SOL 30/31

"Daniel, turn it around!"

"I can't! It's not working!"

"Come on, it's going to far!"

It was a few days after Christmas in 2009. I was obsessing over my present which I had gotten on Christmas - a large remote control Air Force One. It was three feet long, and had at least a two foot wingspan. It had four electric engines. We took it out to Crestmoor park, which had a small layer of snow. We had to run while someone else started up the engines, then throw it forward while the person with the remote forced it upwards. Most of the time it didn't get enough lift and smashed into the snow, but occasionally it kept going.

It flew thirty, forty, or even fifty feet in the air - and it usually got a couple hundred feet away from us before we had to land it because it couldn't turn very well. We each got to fly it, and it was a lot of fun. That is of course, until Daniel took a turn. He was good at flying it, but made a fatal mistake. Someone ran, and he started up the four mini engines as they threw it. It arced upwards, and across the park. It went over the trees and over the street, and over the neighborhood.

It flew into the distance, shrinking and shrinking. Daniel lost control, because it went out of range - he couldn't turn it around. However, then engines kept running, so the plane kept flying into the distance until it became a small black dot, and sunk into the horizon. Daniel was embarrassed and felt very guilty. Especially as I fought back tears from losing my new present, and Alex yelled at him.

We searched the neighborhood for weeks, scanning the tops of houses and searching construction sites. We put of flyers, and searched some more - but to no avail. It was gone, and I began to forget about it. Three months after we lost it, we mentioned the plane to a neighbor who said they saw it in a tree. The tree was on the way to school - we had driven by the lost plane for three months and been oblivious to the fact that we went past it everyday. My parents scaled the tree and returned it to us. My present was returned - and the case of the missing air force on was solved.