from Reg’s plane like a baby on an umbilical cord.
    â€˜Okay, we’re at about two thousand feet now,’ Dad said. ‘I’m going to release us from the tow plane,’ and Spencer saw the metal cable whipping away like a cut snake.
    Once they’d been on their own for a few minutes Dad said, ‘Look around us, Spence. What do you see?’
    â€˜Uhhh ... sky. A couple of birds. Clouds.’
    â€˜Yep. Anything else?’
    â€˜No.’
    â€˜Exactly.’
    And it was true. Apart from the hard splats of insects as the void between them and the ground grew, there was nothing else up here. In the distance Spencer could see another small plane-like thing, but it was a wedge-tailed eagle, circling the scrub, making perfect, silent spirals.
    â€˜The wedgies always hang at the top of the thermals,’ said Dad. ‘It’s their spot.’
    They were up high now, and it was cold outside—the air was fogging the edges of the windscreen—but in the cockpit they were sealed in, snug, silent. The silence is like something pressing on you, Spencer thought, and it’s almost ... loud. Up here, it felt like he had bat’s ears: sonic radar detectors, picking up every little squeak, every shushhhh, every bend in the wind as the Drifter cut through, dipped down, yearned upwards.
    Dad looked over, lifted his headphones off one ear. ‘What do you reckon?’
    Spencer’s face was full of amazement. He tried to find words.
    Dad nodded, smiled. ‘I know, mate, I know. Just enjoy it. Keep the headphones off for a while. There’s nothing like it.’
    You could call his dad a fanatic. Mum did. ‘Fanatic’s a bit harsh,’ Dad said in his own defence on one occasion.
    â€˜Is it? It’s fanaticism, or hobby-obsession at the very least. The Drifter takes up a lot of your in-your-head time, put it that way.’
    â€˜I love how scientific you are about these things, Suze.’
    Mum’d roll her eyes. ‘You know what I mean.’
    â€˜I know. I do love it,’ he sighed. ‘I love it when I’m up there and I love it when I’m down here, thinking about being up there.’
    â€˜Just so long as there’s a bit of us up there with you—and a lot of you down here with us.’
    â€˜There is,’ he looked at her. ‘There always is.’ He paused. ‘I wish you’d still come up with me, Suze. I miss our flights together.’
    Mum shook her head, but didn’t meet his gaze. ‘Not now. Not now we’ve got these two. Imagine if something were to_____’
    â€˜More chance of us being killed in a car crash, you know that.’
    She shook her