Life is a Skyway [and I wanna fly it all night long]

Here's the next part, and if you want, go back and look over the first few paragraphs; I changed a few things to accomedate new ideas.

EDIT: It won't let me re-attach the new file. Can you find a way to make it so I can attach files with the same name? For the time being, I'll just post it.

Life is a Skyway [and I wanna fly it all night long]

The sun seldom shines down on the fields of Springfield. Despite this, few people take advantage of this fact. Only the clear, warm days of early autumn does such a marvelous thing happen. The little girl in the red dress, who we all know, is resting in the field. Being an absolute naturalist, she could not resist seeing a day like today. Blissfully, she leapt up, and walked around.

“I can’t believe it. It’s like nothing in the world can spoil this!”, exclaimed Lisa.

It was her happy place. You know what I’m talking about; everybody has a place where they feel at peace. This meadow was hers. There was no other place in the world she would rather be than here. She continued to blissfully amble through, as she gazed upon the magnificent, open sky. Suddenly, out of the corner of her eye, she spotted something. Something marring her view. Turning her head she sees it is an airplane. It was a low-flyer, too, as if it was inevitable to could hear the scream of the engine from at least a mile away. Seeing this, Lisa lets out a long sigh.

“Right on cue.” She moaned with annoyance.

“Lisa, time to go! It’s lunchtime!”

She knew that voice. The voice of her perpetually anxious mother.

Now back in her normal state of mind: depression. It was back to reality for her, as she traveled the seemingly endless walk back to the car. The ride home was even worse, as it always takes a while for her to get readjusted to living her boring life with her annoying family. As if to add insult to injury, it had started to rain and thunder out. They finally arrived. The aroma of burning wafted throughout the entire house; Homer had tried to make fish sticks again.

“Marge, did you like your mom’s cooking when you were a kid?”

“Hmm, uh, I guess I did, yes.”

“Good, because this tastes even worse!”

Marge grumbled her trademark “hrrrmm”, and walked disdainfully over to the fridge.

“Well, how about pizza?”

The entire family cheered, except Marge and Maggie. Marge, because she had always wanted her family to eat healthier, and stop guzzling fat down. And Maggie… well, she can’t say ANYTHING. Marge pulled out a pizza from the freezer, 2nd shelf down, behind the popsicles, like always. As she felt she cold wrapper, she secretly thought of how monotonous this was getting. About 30 minutes later, the pizza was already gone. In fact, that was pretty slow. For some reason, Homer had been considerate enough to spare 3 slices for the kids, since Marge said she wasn’t hungry.

“Ah, that was great. When was the last time we had pizza?” Homer said after a disgusting belch.

Marge looked at Homer, worried.

“4 hours ago.”

“Oh, yeah. I remember that, now. Good times, good times.”

Later that night, Lisa was sleeping peacefully, while Bart was tossing and turning again, due to consuming 3 bags of skittles before bed. But, he was used to the sugar rush by now. The next morning, Monday again. The start to a new week. Bart and Lisa were waiting by the bus, and Lisa had a strange, worried look on her face. She rarely had any worries about school, but this was a rare occasion. You see, Springfield elementary had just been given a large state grant because of all the… how do I put this, high level of academic disability in the school. With the money, they instituted a new mandatory class on mechanics, and there’s some things that even a smart girl like Lisa isn’t good at.

“Hey, Lis, what’s wrong?”

“Oh, nothing that affects you, so you really wouldn’t care anyways.”

“Pfft, you just realized that NOW?”

The bus arrives at the famous curb of where Evergreen Terrace meets Walnut street. Otto opens the bus door, putting his full attention on playing a handheld video game.

“Come on, jump, jump!” Screamed Otto, deeply immersed in the game.

Several depressing electronic notes are heard, declaring a game over.

“Aw, man! Not again!”

The ride to school was another noisy, screaming terror. Everybody had gotten used to it by now, for it had always been this way. When they arrive at school, Lisa notices an extra room at the end of the hallway, and cringes. To her dismay, it turns out that it was her first class. Treading down the hall to the personally dreaded room, she could already see the most horrible letter of the alphabet, “F”, waving around in her mind. Entering, she saw machine upon machine, some simple, some unimaginably complex.

“I hope I don’t have to put together any of those.” She thought to herself.

The teacher came in from the door. He had glasses so thick, it made an aquarium tank seem insignificant. Along with it was an excessively long labcoat, and tacky green shoes.

“Good morning students! Today we will learn about basic mechanics.
‘Ng-hey’!”
The teacher picks up a stick of chalk, and looks at it and the chalkboard.

“Oh, what is wrong with you people? Chalk? What is this, the stone age? I refuse to use such things of these proportions, ‘ng-hey!’”

The teacher pulls out a small contraption of wires, tubes, and metal.

“Now, this is my latest invention. It takes ordinary pencil shavings, and turns them into a common, everyday pencil. Observe as science takes place!”

The teacher inserts a funnel into the machine, and pours a large box of pencil shavings inside. The machine rattles around a little bit, and then shoots out a pencil at the teacher, and continues to fire. He starts running around to dodge them.

“Oh, dear! Now, you see, this is where it can go crazy on you with the chasing and the poking and the ‘gluh-hoyven’ it hurts!”

Despite the amusing invention, the kids of the 2nd grade have been desensitized enough to already be asleep. Lisa stands up, and turns the switch on the machine from “On” to “Off”. The teacher stops running around.

“Um, thank you, little girl.”

Lisa trudges back to her seat, and while doing so, 1 worry is taken off her mind: The class isn’t hard at all; it’s just boring! At the moment, it was hard to tell which was worse. Probably the boredom.

“Now I will be handing out the materials to make one of these yourself. Only I hope it will be much less dangerous, yes?”

The teacher hands out some incomprehensible parts and pieces; each of the children looks at them, dumbfounded. Except Ralph, for it is difficult to see something that has just been shoved up one’s nose. Lisa looks at a tube, and sees a small inlet in the main box. Experimentally, she inserts the tube into the hole, and to her surprise, it fits perfectly!

“Hmm…” said Lisa, feeling a slight bit more confident.

After a while, she has almost the construction of the machine, save 1 wire, that she is placing in very carefully. Finished. She finally looks up, after being mentally immersed in the machine for quite some time, notices everyone is still staring, stupefied, at the seemingly amorphous heap of parts before them.

“Well, done, student! Now we shall test the contraption.”

Lisa turns the switch to “On”, and inserts what’s left of the teacher’s box of pencil shavings. The machine clanks around for a few seconds, but eventually drops out a fresh number 2 pencil.

“Well, I know when I’ve been beaten, ’ng-hoyven’.”

She was very proud of her accomplishment; who wouldn’t be? Another hurdle passed for a miss Lisa Simpson.. She looked around the classroom at wide eyes and open, gaping mouths, her classmates being shocked she was able to complete such a perplexing assignment. Later that night at the dinner table, she couldn’t stop talking about it. She had never really been one to brag, but whenever she did something as grand as this [Grand it was, in her own eyes.], she couldn’t help but talk.

“It was so easy! It’s like I knew exactly where to put every single wire, by mere instinct!”

“Sheesh, Lis, give it a rest. You’ve been babbling about it for over an hour.” Said Bart with much annoyance.

“Oh, dear, ‘giggle’ I guess I have been a bit of a nuisance. Sorry.”

Lisa is normally a girl that was very tuned into her surroundings, but that, apparently was one thing she couldn’t figure out. After that, an awkward silence occurred. Breaking it was Lisa, stating she was getting tired, and was going to bed soon. She had borrowed a laptop from the 2nd grade classroom, and was looking up information on the internet about mechanics all night. She was becoming more fascinated by the minute. By her standards, missing a night’s sleep was okay, as long as you are learning. Her alarm clock rang with an irritating sound, and she slammed her hand down on the button.

“Ugh, what was I thinking?”

Lisa immediately regretted the late night cram session, all the more, she knew it was unnecessary. But, now she probably knew more than the teacher about the subject. The whole day went by slowly, in eager anticipation of mechanics class. Finally it was time. Lisa raced into class, ready to build. It was the day that they constructed a microscope, and Lisa finished before anyone else, just like before. Every day after that, it kept getting easier and easier. She could put together parts in her sleep. Now, she couldn’t wait for another day of solar panels, wheels, gears and wires giving her a cold, but strangely soothing feel in her little palm. It was like magic to Lisa.

“’pant’, ‘pant’, so Sorry, that I’m late, students. A monkey in my lab had gotten into the cloning machine, and ‘hoo-boy’, it was horrible with the screaming and the pooping and the ‘ng-ghlaving!’ it stinks in here!”

Lisa released a small giggle at the professor’s expense.

“So, anyway, today, as you might know, is the midterm exam for this class, ‘ng-hey’. To pass this class, you must construct a miniature jet engine from the parts you are given.”

The professor gives each child a box of parts, and watches in disappointment as they pathetically attempt to attach pieces together. It was almost if they were blind. Not even 5 minutes had passed, and already someone shouted out,

“Finished!”

Of course it was Lisa. She had assembled a flawless engine, and no part was spared. Absolute perfection. The professor took out a relatively massive red marker and a sheet of paper, and wrote a big “A+” on it. Also, near the bottom, he wrote “Meet me after class. ‘Ng-hoyven’.” This puzzled her, for she was positive she had done nothing wrong. Nevertheless, she waited until class was over, then stayed in her seat. It was a tense situation for her. Was she being obnoxious? Was she rude? She couldn’t tell. All she knew that the professor was approaching her.

“Did I do something wrong, sir?” She said in nervousness.

“Quite the contrary, little girl. You’ve been doing exceedingly well in this class, ‘Gu-hoy’, and I need to ask you something. Have you ever considered learning how to fly an airplane?”

That was one less thing for Lisa to worry about, but she was even more intrigued by this new proposal the professor had mentioned.

“Um, no, not really.”

“I hear that it is indeed quite thrilling, with the zooming and the wailing and the ‘wo-hoy!’, look out for that bird! So, what do you think?”

“Why are you asking me this?”

“It takes a very skilled mechanic to fly and maintain an aircraft, and you seem to fit that perfectly, yes?”

Lisa pondered this for a moment, thinking about what it would be like, and it seemed very fun to do such a thing. She came to a decision. She did not realize it at the time, but the clouds that brought forth the pouring rain that still persisted from yesterday were starting to clear up.

“It sounds great! Do you know any places where I could learn?”

The professor handed Lisa a piece of paper with some information on it, and in big, bold letters, it said “Springfield Class for Airplane Training”. She was now immensely excited. She had never been given such an chance to do something like this before. It was something that only comes along once in a lifetime, wouldn’t you agree? She couldn’t wait for the day to be over, so she could tell her Mom and Dad… but then remembered how paranoid Marge was about this sort of thing. If she was lucky, she would find some way of laying down the idea lightly. Somehow, she’d find a way. The rest of the day seemed to crawl by as slowly as possible, and besides the obvious, it was a Friday, so that attributed to the psychological length of the day. Finally, the last bell sounded, signaling the school day’s end. Lisa quickly gathered her books and backpack, and headed straight to her bicycle outside. On her ride home, she could see the bright, cheery sun in the sky the birds chirping, and such things. Upon entering the house, she wore a smile on her face. One so bright, you wouldn’t notice, let alone care that it was such a beautiful afternoon. She then rushed over to Marge and Homer, who were sitting at the kitchen table.

“Mom! You won’t believe what happened at school today!”