Chapter 1: Indiana

Indiana Cedoris was an eighteen-year-old rebel in small town. She never could wear those infernal skirts and corsets, both signified bondage. Indiana longed to be free, though she never quite knew what she longed to be free from. She assumed it was the small town in which she lived. All the girls were to behave, wear skirts and be good girls.

Indiana thought herself bigger and better than a mere good girl. She was smarter than a whip. She could make a witty retort to anything, in mere seconds. She was strong inside for that ability and the ability to show no emotion.

She was strong physically since she helped her father with the farming. Their parents never got a boy, so Indiana had to go plow the fields and then come home to be a lady. Her father was also a toymaker, so he would go work and Indiana would have to go work on the farm. Her mother taught her how to sew dresses and mend socks, but she figured out how to sew pants. Pants were looked down on for a young woman, so she wore them only when she was in the fields.

Indiana hated imagining she would have to get married soon to some man. She had already gotten many offers, but all from men who she didn’t know. Most of them she didn’t care to know. The few she knew were men she simply had no interest in whatsoever. She knew there would be someone to change her mind one day, but he hadn’t come along yet. She was saving her heart for someone special, though many townspeople called that feminism.

Her sister, Charlotte was much more traditional. Charlotte never understood Indiana, even in the simplest of terms. Charlotte never comprehended why her sister would long for more than doing the chores around the house, sewing and trying to find a husband. Charlotte had her heart set on her future husband since she had hit puberty, about six years ago. She had never acted on her emotions, but she also had no intention of ruining a good friendship.

Her crush was on Simon Adams, Mr. Cedoris’s apprentice. Charlotte described him as a “smart, handsome, hard-working tinkerer” in her least loving words. In Indiana’s most loving words she described him as “a kid with a head full of gears and parts.”

Simon, to many, was a sweet boy who any girl would be lucky to have. He was skinny and tall. He was usually covered in soot from working on certain projects. He always used coal to power his larger scale projects. His black hair had a natural puff to it, and the more stressed he became, the more his hair rose. His goggles were always on his forehead, unless he was working on an invention or more likely working at the toyshop. Usually, it was the one clean area of his face.

Charlotte could only assume Simon loved her back, since he would blush as she would bat her eyes. He would always show her his new inventions, and she would always have faith in his inventions. Simon always enjoyed her company and loved how sweet she was.

Indiana thought about this as she put on her dress to go to town. She always got the most coverage in her dresses. She wore a dress with three parts that were sewn together, each a different shade of gray. (Her mother taught her to think of each layer of a skirt or extra something she didn’t particularly like as a part of the dress or another dress, sewn in to that one.) The bottom was a simple light gray dress, that was a turtleneck gown. The next layer was charcoal gray. It also included what Indiana called a bib (a frilly white garment with buttons that is in the bib area) though the two were not connected. The top layer had the same light gray. Indiana would have loved a simple dress in her closet, nothing so fussy. Indiana’s frills and such were black.

Charlotte wore a pink and white, off the shoulder dress that had frilly sleeves and a layered skirt. Indiana was disgusted, not only by the frills, bow and lace, but by the amount of baby pink. Charlotte also wore her hair in a soft, feminine side braid, which only used a little of her hair on one side.  Indiana, on the other hand, wore hers in a full side braid, using all her hair.

As the two left , their mother was busy mending Indiana’s dresses and getting the stains out of Indiana’s dresses. Indiana heard her mother mutter as she walked on by “Indiana’s stains are almost as stubborn as her.” She was trying to lift a dirt stain from Indiana’s best dress.

The two were going into town to give their father his lunch and to deliver some crops to the local market. Charlotte went straight over to Simon, leaving the two tasks to fall to Indiana. Charlotte planned to be there at exactly Simon’s lunch break, so she could talk.

“Hi Charlotte!” Simon called.

Charlotte called back “Hi Simon!” She ran over towards him.

Indiana fled the scene as quickly as possible in her lady-like high heels. Her father was busy, so she left his lunch on the countertop. He was probably hand-making a toy car, since everything was homemade in that store. Simon was perfect for the job since he had thin fingers and the mind of a tinkerer.

She then took the crops and sold them for about twenty bucks, which she stuffed into her corset as she called to Charlotte, who promptly ignored her.

Indiana wound up sitting on a bench, waiting for her sister to be done. Simon was showing Charlotte a new plan for something that Indiana did not care about.

 The sky ships would pass through and get people excited beyond imagination. They would allow the mind to dream of adventure in stark daylight. The enormous ship, intricately designed, made Indiana understand what she was missing for all of these years. She needed to be free like those sky pirates. She needed adventure. She would be able to die or marry (same thing) happily if she could have that experience. She also figured she didn’t have the experience or the body parts. Normally they expected men, and picked men. If a girl like Indiana had the passion and drive to be a sky pirate, they would consider, but she was a long shot.

It was clear now. She wanted to be a sky pirate.