Thank you.
Once upon a time there was a boy named Lincoln, and Lincoln loved riding his bike more than anything else in the world.
He liked to zoom down the biggest hill in his neighborhood, feeling the wind whip past his ears.
Faster, faster, he'd shout as he'd pedal his legs as hard as they could go.
One afternoon, while Lincoln was resting on the couch with a popsicle in his hand, he saw a show on TV about hang gliders.
People were running down hills with giant wings strapped to their backs and then whoosh!
They would soar into the sky like birds.
Lincoln was amazed as he thought to himself, what if I could fly like that?
What if I built my own giant wing?
Maybe I could attach it to the back of my bike.
What if I pedaled down a great big hill and got just fast enough?
Maybe I could lift right off the ground like that.
And the idea stuck in his head all night long.
And so the next morning, Lincoln got to work.
He found old sheets and some broomsticks.
He got some hooks and some duct tape.
And he tied and taped and glued the whole thing until...
It looked like a giant kite with handles and ropes.
All week long he worked on it and the other neighborhood kids watched him from a distance.
What is that supposed to be?
One of them asked.
What are you trying to make?
Some kind of spaceship or something? as they all sat around and laughed at him.
Oh, you'll see soon enough, Lincoln said to himself with a grin.
And finally, the giant wing was ready.
Lincoln fastened it to his bike, making sure the ropes were tight and the frame was steady.
And before heading out, Lincoln ran inside to grab a snack and tell his sisters goodbye.
And Addison, his younger sister, was busy lining up her dolls and perfumes. rose.
Don't break anything, she said without looking up.
And then Nora, his two-year-old sister, just handed him a pretend cookie from her tea set and said zoom fast, Linky.
And then Lincoln walked his bike to the top of the giant hill near his house.
And all the while, the neighborhood kids watched on as they laughed with each other and said Oh, look at him.
There he goes.
This ought to be good.
And when Lincoln got to the top of the hill he took a deep breath and said to himself Here goes nothing as he pushed off.
His feet pumped the pedals faster than ever before, and the wind started to tug at the wing behind him.
The bike zoomed down the hill as Lincoln pedaled faster and faster until suddenly he felt his front tire lift right off the ground.
And this wasn't just a little wheelie his front tire actually stayed off the ground and it was getting pulled even higher.
And it wasn't long until he felt his back tire lift off the ground too.
Lincoln gasped.
He was flying.
He was actually flying.
The wind kept carrying him up as he rose higher into the air.
And as he looked around, he saw that he was starting to get higher than the rooftops of the houses around him.
He could see the other kids below pointing and shouting with their mouths wide open.
I did it, Lincoln laughed.
I'm really flying.
And as he kept going, he felt himself speeding up.
He was going really fast now, like way faster than he could even pedal, even faster than most of the cars he saw down on the roads below.
This was insane.
And as he looked down, he saw more people starting to run out of their houses, as they were pointing up into the sky and staring at him.
And this was really cool, but Lincoln didn't really know what to do now.
He hadn't thought much about what to do next if his idea actually worked.
And it definitely did work.
So Lincoln leaned to the right, and then he leaned to the left and his wind cycle turned exactly the way he wanted it to.
This was truly incredible.
But then, something changed.
A sudden windstorm started to blow through the sky, swirling around him.
The gusts of wind were strong and they pushed Lincoln even higher into the air way, higher than he ever meant to go.
And he looked down, and the neighborhood was getting smaller and smaller.
And the trees down below started to look like little broccoli patches.
And the streets were starting to look like skinny little lines on a map.
Uh-oh.
I never even meant to go this high.
I don't really know how to fly this thing.
And just then, the clouds above him started to shift and swirl in a strange way.
He blinked quickly, wondering if his eyes were playing tricks on him.
Because it looked like there was a giant hole in the clouds that was opening right in the sky.
It almost looked like it was a door to some other world.
And before Lincoln could do anything, the wind blew him straight through it.
He felt an incredibly strong gust of wind.
As it blew him so fast he thought he was going to get pulled right off of his bike.
And just then he looked up at the wing he had built to see if it was still holding together.
After all, he never meant to build a wing that would take him so high and so far.
He thought he'd be lucky just to fly into the air for like five seconds, but clearly his wing had worked a little too well.
But now that he had come this far, He saw that his wing was starting to come undone.
Oh no!
Part of the sheets and the broomstick were flapping in the breeze as they were breaking apart in the wind.
Lincoln didn't like the look of this.
It was only a matter of time until this thing would completely fall apart.
And when it did, there would be nowhere to go but down.
And fast.
For another day.
