Barways Martin - Aged 10 and a half

[honestlyapilot]

Martin sits in a booth, half a sandwich lying on a plate, forgotten at his elbow. A glass of coke, swept out of the way of his construction space, sits dripping condensation onto the table top. He's rather too busy playing with Lego to bother with food.

Martin is building an aeroplane. He's not really that good with Airfix models yet, though his Dad is teaching him a bit, but he likes to build with Lego. If you get it wrong you can always start again.

Comments

[can_finish_them]

Whrrrrrrm... Whrrrrrrrrrrm...

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Is it a bewinged demon bunny with chaos aforethought?

...Well, no, it is in fact a plane. (Sorry if anyone got their hopes up.)

Specifically, it's a fighter jet, painted inauthentically and brilliantly cherry-red and about half a foot long from nose to tail.

The little plane emerges into Milliways in a graceful upwards arc, buzzing thoughtfully around in the rafters for almost a minute before it loses the signal from its controller and slowly describes an unnaturally gentle descent to the ground, where it sensibly trundles into a safe refuge under Martin's chair.

(Maybe one of the patrons decided to lend a helping hand; maybe the Loompas decided they had enough work to do without collecting toy mechanical bits from every nook and cranny. Or maybe even a magical bar at the end of the universe is allowed a sneaking fondness for especially pretty toy planes.)

It is a few minutes before anyone follows the Firefox through the door to claim her.

[honestlyapilot]

Martin hears the buzzing and looks up from his half-finished model. He spots the plane on its descent coming right for him and is about to duck but instead it swoops, lands and runs under the table. He leans over to peer at it upside-down.

He reaches in after it and pulls it out firmly but carefully, and gently strokes some dust off a wingtip.

"Oh wow!" He breathes out softly, reverently.

"Who do you belong to?" He asks, entranced and not expecting an answer.

[can_finish_them]

In the meantime, a ten-year-old person with plaited golden hair halfway to coming loose and a streak of mud across one cheek appears to have found a door where she's pretty sure one of the outhouses is supposed to be.

Lady Katherine Douglas has never been introduced to a magical bar before, but appears to be more than equal to the situation - especially since she's just spotted her missing toy.

And thus -

"Me!" pipes a cheerful voice from behind Martin.

[honestlyapilot]

Martin spins round to face her, still clutching the toy to his chest.

"Really?" He asks, eyes wide. In his experience girls are very rarely interested in things that are actually interesting like planes. "It's very cool."

He holds it out for her to take back. "She's a brilliant colour."

[can_finish_them]

"Uh-huh. She's a Red Arrow," she informs him proudly. "- Well, not really, 'cause the Arrows don't fly Tornado GR4s, they fly Hawk T1s, but I wanted one that was exactly just the same as the one my mum flies, so I painted her red so she could be sort of both at once, almost."

She has done her research. She has done a lot of research.

(That particular shade of cherry-red, whilst not exactly Red Arrow-approved, is also her favourite colour, and is also the colour her trainers would be if they weren't so plastered with mud.)

[honestlyapilot]

Martin nods at her wisdom, obviously she must be very clever to know all about planes too.

"I was making a-" He stops and replays her sentence in his head. "Wait. Your Mum flies Tornadoes?" He sounds incredulous but overjoyed. "That is SO cool."

[can_finish_them]

"Uh-huh!" Kaidy nods her head several times very fast, beaming at him. "My mum's name is Air Commodore Neala Douglas and she gets really really angry when people say she's too important to fly any more and I'm going to be just like her when I'm older, only no-one is ever going to get to tell me I can't fly."

Beat.

"Except probably without being old, because that sounds boring."

You can totally make that bit optional, right? Right?

[honestlyapilot]

Martin is so jealous right now.

"My Mum doesn't even have a job, she just looks after my brother and sister and me. My Dad's an elec-trishun though. He's got a van. It's not as good as a plane. But I'm going to be a pilot anyway and fly in the RAF."

Martin beams. He has plans.

[can_finish_them]

Kaidy beams right back at him.

"You can be in the Red Arrows with me, if you want."

He gets it. She's never met anyone her age who understands about planes before.

[honestlyapilot]

"I s'pose we could always do both?" Martin says in a questioning sort of voice. "We could be in the RAF during the week and then fly Red Arrows at displays and stuff at the weekends." He shrugs.

Basically the best thing would be flying all the time, only sometimes he acknowledges that stopping for a bit to get something to eat and some drink is probably going to be a good idea. And probably sometimes he'll want to play with Lego and things and sleep too, but otherwise he's fine with flying all the rest of the times.

[can_finish_them]

"But the Red Arrows are in the RAF," Kaidy explains patiently. "You have to do at least one normal tour of duty and have like fifteen hundred flying hours and then you can apply, and if you get in you just do a three year tour of duty and then you go back to being in the regular RAF again. So you can totally do both."

:D?

[chose_books]

Some of the Lego has rather got away from him; a slight, slim woman picks it up as she passes, a book in her other hand.

"Is this yours?" she asks, and smiles.

[honestlyapilot]

Martin looks up and smiles.

"Yes, thank you! Sorry. I didn't mean to drop it. Sometimes bits just get loose y'see."

He beams at her, he doesn't like losing bits even if the Lego does really belong to Bar and not him, it's the principle of the thing.

"I'm making a Martinsyde Buzzard. It's a kind of aeroplane." He explains. "I'm Martin." He adds, as an afterthought.

[chose_books]

"Well, these things happen."

She smiles back at him, putting the Lego piece back where he has stacked the others neatly on the table.

"I'm Miss Honey," she tells him, "But I don't think this counts as school, so you may call me Jenny if you would like."

[not_the_hero]

There is a toad under Martin's chair that wasn't there before.

Not too far away, there is a pudgy eleven-year-old boy with a mess of floppy dark brown hair (Gran is going to cut it, but not until tomorrow) and the laces of one shoe undone, who might just be hunting for exactly that same toad.

(He only got Trevor yesterday, for his birthday. He can't have lost him already, he just can't, or Great-Uncle Algie will shout for days and days and days and it'll be just like his ninth birthday, even if that was much more Cousin Parthenope's fault, not that anyone really believed that.)

Well... looking for his toad and falling over his own laces.

Much more the latter than the former, if we're honest. (Even if he's not really sure he should be here, and is trying to be sneaky.)





"Oof."

[honestlyapilot]

Martin is somewhat busy with his Lego, and doesn't especially notice the toad beneath his chair or the boy looking for said toad right away. It's only when he drops a vital piece of the fuselage that he finds the toad crouching unhappily in the shadow below his table.

He doesn't really want to touch the toad. He's heard they give you warts, and all sorts of things, but he hasn't got any more of the flat plating to cover the underbelly of his plane, and he's determined to finish it. He reaches in and grabs for the piece. The toad lets out a loud croak and Martin jumps, banging his head on the table and failing to retrieve the Lego.

Martin rubs the bump on his head and frowns, plotting against the forces of toad.

[not_the_hero]

His eyes might meet those of someone else who's hit something involuntarily - though in Neville's case, it's the floor.

Well, being on the floor can count as being sneaky, right? Right?

So Neville huffs and scrambles forwards, also hunting for toad. And perhaps rather red, because he's horribly certain the other boy saw him fall.

[honestlyapilot]

As it happens, Martin did see the boy trip, or at least he caught the motion of it in his peripheral vision, and noticed the boy on the floor in that vicinity as he looked up. Martin pulls a face, a sort of grimace of solidarity, he's forever tripping over things just at the moment. Mum says it's because he's going to start growing again soon.

The other boy doesn't seem too inclined to get up again though, so perhaps he did do it on purpose, even if the pink across his cheeks doesn't really make it look too likely.

Martin nods at him.

"What are you doing down there?" He asks, in as nice and not-teasing a way as possible.

[not_the_hero]

Spotted!

Neville jumps guiltily at being addressed, feeling oddly as if he's been caught out, and nearly smacks his head on the underside of a chair.

Oh well; it was worth a try.

"I was looking for my toad," he admits finally. "I only got him yesterday and I've lost him three times already."

[never_said_pilot]

There's a bit of LEGO propeller that nearly gets trodden on by a solid regulation boot.

Being back in the kit is ... weird, and he's not sure he's happy about how comfortable it feels. So, distractions at this crazy-ass bar it is.

"This yours?" he asks the nearest kid, holding the piece out.

[honestlyapilot]

"Yes, thank you." He replies, taking the piece back.

"I'm making a Martinsyde F4, or, well, I'm trying to." The appeal was originally in the name, but Martin found that he liked the shape of her as well. Sadly lego's not exactly the best suited thing for capturing her likeness.

Martin smiles up at the man, he's jolly tall (but then nearly everyone is, Martin's sure he'll get bigger one day though) and he's wearing a really weird backpack. The harnesses are almost like the ones he's seen in pictures of parachutes, but the backpack is all metal casing and it doesn't look right. Martin frowns a little at it.

His nose wrinkles as he thinks about whether asking would be rude or not.

"Is that a parachute you're wearing?" He finally says, deciding that it's better to ask and be told off than not to ask and to not know the answer. This sort of thing is important after all.

[never_said_pilot]

"Huh."

Lego really isn't the easiest thing to make a 1910s biplane out of, but he's definitely got the shape right.

"They were one of the really early planes, right? That's pretty neat."

Sam's not the world's greatest with kids, but he has a couple nieces and nephews, so he's not exactly a philistine either.

Which means that Martin's question makes him grin lopsidedly, and give the tiny Lego propeller a little spin. "Not exactly."

[honestlyapilot]

Martin nods. "Yeah, they were from at the very end of the First World War, but even though they were the fastest plane they decided not to build lots of them and build Sopwiths instead 'cause they were cheaper." Martin pauses to take a breath. He gets a bit enthusiastic at times. "And also I'm Martin."

He looks sheepish, worried that admitting he liked it first because it too was a Martin is something a bit too babyish for someone who's nearly eleven to do.

He looks down at his half-finished model and then back up at the man.

"How not exactly? Are you a pilot?" He asks, still curious about the strange backpack-thing.

[never_said_pilot]

"And I'm Sam," he tells the kid, and grins a little. "Like the SAM 26000."

He's briefly tempted to explain what that is, but if Martin's heard of a Martinsyde then it's probably unneccessary.

"But no, I'm not a pilot."

As such.