Now that his job was done, Frederick watched the rest of the proceedings from the back of the classroom, arms folded, wearing a satisfied smirk on his face. There were various flimsy editions of paper planes, none quite as sleek or sophisticated as his. There were bow-and-arrow contraptions, Ping-Pong balls, and some idiot had fashioned an imitation of a cannon, using a squash ball as the cannonball. The ball dropped to the ground with a feeble plop and came to a stop after rolling about four more inches on the floor. Duh, didn't that guy have any idea how heavy a squash ball could be? What an anti-climax. Frederick felt smug.

Class was nearly over, and there were about twenty projectiles strewn across the floor, none quite as far along as Frederick's. There was just one more demo left to go before Frederick would be pronounced the victor of the bunch.

"Hi everyone, I'm Anne Elliot."

Before Frederick could even figure out where the voice came from, a round hot-pink blob traced a long arc through the air, hit the opposite wall with an audible thwack, and then slid down vertically, landing exactly at the foot of the wall.

And so the final ranking emerged: Anne Elliot, #1, 5.0 meters; Frederick Wentworth, #2, 4.88 meters; and Peter Chen, #3, 4.72 meters. Still stunned at the suddenness with which his victory was snatched away, Frederick wandered to the other end of the room, picked up the offending pink blob, and turned it over in his hands.

It was a replica of a pig, of all things. And its creator had obviously taken a lot of care to make sure that everyone knew just what it was intended to be. The body was made from a balloon, probably to save some weight, but encased within a foam-board frame from which the ears, legs, snout and tail were carved. It seemed the pig's snout had absorbed most of the impact with the wall, as the foam-board had squished in. The pig had a ridiculous cross-eyed expression, with big round cartoon eyes drawn on the balloon with Magic Marker. How this thing, which wasn't even aerodynamic, and which carried so much unnecessary weight, could fly farther than Frederick's lean, mean machine spoke volumes about the power of the mechanism that launched it.

A hand sneaked into Frederick's field of vision. Of course, it was the owner of the pig, demanding the return of her rightful property.

The girl - Anne Elliot, her name was? - was actually laughing at him. At close range, he could see the red-dyed highlights in her seemingly mousy brown hair. She was tiny, coming only up to his shoulders, but from this distance, at this time, she had so much presence that he couldn't imagine how it was possible that he had gone through almost an entire semester without noticing her before. With her short pixie haircut, khaki fleece-lined twill parka, leather messenger bag, skinny straight-cut jeans and floral-print Doc Martens, this girl exuded a subtly edgy kind of charm. Man, this chick is actually cool, Frederick found himself thinking.

"A pig? Why a pig?" Lost in his thoughts, Frederick blurted out the words before he knew it. He cursed himself for sounding so stupid.

Anne looked amused, more than anything else. She actually looks quite pretty when she smiles, thought Frederick.

"Oh, that." She chuckled. "It's a tribute to Pink Floyd. Ever heard their song Learning To Fly? It's from A Momentary Lapse of Reason. 1987. Go check it out."

"Oh." Frederick seemed to be temporarily robbed of the power of speech. He was totally befuddled - there was a real, explainable concept behind that ridiculous pig?

"And by the way, can I have my pig back, please?" Anne plucked the item out of his hand and walked out of the room, leaving him standing dumbly there.


The fact that Frederick actually bought the album was testimony to the level of his curiosity about Anne Elliot and the inspiration behind her project. Normally, he never wasted any money on CDs. He preferred to listen to the radio and record the songs he liked onto cassette tapes. That way, he could compile mix-tapes with only the songs he liked, without throwing away good money on forgettable songs that had no purpose except as boring filler material.

Frederick had never even bothered to invest in a CD player, so he played the album on his computer CD-ROM drive. The song was the second track on the album:

Into the distance, a ribbon of black

Stretched to the point of no turning back

A flight of fancy on a windswept field

Standing alone, my senses reeled

Fatal attraction is holding me fast

How can I escape this irresistible grasp?

Can't keep my eyes from the circling sky

Tongue-tied and twisted, just an earth-bound misfit, I

Ice is forming on the tips of my wings

Unheeded warnings, I thought I thought of everything

No navigation to find my way home

Unladen, empty and turned to stone

A soul in tension is learning to fly

Condition grounded, but determined to try

Can't keep my eyes from the circling skies

Tongue-tied and twisted, just an earth-bound misfit, I

Above the planet on a wing and a prayer

My grubby halo, a vapor trail in the empty air

Across the clouds I see my shadow fly

Out of the corner of my watering eye

A dream unthreatened by the morning light

Could blow this soul right through the roof of the night

There's no sensation to compare with this

Suspended animation, a state of bliss

Can't keep my eyes from the circling skies

Tongue-tied and twisted, just an earth-bound misfit, I

The lyrics spoke to Frederick in a way that no other song had ever done before. To date, his musical diet had consisted largely of heavy metal and rap - Snoop Dogg, Metallica, Korn, 2Pac and the like. It was part of his way of fitting in with the other kids at school. But those songs were largely about violence and hate - and he had seen firsthand how anger, coupled with a sense of hopelessness, could drive impressionable kids down the wrong path. For someone like him, who wanted to write a different story for himself - well, he couldn't identify with those songs at a personal level, so they were all just rhythm and sounds to him. This song, through, perfectly captured the feeling of joy and freedom he'd derived from getting airborne since the very first day he could stand up on a skateboard. It also spoke to his yearning for a sense of belonging for him and his siblings, not just social survival at school, but to make their mark and reclaim their position in society at large. Yet, unlike other songs of disenfranchisement, there was an element of hope as well. That spoke of his desire to move upward, to help create a better life for himself, Sophia, and Edward.

For Anne Elliot to dedicate an entire project to the song, it had to mean something very special to her, too. And Frederick was determined to find out how the same song could speak to the both of them so powerfully, whether it was in the same or in different ways.


"Anne Ell-i-ot. Do you have anything on for Friday night, by any chance? If you're still free, I was wondering if you could grace me with your company for dinner." Frederick leaned on the doorjamb, trying to show off his graceful, athletic figure to his best advantage. He deliberately threw Anne a Cheshire-cat type of grin, lending a farcical air to the entire invitation.

Anne did not trust Frederick Wentworth, because in general, she did not trust any guy who was too handsome and too conscious of it. And boy, did Frederick flaunt it - the too-cool-for-school attitude at that Monday's project demo session being one of the prime examples of late (if she excluded this little performance unfolding before her). She felt quite satisfied with herself for taking a little wind out of his sails with that one. His dumbfounded expression when she snatched the pig back from his open hand had been priceless.

Ever since she'd been old enough for guys to think about asking her out Anne had had to contend with guys asking her out for reasons that had nothing to do with any kind of real liking for her as a person. There was no end to the stream of prep-school boys who asked her for dates, dripping with gentlemanly politeness, sometimes even putting on the sweet shy-boy at, only to ditch her in favor of Elizabeth the minute they were able to secure the introduction - through her, no less. The more handsome the boys were, the worse it got. Jocks were no use, either - usually, they'd be again looking for some kind of arm candy, and mostly if they looked for her, it was either for the bragging rights of dating an Elliot girl at the times when her sister was taken by somebody else, or out of whatever hare-brained dares or bets they'd made amongst themselves. As far as she, Elizabeth and boys were concerned, the concept of "the heir and the spare" was alive and well. And their youngest sister Mary, now a freshman in high school, would probably be joining in the fray before long. Anne had been naïve too many times in high school, and now she'd learned her lesson. With Frederick Wentworth being both handsome and a jock, and strutting around brimming with cockiness at that, he couldn't be up to any good trying to ask her out. It was just an open invitation for her to prick his ego a little bit further.

"I'm sorry, but I already have plans for Friday," she replied, with a studiedly nonchalant air. "But if you really want to hang out with me sometime over the weekend, you can join me for a run on Sunday morning. Meet me at 6 a.m. at the Massachusetts Avenue junction along the Charles River."

To Anne's surprise, Frederick wasn't intimidated. He actually agreed, and if he was at all shocked that she would challenge him to an early morning run, when November was fast turning into December no less, he did a very good job of not showing it.

Wait and see, thought Anne gleefully, he has fallen for it hook, line and sinker.


Chapter Notes:

Easter Eggs - the presence of a cannonball projectile is a nod to the setting of the original with the Napoleonic wars in the background. The deliberate reference to Anne "taking a little wind out of [Frederick's] sails" is also a deliberate wordplay on the canon setting.

Song References – This series (this story and a sequel which will cover the territory of Persuasion itself) is a tribute to Pink Floyd's Learning To Fly which is quoted in its entirety in the chapter.