The helicopter was chewing into the wind, coming closer and closer to Pony Ranch. Almost over the house it stopped in midair, engine roaring. It silenced even Grandma's music.
Everyone flew to the window, including Misty. They watched as the noisy machine hung over their heads.
"He's trying to decide!" Paul yelled.
"Who is? What?" Maureen wanted to know.
"The pilot, silly. He's figuring out where to land."
Grandpa was spellbound. "Ain't that beautiful? It's hangin' in the air jes' like a hummer-bird."
"Oh, mercy me!" Grandma cried as the helicopter tilted drunkenly, and began a steep vertical descent. "Oh ... oh! It's going to set right in my daffydil bed!"
Like a bird aiming for its nest, the helicopter hovered over the mounded-up flower bed, then squatted down on the tiny patch.
Grandma watched in dismay as its rotors spit sand and water in every direction. She hid her face in her hands. "Oh, Clarence! Oh, Clarence!" she sobbed. "I can't go. I can't!"
"And why can't ye?" Grandpa demanded.
"Because, because...." She groped for a reason. "Misty'll ruin my linoleum and...." Here the sobbing became a wail, "... she'll chew on my nice new table with the let-down leaves."
"No, she won't!" Paul was on the defensive. "I'll stay and watch her."
"You listen to me, Paul Beebe," Grandpa exploded. "Anybody stayin' behind'll be me, head o' the household. Quick now! Everybody grab a blanket. I'll go out and explain things to that pilot." He started for the door.
Grandma reached it first and made a barricade of herself. Her crying was done. "If'n you stay behind, Clarence, we all do. Either we go as a fambly or we stay as a fambly."
Grandpa sighed, half amused, half annoyed. "Then everything's settled. Throw yer mind outa gear, Idy, and get yer duds on."
While Grandma was struggling into her overboots, Grandpa and the children were doing last-minute chores: opening a window from the top, just a crack, taking vegetables from the refrigerator and scattering them in amongst Misty's hay. Last of all, Grandpa put the stopper in the sink and turned on the cold water. "Makes a neat water trough, eh?" he chuckled, avoiding Grandma's eyes.
"You think she can manage without us?" Maureen asked.
"We got to think that, honey. And even if the tide seeps in, I made this straw bed so thick the little colt won't even get his hinder wet."
"Sure," Paul added. "And see how Wait-a-Minute is cozying up to Misty. They'll keep each other company. And see how calm she is, watching that 'copter. She's saying, 'I've seen big birds flapping their wings before.'"
"Oh, Paul, I wish I could read critters' minds the way you do."
"That's easy, Maureen. You just got to be smart as them."
Mr. Birch, the Coast Guard man, welcomed the Beebes at the foot of the stairs. Standing there in the water he looked like a preacher, ready to baptise his flock. "Wisht everybody was prompt, like you folks," he said as he herded them toward the helicopter, "and willing to cooperate without arguin'."
"We did all that afore you came," Maureen said.
Mr. Birch laughed. "Leave it to the young'uns to come out with the truth!" He helped Grandma up the steps and into the shuddering plane. "See, Mrs. Beebe, it's easier than boarding a train."
Maureen started to follow but suddenly turned to Paul, and almost in unison they let out one cry. "Skipper! Skipper!" They both called frantically. "S-k-i-p-p-e-r!"
Mr. Birch was shaking his head. "Sorry, children. We just have room for folks on this trip. All dogs stay behind."
"Put him in the kitchen, too," Grandma offered.
"Skipper! Here, Skipper!" The children whistled and screamed. But there was no sign of him. Only the water swirling, and the trees bending with the wind.
"All aboard!" the pilot called out. "We got another pickup to make before dark. All aboard!"
Likely Skipper's drowned, Paul thought but didn't say aloud. He got into the helicopter and took a seat where he could look out at the house. But he refused to look.
"Fasten your seat belts!" the pilot ordered.
"Now, ain't this excitin'?" Grandpa yelled, as the blades overhead began whirring madly and the helicopter rose slowly off the earth and climbed straight up and up. "It's just like bein' in a elevator."
Grandma shook her head. She leaned toward the earth, taking a long last look at Pony Ranch, saying good-bye to it. Grandpa squeezed her hand comfortingly, and he looked down, too, down at the little house growing smaller and smaller.
"Such a racket!" Maureen cried. "Sounds faster than we're going."
Grandma held her hands over her ears. "Feels as if a thousand dentists are drilling inside my head."
"On your store teeth?" Paul grinned.
"Oh, Paul, stop teasing. I wish ... I wish you and Maureen was littler. If only I had a baby to hold, I'd feel braver."
Grandma soon got her wish. At the next stop they picked up the Hoopers and the Twilleys and young Mrs. Whealton with her squalling baby. Just as the father of the baby was about to board, the pilot poked his head out the window. "Sorry, sir. We're full. You'll have to wait for the next one."
Quickly the young man tried to hand in a pile of diapers, but a gust of wind tore most of them away and they went flying off like kites.
Mrs. Whealton, clutching her baby, started to get out.
"Stay put, lady. Everybody! Stay put!"
"I'll be along soon," Mr. Whealton called. And before the door closed, he thrust in the remaining diapers and the baby's bottle.
As the helicopter took off, Mrs. Whealton began sobbing louder than her baby. The passengers looked at one another, helpless and embarrassed. All except Grandma. She opened wide her arms.
"You just hand that little tyke acrost to me," she smiled, "and wipe yer eyes. You kin busy yerself foldin' the few diapers you got left."
Willingly Mrs. Whealton passed the baby across the aisle and into experienced hands. The crying stopped at once.
The northeast wind shook the helicopter, but it obeyed the pilot's stick. "We take no back talk from the elements," Mr. Birch said to reassure his passengers.
The plane was heading into the wind, flying low over the channel and over the long rib of sand that was Assateague. Everyone scanned the hills and woods for wild ponies.
"I see a bunch!" Paul cried.
"I knowed it! I knowed it!" Grandpa exulted. "They're atop the White Hills."
The pilot tried to hold the plane steady, but the gale buffeted it mercilessly. Twice he circled the herd, then climbed and headed due west. The island of Assateague seemed to be sailing backward, and now they were over Chincoteague again.
"Mr. Birch!" Maureen shouted. "Look at the people on that raft. They're waving a white flag."
"I see it," Mr. Birch answered, "but it's a housetop, not a raft, and they're waving a bedsheet. They don't know we got a full load."
From the cockpit the pilot called back, "We'll get 'em on the next trip. No, we won't!" he contradicted. "I see another chopper heading this way. They'll beat us to it."
Mr. Hooper, a quiet little man, said his first words of the trip. "Sky's so full o' whirlybirds we're goin' to need a traffic cop up here."
In spite of all the tragedy, the passengers couldn't help smiling at Mr. Hooper's joke.
"Yup," Grandpa agreed. "I can eenamost see a policeman mounted on a cloud like a parson in a pulpit."
But the make-believe fun didn't last. Now they were over the big bay of water, and now they could see the wavy shore of the mainland. Slowly the helicopter came down from the sky onto a landing field at Wallops Station. A thin fog was closing in and the night lights were already on as the Beebes and Hoopers and Twilleys and Mrs. Whealton tumbled out of the plane like seeds from a pod. A gust of wind swept them into a little huddle.
Suddenly the adventure and excitement were over. Standing there in the rain, Paul felt what he was, a refugee, homeless and cold and hungry. And half his mind was far away in a hay-strewn kitchen.
