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The sweltering heat of Winchester, Massachusetts coated the open airfield, thousands of bodies roaming for ways to cool themselves off.
Brightly lit vests adorned the staff out on the vivid green grass and jets landed in formation for a crowd pleasing show.
The entirety of Winchester's high schools had flocked to the overheated location, the sun beaming down on the masses of teenagers and parents alike.
News crews and reporters, however, had managed to weed their way in for a breaking story of the US Air Force Thunderbirds' surprise show put together by Colonel Norm Patton for his hometown.
For a month it had been the only thing being talked about, and on the fateful day, everyone wanted to say they'd spoken to a real Thunderbird - the most elite pilots in military as the civilians saw it.
Drawn with a heavy start at 09:00 sharp, four high schools gathered in the cool morning prepared for a hot day of outstanding flight and throwing pies in the faces of their teachers.
"What made you bring the Thunderbirds to Winchester, Colonel?"
Danielle lifted her head at the sound of Lisa Summer's voice, not noticing her father had been pulled away by their local news station's star reporter.
Norm, decked in his flight suit with kind eyes and a glorious, sharp smile, stood next to an elegant blonde with a microphone held out towards him. "Winchester has always been home to me, and it was this airfield that I saw my first Thunderbirds show way back when I was in high school. It was what made me aspire to be a pilot, actually." He spoke with his hands softly, a nervous tick he had when he wasn't up in the air. "My daughter Dani and I came across some old pictures of that day when we were cleaning my parents' house while they were on vacation and since she's in high school herself, I felt like it was perfect timing."
"Did it take a lot of convincing to get your superiors to let you do a show out here for us?" Lisa asked, red lips curved in an on-camera smile.
"There were a few hoops, but our head was more than willing," replied Norm sweetly. He'd never been one to show his age; 24 years in the Air Force having left him looking like he'd only recently joined.
Danielle, leaned on the gating put up between the civilians and landing strip, smiled as she watched her father. She tucked a wave of black hair behind her ear before she retired her phone in the back pocket of her denim cut offs.
Lisa shared a small laugh with Norm, her tv persona bright and welcoming. "What do you have in store for us today, Colonel?"
"You'll just have to wait and find out." Norm shook Lisa's hand, the camera man lowering his extensive equipment once he did so. "Thanks so much, enjoy your day."
Dani clapped almost mockingly as Norm turned towards her. "Bravo, Colonel."
Norm slung an arm around Danielle's neck happily, pulling her closer as they started to walk towards the funnel cake booth. "My ellie-phant is always proud of her old man."
"Of course I am," Dani replied with a grin, hanging onto her dad's hand over her shoulder. "Except for when you put faces on my pancakes." Her smile grew as she received a hurt look from him, saying, "That's when I'm incredibly proud."
Norm squeezed her, feigning the threat of a headlock. "Seventeen year olds deserve smiley face pancakes, too."
"That they do," agreed Danielle with a nod and a laugh. "Or they end up smoking weed and drawing smiley faces on everything else."
The Colonel chuckled, still keeping Danielle close. He'd been away training for two months in Nevada and had only just been able to come home to see his family.
The end of May had brought out all the shorts and tank tops of the east coast, and Winchester was no exception. All the residents of the fair were sweating, forcing themselves through the heat in the most minimal amount of clothing possible.
"One please," Norm requested as they reached one of the vividly painted food stalls, starting to remove his wallet.
"On the house," the cook quickly said in objection with a kind smile.
Norm shook the hand of Rafi, a well known friend of the father-daughter duo that always ate funnel cakes when they could find them. He dropped a ten into the tip jar before being handed a criss cross cake folded in paper. "Thanks so much, Raf."
"Anytime, man," he replied happily, fist bumping Danielle before the two took off.
Danielle picked off bits of the funnel cake, her charm bracelet twinkling absently. "When's Mom getting here?"
"Should be right before the team and I go up," Norm said with half a mouth of funnel cake. "I told her when the show starts so she should be here unless she gets called back to the hospital."
"What's she gonna be in for?" questioned Dani sneakily, trying to figure out what tricks the show would consist of.
The colonel's mouth opened, hesitating before looking over to his daughter with narrowed eyes. "I know what you're doing, missy, and you're just going to have to wait like everyone else."
Danielle groaned, "Booo."
"You're not a ghost, Elle." Norm pinched her cheek with his free hand, leaving a tiny white patch of powdered sugar. "You're a lady. A little one, but one no less."
"I'll keep booing until you stop saying that," Dani opposed with half a laugh.
"And I'll keep saying it until you stop booing," Norm quickly retorted with a cocky grin. He checked his watch, seeing a few members of his team heading towards the air strip. "I've gotta dash, sweetheart." He handed over the rest of the funnel cake, kissing Danielle on the forehead. "You're gonna watch, right?"
"Absolutely," Dani said, catching the wrapped funnel cake. "Wouldn't miss it."
"That's my girl." Norm started to back up, his eyes still on Dani. "Love you."
Danielle stayed where she was, smiling as her father put on his aviators. "Love you more."
Norm turned over his shoulder, jogging off towards the rest of the Thunderbirds.
The dark haired girl walked towards the gating, a couple of news reporters around briefly mentioning her name as they captured footage of the fair grounds. She absently ate bits of her funnel cake, taking out her phone and snapping a picture of her father as he climbed into his fighter jet and put on his red helmet.
The pride for her father was endless and unrelenting.
"There you are," a voice greeted as two figures flanked Danielle's sides. "We've been looking all over for you."
Dani looked to both sides, her dark skinned mother and brunette best friend slightly out of breath and wearing special Thunderbird shirts brought back by the colonel from headquarters. "Sorry, Dad and I grabbed a cake before he had to run off."
"We missed him?" Sawyer asked with half a frown, the fellow junior having taken to Norm like a father when hers was never around.
"Just went in," Dani replied, checking her phone as her mom started taking pictures with her Nikon of the jet way.
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Dani scrolled down, her picture from within her father's fighter jet earlier this morning having been a hit on her Instagram page. She clicked off within seconds, turning her attention back to Sawyer. "They should have something good up their sleeve, Dad wouldn't give me any hints."
"They're the Thunderbirds, D, they've always got something good." Sawyer took out her phone, snapchatting her surroundings, not unlike everyone else around. "Man, I love these things. You're so lucky you grew up on air shows."
"Being a military brat does that to you," Vishna, Danielle's amazingly aging mother, said from behind her camera lense with a zoom in on her husband of 25 years. "Elle's entire life is airplanes."
Dani gave a soft nod, her head turning as twelve jet engine pairs roared to life. A grin hit her, it her second favorite sounds in the world.
Her first was the sound of Norm's soft lullabies that had stuck with her since she was a baby. Even at 17, he would sing her to sleep if he needed to.
The loud speaker crackled on over the roar of the engines, big black boxes placed through out the grounds. "Ladies and gentlemen, the US Air Force Thunderbirds!"
Cheers echoed across the end-of-year fair, bodies swarmed behind the gates to get the best view of the air show.
Names rang out from the speakers, each fighter jet taking off in sequence.
Tailing them all but soon to take front, the words Norm Patton wailed over the cry of jet engines.
Sawyer and the two Pattons cheered happily, laughing as Norm took off fiercely into the cloudless blue sky.
Dives and rolls, inversions and spins beyond the skills of any other pilots in the world, everyone on the ground astonished.
It was only when one of the fighter jets started to break formation that the mood flipped.
Danielle's eyes narrowed, trying to get a closer look at the slacking aircraft. "What's going on?" She grabbed her mothers camera, holding it up to get a better look, "That's Dad's. That's Dad's plane. Mom. Mom, what's happening?"
The whole crowd gasped, Colonel Patton's jet dead dropping 200 feet down before catching a struggled lift back towards normalcy.
Danielle shoved the camera back at Vishna, pushing through the crowd towards the shaded tent containing a make shift radio tower. "What the hell's going on up there?" she quickly asked as a man grabbed her shoulders just shy of the booth.
The five bodies in headsets were working at ungodly speeds, sweating from more than just the heat.
"Hey!" Dani shouted, pin pointing Colonel Rhoden, a close friend of her father's. "What's going on?"
Rhoden lifted a hand towards the security guard, "Let her go, she's Patton's kid."
Danielle went between the gate and into the booth, concern coating her. "That's my dad's plane."
"We know," Rhoden calmly said. "There was a technical difficulty but the whole team is making an emergency landing right now so we don't risk further damage to the craft."
"How about damage to him? You're worried about the plane more than my father?"
"Hey, hey," Rhoden put his hands on her shoulders, "I know you're worried, Dan, but everything's going to be fine. Look," he nodded his head to the side, Patton's jet skittering to a landing on the airfield.
Danielle let out a breath of relief, watching Colonel Patton pop open the glass of his jet as he pulled off him helmet. She smiled softly, attempting to move out of the tent. "Thank -"
A stear of metal twinged the air before an explosion ripped from the engine of the craft., Dani's breath being swept away as she was nearly blown back off her feet, shielding her face from the flash.
Terror echoed from the crowd, spectators unsure of whether to flee or stay.
Danielle lowered her hands from her face, licks of orange and red shrouding her vision as billowing smoke spread over the field. "No, no-"
Patton's plane was up in flames, a red helmet baring his name laying on the ground below the aircraft.
Rhoden caught Danielle's waist, the teen held at bay before she could run out of the booth. His own eyes watered as he held the quaking girl as she struggled against him.
And then she screamed. She screamed until she couldn't.