I never cry said Pippi astrid lindgren pippi longstocking
one I hate it when Mom calls me sensitive I’m a guy I’m almost a teenager I can’t be a twelve year-old boy and sensitive at the same time That’s not possible But as I stood in that crowd not a single face familiar to me for as far as I could see my lifeline cut fear making my knees weak and my heart pounding like a basketball rattling hard inside a hoop I knew she was right on the mark I was alone I had never been so alone And I had never been so frightened in all my life 1
Just two days earlier I had been safe and sound sort of And Grandpa and I were on a plane a million miles above the Atlantic Ocean That’s the sort of part How can you even be remotely safe when you are inside a steel object weighing about a trillion pounds that is hanging in the air or at least hurtling through it and might at any second fall out of the sky and send every last person inside it to a fiery death arms and legs ripped off heads severed and blood splattered all over the place and perhaps I shouldn’t go on I won’t even mention the remains-getting-eaten by-sharks part Not that I’m sensitive Grandpa sure isn’t I can picture him now sitting there next to me in our economy-class seats not a big spender is David McLean and looking highly insensitive That doesn’t sound right and I don’t think I mean it the way it came out He’s a good man and a caring grandfather and just about perfect in every way even though he’s old Sometimes I actually wish he wasn’t so perfect I doubt he talks to himself inside his 2 shane peacock
head like this But at that moment on the plane he looked like he didn’t have a care in the world a real guy strong and manly and bold We were on our way to Sweden which at the time was a good thing and I was about to barf which obviously wasn’t I had my attention on the throw-up bag in the pocket of the seat in front of me eyeing it sideways so he couldn’t tell I was looking at it so lovingly I’m not a good flier Never was and never will be Grandpa on the other hand is among the best in the history of the world the universe the Milky Way and beyond World War II hero and all that goes with it pilot of every plane known to mankind and for many years the operator of what he called an import export business I could never figure out what that really was and what he really did But he flew all over the world doing stuff And now that he’s retired he’s still flying all over the world doing stuff He has lots of friends in all parts of the globe and he likes to visit them 3 separated
