CHAPTER 16

Down in the Sky

I love flying! I love flying! I love flying! As soon as I get old enough, I am going to take flying lessons, and if I get rich and have my own plane, it’s going to be a Ford Tri-Motor! Never mind that it’s so noisy, you have to yell at the top of your lungs. Never mind that it buzzes and vibrates. Never mind that it smells of burned oil and exhaust fumes enough to make a ghost throw up, which is something I’d rather not witness again. It’s just a great aircraft, and I wouldn’t have any other kind.

The pilot was Jack Lacheln. He was handsomer than Aaron Finn, and had a leather jacket, a white scarf, and sunglasses. When he saw him, Aaron Finn whipped out a little notebook and sketched a picture of him—obviously so he could be made up to look like him if he ever played a pilot in a movie.

We were the only passengers on the plane, except for an evil-looking little guy. This guy wore a hat with the brim turned down all around, had a greasy mustache, wore a black suit, and smelled like lilacs. He introduced himself to us. His name was Sandor Eucalyptus. Before we took off, Sandor Eucalyptus asked Jack Lacheln if he could have a parachute.

“There are parachutes under the seats,” the pilot told him. “But you have no need to worry. The aircraft is completely safe. We’ve been flying it for twenty years, and it works perfectly.” Good old Ford Tri-Motor.

“Just the same, I would prefer to wear my parachute,” Sandor Eucalyptus said.

“Really, it isn’t necessary,” Jack the pilot said. “If we were to crash, which is just incredibly unlikely, you’d be safer going down with the plane than trying to use a parachute if you don’t know how.”

“Just the same,” Sandor Eucalyptus said. “In my home country, the Duchy of Botstein, it is required by law that all passengers wear their parachutes, and I am simply used to it—if you please.”

“Well, if you insist,” Jack said.

“It’s Botstinian custom,” Sandor Eucalyptus said, strapping on his parachute. Aaron Finn was sketching Sandor Eucalyptus.

“I must ask you for that drawing, señor,” Sandor Eucalyptus said, reeking of lilacs.

“It’s just a hobby of mine,” Aaron Finn said.

“Please indulge me,” Sandor Eucalyptus said. “I have many little prejudices. I dislike pictures of me to be made.”

Aaron Finn tore the page out of his notebook and handed it to the evil-looking, parachuted little man.

“What a jerk,” Seamus Finn whispered to me.

“Really,” I whispered back.

We forgot all about Sandor Eucalyptus as the Tri-Motor took off, and soon we couldn’t smell him for the fumes from the engines.

“The Grand Canyon is two hundred and seventy-seven miles long,” Jack Lacheln shouted at the top of his lungs. “It’s eighteen miles wide at its widest point, and six thousand feet—more than a mile—deep at its deepest. It’s been cut by the Colorado River for the past six million years, and you can see the strata of rock that show two billion years of our earth’s geologic history.” The plane was rising into the air, and I had never felt so good in my life.

“There is evidence of human life in the canyon dating back three to four thousand years,” Jack shouted. “Around a thousand years ago, the Anasazi people farmed in the canyon, and developed a rich culture, and the present-day Hopi people consider the canyon their ancestral home. And in Havasu Canyon, which is one of the many side spurs, the Havasupai people are still farming today.

“The Grand Canyon was set aside as a forest preserve by President Benjamin Harrison in 1893, and was proclaimed a national monument by President Teddy Roosevelt in 1908.”

Jack kept talking, but I wasn’t listening. What I was seeing was too incredible to pay attention to anything else.

Now that I come to it, I can’t say what it was like. I barely had time for it to sink in that we were up in the air, above everything—and then we dipped down, into the canyon, and we were below everything and above everything at the same time. We were flying inside the earth! I was hardly breathing. I don’t think I blinked.

“Jack!” I shouted at the top of my lungs. “What’s that down there?”

“Turtle Rock?” Jack shouted back. “That’s a natural rock formation—or maybe a paleolithic carving—experts disagree—looks like a red-eared turtle. Considered very important by the Hopi people. Has some kind of ritual meaning—something to do with preserving the world, or protecting the world, or something.”

It was exactly like my turtle, the one the turtle-shaman, Melvin, or whatever his name was, had given me!

“Oh, you noticed that it’s just like your turtle,” Billy the Phantom Bellboy said. “Interesting coincidence, isn’t it?”

Jack took the plane up again—now we were high over the canyon, making a slow, sweeping turn.

“What turtle is that?” Aaron Finn asked.

“I have a stone turtle,” I said. “A shaman gave it to me.”

“May I see it?” Aaron Finn asked. I handed him the turtle. Aaron Finn held it in his palm. “This is fine,” he said. “It’s evidently very old. Wonderful thing.”

“Let me see it, Father,” Seamus Finn said.

Aaron Finn handed the turtle to his son. Seamus looked at it closely. “Really. Wonderful,” he said.

“And now you will give the turtle to me, young man,” Sandor Eucalyptus said. We saw that he was holding a gun, a small silver one. “Just give it to me, and please, no one move.” Sandor Eucalyptus was standing up in the aisle between the rows of seats. “Quickly! Hand it over!”

Seamus Finn plunked the turtle into Sandor Eucalyptus’s outstretched hand. He gripped it in his fist, then shoved it deep into his pocket. Then, keeping the gun trained on us, he moved backwards toward the door of the airplane. Still facing us, he reached for the handle of the door. He turned the handle. He opened the door.

“And now, signori . . . auf Wiedersehen!” Sandor Eucalyptus said, and hurled himself out of the airplane.

We saw him falling. His hat blew off and floated after him. Then his parachute opened, and we watched him drift down, out of sight into the depths of the Grand Canyon.

“Well, that was a first,” Jack said. “The fellow is obviously as crazy as a bat. Going to be a lot of trouble finding him—assuming he survives the parachute drop, or the canyon itself, a tenderfoot like that. We’ll have to go back to base now and make a report to the police.”

It was all sort of shocking. I couldn’t say anything at first. Then I said, “He took the turtle.”

“Yes, it was too bad about that,” Seamus Finn said. “I’m sorry, Neddie, sorry I handed it over to him—but he was holding a gun on me. You see how it was.”

“Yes, of course,” I said.

“I couldn’t do anything else,” Seamus said. “I just plunked it in his palm—like this—here, Neddie, hold your hand out.”

I didn’t know why Seamus was going on about it. We had all seen what happened. But he took my wrist and made me hold my hand out, palm up—and then he plunked something into it. It was the turtle!

“What? What? How’d you . . . ? You! What?” I said.

“Here, I’ll show you. Give it back to me,” Seamus said.

Aaron Finn was grinning broadly. I gave Seamus the turtle and he plunked it into my palm again—only this time when I looked it wasn’t the turtle—it was a jellybean!

“Mmmm, it’s a black one,” Seamus Finn said. “Eat it up, Neddie. I hope Mr. Sandor Eucalyptus enjoys his jellybean after his parachute ride.” Seamus Finn handed me my turtle.

“Seamus has special permission to leave the school on Tuesday nights to attend the magicians’ club at Joe Berg’s Studio of Magic,” Aaron Finn said. “Fine work, son. Worthy of a Finn.”

I thought it was fine work too.