Miguel wasn’t the fastest kid in his class, but he could run. Fast enough for third-grade softball, you know. And fast enough to get a kite up in the air. It was recess and several other kids were flying kites today. Just enough breeze to keep one up.

So Miguel went to the downwind end of the big playground and took off. He fed the string out quickly, and by the time he’d reached the monkey bars at the other end of the field, he discovered he’d been successful. The kite stayed up and swung with the breeze, and the tug on the string told him he had once again mastered flight.

He fed out even more string until his kite was over the street, then even more until it flew over the houses across the street. Finally, he was down to the stick itself. It was all there, in his hands. Flight.

I’ll bet if I had enough string I could sail this to the moon.

He grinned and looked around at the other happy pilots, and then he saw Joey sitting over to one side in his wheelchair, and Joey was smiling, too.

What fun, being a pilot … pretending this was your own jet fighter, waiting in the sky to do your bidding.

Carefully, Miguel moved his command post over to Joey’s wheelchair and handed him the controls. The magic of flight is too special not to be shared