Flying 101

– Manfred

Try as he might, Manfred couldn’t get anything out of his new friend.

“Which melody are you from?” got him a stony silence; “What does your mother do?” got him a vacant stare; and “Where’s the best maggots round here?” got him a taciturn squint. At least “Where are you going to build your nest?” got him a grunt.

Not that it stopped Manfred—he was happy to talk uninterrupted about his own affairs while Felix wallowed alongside.

“Of course,” he was elaborating now to a distant gaze, “my mother thinks I should build mine in the family park, but it’s Maggie’s job—she’s my sister—to take over the family empire. I’m free to do what I please. Well, free within the confines of a matriarchal—hey!” Because Felix’s flight, although graceless to begin with, was slumping dangerously close to the treetops. “Is that how you’re going to do it?”

“Do what?”

“Fly. It’s alright to act the ruffle here, but as soon as we clear these trees,” he nodded at the land dropping off ahead, “the feandra’ll blow you beak over tail.”

Felix stared at him.

“Hey I like that one! I’m going to call that ‘confounded pout’.”

“Right that’s it!” Felix arked up with a careful shake of his head. “This was all a big mistake. I only said I’d come because you promised to shut up, which you haven’t, and now you don’t like the way I set my face?!”

“I’m sorry,” Manfred raised his wings placatingly. “I really am. I just thought you needed a friend. Come on, I’ll still buy you that chip and I’ll stop it with the face jokes.”

Felix grumbled something Manfred couldn’t hear.

“And I’ll even throw in a flying lesson.”

“There’s nothing wrong with the way I fly.”

“So you’re ready for the feandra, then?”

Felix fixed him with a cowed glare while Manfred bit his tongue.

“I don’t know what that means,” Felix admitted through gritted beak.

Manfred tried not to let his disbelief show. “It’s a wind.”

“I’ve never heard of it,” Felix frowned. “You’re making it up.”

“Maybe that’s just a western melody word?” Manfred offered diplomatically. “But the wind itself is real.”

“Well, what’s the wind got to do with anything, anyway?” Felix said with a move that might have started as a shrug but ended up as a wobble.

Manfred missed a flap. “It’s…errrr…” he struggled for a diplomatic answer. And to keep his laughter in check.

“It’s a fair question, is what it is,” Felix insisted. “Ms says there’s no such thing as a—”

“Maybe she never heard a question quite like this one,” Manfred said, wiping a tear from his eye. “But…ok. Let’s see…there’s no wind here on the land-side of the headland, right?”

Felix nodded.

“But over on the beach, there’s all that wind blowing in from the ocean, right?”

Another careful nod.

“Well, a feandra is when the two air pockets meet on a cliff—when we fly out of this pocket and into the other, we’ll hit the wind as it rushes up the cliff face.” Manfred glanced at Felix to make sure he was still listening. “It’s trying to fill the no-wind bits, you see,” he continued, saying nothing about the puzzled gape. “Wind always moves to no-wind.” He saw realization dawn in his eyes and breathed a sigh of relief.

“So why did we even come this way?”

“What other way did you want to go?”

“Well, you’ve taken us in the opposite direction. We’re too far inland and too far south, well past the Chip N’ Swill. Why didn’t we just go due east to the beach, and then due south?”

“Ok.” Manfred coughed. “Good question.” He coughed again. Extensively. “Let’s see. It’s a southerly today, right?”

Another nod—and Manfred noticed that although his new friend’s nod was more confident than before, his flight didn’t wobble half as much this time. Maybe he could fly when he was distracted.

“And the Chip N’ Swill was south of us when we started out, right?”

Another confident-nod-sans-wobble.

“So, if we’d gone your way, we’d have been pummelled by a headwind. And there’s some really rough thermals coming off that hot summer sand, too. This way, we just have to be a bit careful through the feandra, then catch the southerly and practically just glide all the way back up to the Swill.”

“Oh,” Felix said. “I get it.”

“But,” Manfred continued. “This only works when the wind and the sun are just right. And I’d say between 60º 21′ 00″ and 55º 29′ 00″ on a clear, hot day like today is perfect.”

Felix’s beak moved. Manfred studied his blank face, wondering if he should elaborate more.

Eventually Felix asked. “Why don’t you just say between 2:30 and 3pm?”

Manfred swallowed and pulled the sides of his beak together. “Because,” he squeaked, and cleared his throat before trying again. “Because that’s ape-think.”

“So?”

“So I didn’t want to gear my brain down a few exponentials. Ahhh.” He inhaled the rich salt air. “Smell that! You ready?”

“No, I—”

“Go!” Manfred swung north, the wind blowing straight up his tail. “Swing north! North!” Manfred yelled over his shoulder as the southerly rushed him away at breakwing speed, leaving just a

behind him.

Felix sighed and turned to follow his new friend.