Caine snapped the nose of the ship down and the boy tumbled back into the cabin. "Hey!" he yelled. "Lookee, lookee!"
Caine cut between the tips of the tree-vines. He nearly touched his wheels against a clearing. He climbed. He dropped. He fought the anger.
The boy worked his camera and the girl watched Caine through the mirror. There was a different look in her eyes now, Caine saw. A kind of mocking look that made the anger inside of him swell and beat against his temples.
He knew she was going to start and he asked himself, "Why? Why couldn't they leave him alone just this one day, this one time, so that nothing would go wrong?"
But he knew this had been that kind of a day from the time it started. He knew as surely as he was flying the jetcopter that nothing was going to be right about this day.
She said it: "I think Nic's afraid of Vanny."
He licked his lips and his tongue was dry.
"I mean," she said. "Isn't that queer? A great big strong man like Nic afraid of a little boy like Vanny? Why is that, I wonder?"
Caine took his hands from the controls and rubbed them against his knees. He could feel it breaking apart. He couldn't hang onto it.
Then the boy yelled and scrambled to the opposite side of the cabin. The girl's feet went up and Caine caught the flash of her tan legs. She laughed and shook her hair.