Dunc Breaks the Record by Gary Paulsen Page A

back, and Amos copied him.
    The glider wobbled a bit, but Dunc corrected with the bar, and it settled into a proper attitude and began to slide down the hill, about thirty feet off the ground.
    “See?” Dunc said. He was smiling. “Isn’t this great? We’re just greasing on down, and then—”
    They would argue later over what he had been about to say next. Dunc said he was going to talk about being in the record books. Amos swore he was going to say: “—–just greasing on down, and then we’ll fly away and ruin our lives and everything, and die.”
    At first there was a natural flow to what happened.
    The morning breeze coming up the hill freshened still more, and a sudden gust caught the glider. It shot up two hundred feet.
    “Yalp!” Amos shouted, or something very likea gulp that turned into a yell. “What happened?”
    “No problem,” Dunc said. He pulled the bar back, and the nose of the glider dropped. “It was just a little updraft.”
    “Mr. Meserman looks awful small down there.” Amos took his hand off the bar to point. The glider wiggled. He put his hand back on the bar. “I mean
really
small.”
    “I just have to compensate a bit more.”
    “So do it. Compensate.”
    Dunc pulled further back on the bar. The nose dropped still more, but it didn’t help.
    The glider continued to climb.
    “Compensate,” Amos said, his voice becoming shrill.
“Compensate!”
    “I am.” It was a cool morning, but Dunc was starting to sweat. Damp spots showed through his jacket. His forehead under the helmet was damp. “I’m pulling back all I dare.”
    “Why aren’t we going down?”
    “I don’t know—we should be dropping fast.”
    “We’re still climbing!”
    “I know, Amos. I’m here with you, remember?”
    “I can’t see Mr. Meserman.”
    “Sure you can—there he is, by his car. See?”
    “He’s just a dot. A tiny dot!”
    Dunc pushed sideways on the bar. The glider swooped off to the left.
    “What are you doing?” Amos fought him on the bar, and the glider wobbled like a sick bat.
    “I think we’re caught in some kind of updraft or thermal. I thought maybe if we slid off sideways we would start down.”
    “We didn’t.” Amos’s knuckles were white on the bar.
    “I know.”
    “We’re still climbing.”
    “I know.”
    “We’re going to die.”
    “No, we’re not.”
    “We’re going to fall and fall and crash and drop and plummet and die.”
    “No, we’re not.”
    “I have to go to the bathroom.”
    “Be quiet now.”
    “Bad.”
    “Amos—”
    Even though the nose stayed down, the glider continued to climb, until even Mr.Meserman’s car—a large station wagon with a rack on top to haul the glider—couldn’t be seen.
    Until town, eight miles away, was lost in the blurry haze of altitude.
    Up and up and up …

.2
    “Yes,” Dunc said, nodding. “It’s a thermal. That’s what it is.”
    Amos had his eyes closed tightly, the lids jammed down. “I don’t care. I’m not looking.”
    “Oh, heck, Amos, it’s not so bad. We just got carried up a ways. As soon as we get off this thermal, we can get back down.”
    “That’s what bothers me—the down part.”
    “It’s all very simple.” Dunc pulled himself slightly around so he could see to the rear. “The air moves up that hill, just like Mr. Meserman told us. I guess it just moves more than he thought it would, or faster. See out there off tothe right—those clouds? That’s what caused the wind and the thermal to come up.”
    “I don’t see anything.”
    “You will if you open your eyes.”
    Amos opened his eyes. Then wider—so wide, they seemed to pop out of his head. “Dunc, I can’t see anything! I’m blind! The altitude is making me blind!”
    Dunc reached across and jerked on Amos’s helmet strap. “Your helmet is in front of your eyes. Look—it’s beautiful.”
    “It’s down—everything is down from here.” Amos blinked. “There is no up.”
    Dunc pulled the bar sideways, and the