Dirt Bikes, Drones & Other Ways to Fly
Dirt Bikes, Drones & Other Ways to Fly. Conrad Wesselhoeft, 2014. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
First person narrator is Arlo Santiago, 17, smalltown NE New Mexico. We’re thrown right into the action as he grabs for his phone when he gets a wake-up call, only it isn’t his usual buddies calling him to jump on his dirt bike for their ride to school. It’s an Air Force officer who has noticed his proficiency at a video game called Drone Pilot, and wants him to fly drone for them. He winds up taking the job, which involves being called at odd hours to beat feet to White Sands on the Ducati motorcycle they have provided. The work is familiar, from his Drone Pilot exercises, and fascinating: tracking the movements of an Islamic revolutionary in the Swat region of Pakistan. And it pays -- just about the only money that’s coming in to the family right now.
Home is a horror show. His mom was killed recently by the guy holding up the convenience store where she ran in to grab a soda. His dad lost his job running the local paper, and that on top of the grief over losing his wife makes him pretty drunk and absent. On top of which, his little sister has Huntington’s Disease (Arlo’s been tested, and he’s negative), and is losing function week by week. They do have some income from boarding some fancy pregnant mares; Arlo has support from a teacher who knows the family well; and there’s a family friend who is there to take the little sister in when her dad and brother aren’t giving her what she needs. The family friend is hosting her niece, Arlo’s classmate, a classy girl and immediate love interest.
But Arlo’s first love is speed, better yet when it involves flying. A local mentor-cum-impresario takes him and his pals sky-diving (the trip we go on isn’t the first one.) He talks Arlo into doing a dirt bike stunt jump at a football game. It goes badly, and Arlo is hurt. The Air Force puts pressure on him to kill the guy he’s been doing surveillance on, and he refuses. There goes that paycheck, and his little sister’s medical bills keep piling up. But Uncle Sal the impresario brings up another possibility: a TV show on extreme sports events that pays the big bucks. Arlo conceives of a whopper: driving that Ducati off the edge of a beloved mesa where his mom’s ashes are spread, and soaring into the valley in a flying squirrel suit assisted with a parachute. He pulls it off, and has an epiphany about vivid living.
Great book! In addition to being a believable view into the mind of a teenaged guy – unfamiliar ground to this old lady! -- it does a beautiful job of creating the setting in New Mexico, a place I know well.
First person narrator is Arlo Santiago, 17, smalltown NE New Mexico. We’re thrown right into the action as he grabs for his phone when he gets a wake-up call, only it isn’t his usual buddies calling him to jump on his dirt bike for their ride to school. It’s an Air Force officer who has noticed his proficiency at a video game called Drone Pilot, and wants him to fly drone for them. He winds up taking the job, which involves being called at odd hours to beat feet to White Sands on the Ducati motorcycle they have provided. The work is familiar, from his Drone Pilot exercises, and fascinating: tracking the movements of an Islamic revolutionary in the Swat region of Pakistan. And it pays -- just about the only money that’s coming in to the family right now.
Home is a horror show. His mom was killed recently by the guy holding up the convenience store where she ran in to grab a soda. His dad lost his job running the local paper, and that on top of the grief over losing his wife makes him pretty drunk and absent. On top of which, his little sister has Huntington’s Disease (Arlo’s been tested, and he’s negative), and is losing function week by week. They do have some income from boarding some fancy pregnant mares; Arlo has support from a teacher who knows the family well; and there’s a family friend who is there to take the little sister in when her dad and brother aren’t giving her what she needs. The family friend is hosting her niece, Arlo’s classmate, a classy girl and immediate love interest.
But Arlo’s first love is speed, better yet when it involves flying. A local mentor-cum-impresario takes him and his pals sky-diving (the trip we go on isn’t the first one.) He talks Arlo into doing a dirt bike stunt jump at a football game. It goes badly, and Arlo is hurt. The Air Force puts pressure on him to kill the guy he’s been doing surveillance on, and he refuses. There goes that paycheck, and his little sister’s medical bills keep piling up. But Uncle Sal the impresario brings up another possibility: a TV show on extreme sports events that pays the big bucks. Arlo conceives of a whopper: driving that Ducati off the edge of a beloved mesa where his mom’s ashes are spread, and soaring into the valley in a flying squirrel suit assisted with a parachute. He pulls it off, and has an epiphany about vivid living.
Great book! In addition to being a believable view into the mind of a teenaged guy – unfamiliar ground to this old lady! -- it does a beautiful job of creating the setting in New Mexico, a place I know well.
