Everyone had their opinions of how Johnny came to have this remarkable gift.

Mr. Emerson thought it was because of the time Johnny spent at the college visiting eccentric old Professor Fladle.

Mrs. Gamble, who owned the grocery store, swore it was because of the preservatives in the hot dogs Johnny loved so much.

Poor dead Mr. Crombe had blamed Johnny's mutation on "that new-fangled new-kew-ler power plant yonder".

Whatever the reason, the fact remained: Johnny had wings. He had awakened and gone into the shower one morning and his back scrubber got caught on something. He didn't think too much about it at the time, but when he stretched the towel across his back, it felt like he'd forgotten to take his pajama tops off. He turned so he could see his back in the mirror, and there they were: wings!

Johnny was afraid at first, but curiosity soon got the better of him: He flapped once. He felt lighter!

He flapped twice. His feet lifted off the floor!

He flapped harder, and hit his head on the ceiling! It didn't even hurt! Well, it might have, but Johnny was too excited to notice or care.

Five minutes later, Johnny had gotten up enough nerve to attempt his first outdoor solo.

All things considered, flying came quite naturally to Johnny. The townspeople would stop and point skyward as Johnny performed aerial acrobatics and two-steps high above the flagpole at Town Square. Unbelievable as it would seem, the fourteen hundred and twenty-three residents of Johnny's tiny Northeastern town kept his secret. Publicity was considered a threat to the town's peaceful lifestyle, and besides, the residents rather enjoyed Johnny's aerobatics.

All except Ed Tinker, the town's pragmatic appliance repairman, who gave Johnny a brand new Swiss Army knife, and told him to use it to remove his wings. He said, "Man wasn't meant to fly ... 'cept in airplanes."

Johnny, by now quite comfortable with his mutation, put the knife in his back pocket.

The novelty of watching Johnny soon wore off, and the townspeople returned to their business as Johnny swooped, dove, looped-the-loop, and soared higher than any man had ever flown under his own power. Johnny came to love the feelings. Weightlessness. Freedom. The cool air in his face. To be able -- to be compelled -- to fly higher and higher and farther and farther.

World problems, job problems, family problems -- all paled when compared with Johnny's view from the top. Soft-shoe on cumulus. Backstroking high above checkerboard rural America. Jumping from Rocky Mountain snow-capped peak to snow-capped peak.

Johnny was airborne every second he wasn't at school, sleeping, or doing chores. He was getting so good at flying that he was able to cover the distance to Denver and back in just over four hours.

The blip on a radar screen in a room full of advanced electronic equipment somewhere deep underground in a sparsely populated part of Nebraska turned out to be Johnny.

The men in the room called the blip and asked it to identify itself, but Johnny didn't carry a radio.

The men in the radar room ordered the blip shot down.

They sent missiles by the silo, fighter jets by the score, and bullets by the bucket; but the bullets weren't fast enough, and the fighter jets weren't agile enough, and the heat-seeking missiles couldn't get a positive lock on Johnny's relatively low body heat.

For awhile, Johnny had a good time playing tag with the nation's most advanced military ordnance. But darkness was approaching, so he flew home.

Two men from The Agency appeared at Johnny's door the next morning. They had followed his blip. They checked Johnny for radiation, and for a possible chemical imbalance caused by food preservatives. They poked and prodded and looked for anything that could have resulted in his unique gift. They found nothing out of the ordinary.

Except, of course, the wings.

Then the short stocky man from The Agency told Johnny to pack a bag. Johnny was to accompany the men to The Base so he could be examined more closely. Johnny didn't like the way the tall one looked at him, but he reluctantly agreed to spend the weekend.

The first day wasn't so bad. Johnny's physical abilities were tested, and Johnny was just as curious about them as were the men from The Agency. He learned how much weight he could lift, how long he could hover in place, how fast he could fly, how much g-force he could withstand, and how much energy his wings had to expend in order for Johnny to achieve lift-off.

The following morning, however, things took a downward turn. The tall man came in barking at five-thirty in the morning (something about an early bird and a worm) and ordered Johnny to follow him. He led Johnny to the loading dock at the rear of the building.

Just as Johnny went out the door, the short stocky man from The Agency pulled a canvas bag over Johnny and tied it securely so he couldn't get out. Johnny heard the tall man tell the short one to hurry and get him loaded on the plane, and that they would be in South America before anyone realized what had happened!

Johnny stayed quiet inside the bag as the men loaded him onto the plane. He heard the engines start and rev. He felt the plane move. He heard the engines roar, and a few seconds later the plane was airborne. Johnny gave the plane time to gain altitude, then removed the Swiss Army knife from his back pocket, cut himself out of the bag, and stepped out of the plane.

He was home in little over an hour.

By now, the news that Johnny could fly had been leaked to the media. News reporters, photographers, television cameramen and plenty of curious rubberneckers swarmed the town, disrupting its peacefulness and generally upsetting the once friendly townspeople. They all crowded into Town Square to watch Johnny swoop, dive, soar, and loop-the-loop high above the flagpole.

The two men from The Agency returned. They tried nearly everything to get Johnny to come down.

They tried asking politely, but Johnny was wise to those tactics. They purchased bread crumbs from Mrs. Gamble's store, spread them on the ground, and waited nearby with nets for Johnny to get hungry. Perhaps croutons might have done the trick, but after all, Johnny wasn't a bird. Although he had wings, the rest of him was quite human.

The men went up in an Agency helicopter with a huge barrel of Morton's iodized salt and poured it on Johnny's legs, thinking it might have the same effect it has on a bird's tail feathers. But that didn't work either: Legs are not tail feathers, although they do add stability to a person's flight.

The men from The Agency even tied a web of monofilament fishing line to the flagpole, hoping Johnny would get his wings caught in it. Fortunately, Johnny did have one other thing in common with birds: He had eyes like an eagle -- and no problem avoiding the fishing line.

Meanwhile, tempers were flaring in the once peaceful town. Mr. Emerson got into a fracas with one of those "college educated" news reporters over the proper use of a big word.

Mrs. Gamble fretted because the tall man from The Agency smothered all of his food with ketchup. "They put preservatives in there, you know," she fretted. "Besides, the way you're using it, there won't be any left for the rest of us!"

Poor dead Mr. Crombe had to push up more daisies to replace the ones that had been trampled by the media circus that had invaded the town.

And Ed Tinker was bothered by more than one cameraman trying to borrow tools to repair cameras.

To Johnny, the action taking place in the once peaceful town square was better than any TV show or movie he'd ever seen. He hovered for hours, entranced in the scene below, not realizing -- or realizing and not really caring -- that he was the reason for it all.

One overcast day, as Johnny played hide-and-seek with a pigeon in some low-lying clouds, the town's volunteer firemen came to Town Square and set up a huge net. An elderly gent from out of town asked the local constabulary to clear an area for him so he could set up a device called the "pulse-code-modulated Helmholtz resonator".

The rubberneckers commented to the media that it looked like a death-ray cannon from a grade-B movie.

The news photographers clambered over each other to claim the best vantage points for photo ops.

The news reporters had their research departments working overtime. But not even the best, most meticulous researchers on the combined staffs of the National Enquirer, the Star and the New York Post could figure out exactly what a pulse-code-modulated Helmholtz resonator did.

As the elderly gent continued to set up the device, the reporters interviewed some of the townspeople.

Mr. Emerson speculated that the elderly gent must be another one of those wacky professors from the college trying to justify his research grant.

Mrs. Gamble thought the device might be a high-tech portable barbecue. After all, the grocery was almost out of ketchup, and someone had to feed all these people!

Although they asked him, poor dead Mr. Crombe was too busy replacing daisies to comment.

Ed Tinker was perplexed. He ignored the reporters' questions and repeatedly asked the elderly gent about the device. But the gent was too busy to stop and explain. Ed even offered the gent free use of one of his own personal screwdrivers. To Ed's amazement, the gent politely declined.

After an hour or so, the elderly gent finished assembling the pulse-code-modulated Helmholtz resonator.

He aimed it toward Johnny.

Everyone stood back.

The firemen readied the net.

The very second the gent powered up the device, Johnny's wings shriveled and fell off, and Johnny plummeted into the firemen's net below.

The elderly gent switched the device off.

Doctor Bifocal rushed to examine Johnny, pronounced him healthy, and said he couldn't find any evidence that Johnny had ever had wings!

So the curious rubberneckers and the news reporters and the photographers and television cameramen and the Doctor and the two men from The Agency left the town.

The volunteer firemen packed their net and returned to the fire hall to drink beer and celebrate a job well done.

The rest of the town returned to normal, and the townspeople again went on about their business as if nothing had ever happened.

The elderly gent dismantled the pulse-code-modulated Helmholtz resonator.

And Johnny, dejected and dismayed, kicked at the ground as he started to walk home.

Seeing him out of the corner of his eye, the elderly gent called to Johnny. As Johnny approached him, the man look around, then took off his shirt. He turned to let Johnny see his back.

He had wings!

Johnny's face brightened. "You have --"

The man silenced Johnny with a finger to his lips.

"Shh. I'm not the only one either, son," said the gent as he quickly put on his shirt. "There are quite a few of us with these, er, extra appendages. Someday, when you get a little older, I'll take you to meet them."

"But," Johnny said, his voice falling, "My wings are gone."

The elderly man put a consoling hand on Johnny's shoulder. "Don't worry," he said, smiling, "Yours will grow back in a few days." The gent leaned close to Johnny's ear. "And when they do. . ." The man glanced around, then continued, ". . .don't tell anyone."