A smiling stewardess in a smart navy blue uniform welcomed us aboard. People were clogging up the aisle as they paused to store carry-on luggage in the overhead compartments. Some of them were confused about where their seats were, but Charlie led the way to ours as soon as we could get through.
I heard Eddie, behind me, mutter an apology as he bumped his flight bag into someone. “Who wants to sit next to the window?” Charlie asked, stopping at our row.
I wanted to, but Eddie had already said breathlessly, “I do!” before I could get my mouth open.
“Okay. You sit there going down and Gracie can have the window seat coming home. I’ll sit in the middle,” Charlie said. It stood to reason Charlie would make the decisions. He always did, though he often gave in if you argued.
Eddie slid in first, awkwardly stowing his flight bag under the seat ahead of him before he half-fell into his own place. His glasses had gotten bumped, and he settled them back on his nose as Charlie took the middle seat, leaving me to the one on the aisle.
We were on a 727, and there were three seats on each side of the aisle. I settled into a comfortable seat and grinned. We were finally going!
Of course we didn’t go immediately. Though the plane wasn’t quite full, there were probably ninety or a hundred passengers who had to load. The old lady we’d met in the waiting area turned out to be right across the aisle from me. She nodded, pleased.
“It looks as if we’re going to travel together, doesn’t it? I never introduced myself. I’m Clara Basker.”
I told her my name, and Charlie’s and Eddie’s. There was an empty seat beside Mrs. Basker, and she looked at it hesitantly. “I wonder if I can keep my purse there, or if I’ll have to put it on the floor? I’m always taking my glasses off or putting them back on, depending on whether I want to read or not, and I’d like to keep them handy.”
There was a young woman in the window seat beyond Mrs. Basker, holding a sleeping baby. “Just put it there for now,” she suggested. “It’s Jimmy’s seat, but I have to hold him for takeoff and until he wakes up, anyway.”
I heard them exchange names—the young woman was Eleanor Hall—and then turned to look past Eddie to where luggage was still being loaded from a cart out on the concrete area. Charlie was already fastening his seat belt, so Eddie and I followed his example.
I was glad I’d sat on the aisle, after all. The seats had high backs so it was hard to see the people behind or in front of you. But I could lean out into the aisle a little and see quite a bit.
People were making themselves comfortable. Some of them already had pillows and were getting ready for naps. I’d never felt less like a nap in my life. I wasn’t even bored, as Charlie obviously was, when one of our three stews, as Charlie referred to the flight attendants, stood at the front of the plane and explained how to fasten seat belts, and where the exits were, and what to do if we lost oxygen and had to use the masks that would automatically drop down. I’d never heard any of it before. She didn’t explain about airsick bags, so I hoped that meant we wouldn’t be likely to need them.
When the engines came on, Eddie leaned out to see around Charlie and gave me a look of pure delight. “We’re going!” he said.
We didn’t move for several minutes, however, and after a bit of time had passed I heard a few comments from other passengers.
“What’s the delay now? We’re already late, and I’ve got a connection to make in San Francisco.”
“Probably waiting our turn at a runway,” someone else said.
We realized why the additional delay had been necessary when a flustered-looking man in crumpled slacks and a tan shirt suddenly came aboard, handing over his boarding pass. They must have held the plane for this late passenger, because immediately the engines got louder, and the entrance door was closed and secured.
The man looked down the aisle, his gaze sweeping over me, then settling on Mrs. Basker. “Can I sit there?” he asked the stewardess.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Upton. That seat is reserved for a young child; he’s sleeping now, but he will be sitting there later. You’ve been assigned to 12D. That’s right here.”
The latecomer scowled, and I felt sorry for the attendant. He looked disagreeable and he was still standing there.
“I’m sorry. Please take your seat, sir, and fasten your seat belt so that we can take off. As you know, we’re already behind schedule.”
“Yeah,” came a voice from behind us, “for pete’s sake, sit down so we can take off! You’re going to make me miss my connection to Miami.” Mr. Upton gave the speaker a surly look and dropped into his assigned seat ahead of us, on the aisle. I could see his foot sticking out where someone could trip over it, about a size twelve in brown oxfords. His pants slid up far enough so I could see he was wearing funny-looking socks. Argyles, I think they’re called. His were sort of a brown and green plaid. Then he got settled and drew in his feet and I couldn’t see anything but a sort of hairy arm sticking out beyond the back of his seat.
“We’re moving!” Eddie breathed, and I forgot about Mr. Upton who was so late he nearly missed the flight.
My stomach got a tight feeling, and my fingers curled around the arms of my own seat. I glanced at Mrs. Basker and saw that she was looking a bit tense, too, but she smiled at me, and I smiled back. It was a first flight for both of us, and I didn’t want her to think I was chicken. Mom says showing you’re scared makes other people scared, the way I did when I screamed my head off the time Max got hit in the face with a ball and bled all over his shirt front. He wasn’t badly hurt, just scared, because I acted as if he’d been killed. As soon as I stopped yelling, so did Max. So I made an effort and relaxed my hands. I couldn’t do anything about my stomach, though.
We taxied out to the runway, moving slowly at first, and then the engines built to a roar, and we were actually on the runway. Charlie was relaxed, but I noticed Eddie’s knuckles were white, even though he was grinning.
We just barely felt it when the plane left the ground. We were lifting, lifting, and it was a rather lovely sensation, I told Mom later. We went up and up, and the plane tilted to one side so we had a view of bright blue water—Puget Sound—below us, and then we circled around and headed south.
A minute later, the FASTEN SEAT BELT sign went off. I heard several people around me exhale, so I figured I wasn’t the only one who’d been holding my breath. Some of them unfastened their belts, but Charlie left his buckled, so I did, too.
“Geez,” Eddie said with satisfaction, “that made me hungry. I think I’ll have a candy bar.”
When he leaned forward to reach his flight bag, Charlie gave him a poke with an elbow. “Don’t waste your own stuff. They’ll bring us a snack in just a few minutes.”
This turned out to be true. The attendants brought a little cart along the aisle and asked what we wanted to drink. Eddie had Coke, and I ordered 7-Up. Charlie looked the stewardess right in the eye and said, “I’ll have a martini, I guess.”
I saw Eddie’s scandalized face, and then the stewardess laughed, and I knew Charlie was joking. She gave him 7-Up, like mine.
I knew Uncle Jim sometimes drank martinis, but I was relieved to know he didn’t let Charlie have them. My dad would probably kill me if he thought I even sat next to a kid who was drinking anything alcoholic. Especially if the kid was my cousin Charlie.
They gave us little bags of salted peanuts, too. They were pretty good. Mrs. Basker said she couldn’t chew them very well so she passed hers across to me, and I shared it with the boys.
Ahead of me, the late-arriving passenger, Mr. Upton, got out of his seat and started toward the back of the plane where the rest rooms were. Instinctively I shrank toward Charlie so he wouldn’t brush against my arm as he passed.
He didn’t touch me, but one of his big feet caught in the straps of Mrs. Basker’s flight bag, which were sticking out from under the seat ahead of her. He actually dragged it along with him, as if he didn’t feel it, until I said, “Excuse me, but you’re caught on that bag—”
He turned around then, and Mrs. Basker made a grab for her bag. He had to lift his foot to be free of it, and he muttered, “Sorry.” He didn’t look sorry, though. He had a sour-looking face, and for some reason, I thought he didn’t like me, though I couldn’t imagine why.
“I’d better tuck it farther under the seat,” Mrs. Basker said. “First, though, I’ll find my glasses and the newspaper and read a bit. Would you like the comics, dear?”
I took them, though I was still feeling too unsettled to want to read. We hadn’t seen the day’s funnies from the Seattle Times, though, so we all read them.
To my surprise, Mr. Upton paused beside my seat when he came back. “Excuse me, ma’am,” he said to Mrs. Basker, “but could I read your paper when you’re finished with it? I didn’t have time to buy a copy before we took off.”
“Oh, why, I don’t know,” Mrs. Basker said uncertainly. “I’ve already promised it to someone else after I finish with it.”
I caught only a glimpse of his face—he didn’t seem to like anyone—and then a man a row back said, “Here, I’m finished with mine. Take it.”
Mr. Upton hesitated, then accepted the newspaper handed over by the other passenger. “Thanks,” he grunted, and returned to his seat.
I really wouldn’t have cared if Mrs. Basker had given the man the paper. I’d already read the comics. When she finally handed over the rest of the paper though, I noticed there was a crossword puzzle. The fat man in the Hawaiian shirt had filled in a few of the spaces but not enough to spoil it. I decided I’d finish it if I got bored, though I wasn’t bored yet. I folded the paper back together and stuck it in my own flight bag.
My grandma Cameron got me started doing crosswords the time she stayed with us after she fell and broke her hip. All she could do was read and watch TV and do crosswords, and she kept asking me things like what was a four-letter word for teutonic land ownership (Dad knew that word was “odal”) or a nine-letter word for the terminal outgrowth of the tarsus of an arthropod. I figured that one meant something that grew out of the end of something, but I didn’t know what either tarsus or arthropod meant, so she made me look them up. The answer was “pretarsus,” not a word you’d ever use in ordinary conversation.
At first it was sort of aggravating when she kept asking me these words I didn’t know—after all, she was the one who was the crossword expert, and if she didn’t know, how did she expect me to?—but after a while I got sort of hooked on learning new words. So maybe I’d do the puzzle before we got to San Francisco.
Eddie had brought a pocket chess set. He got it out and set up the board with the magnetized pieces, and he and Charlie started a game. There was no way three of us could play chess, and it’s not the most exciting thing in the world to watch a chess game, so I talked to Mrs. Basker.
When Mr. Upton walked to the back of the plane for the third time, Mrs. Basker stared after him in concern. “Poor man. I wonder if he has a kidney problem. Even I don’t have to go to the bathroom that often.”
“He’s certainly clumsy,” Mrs. Hall said. “He manages to trip on your flight bag every time he goes past.”
Mrs. Basker looked distressed. “Oh, my, I’ve tried to tuck it securely under the seat. I wouldn’t want him to get hurt by tripping on it.” She bent over and shoved the bag as far away from the aisle as she could reach.
Mr. Upton had just come back to his seat when the FASTEN SEAT BELT sign came back on, and a little bell sounded to call attention to it. A moment late the captain spoke over the public address system.
“Please fasten your seat belts, ladies and gentlemen. I regret to tell you that we must make an unscheduled stop in Portland. There is nothing to be alarmed about, and we will make every effort to see that Flight 211 is resumed as quickly as possible. If you have a problem with connecting flights in San Francisco, please consult the passenger agent as soon as we land. Thank you for your patience.”
There was a buzz of conversation around us.
“I thought we didn’t stop anywhere except in San Francisco,” Eddie said, looking up from the chess board.
“He said an unscheduled stop, stupid,” Charlie said. “I bet I know what it is!”
Someone behind us raised his voice. “If this means I miss my flight to Dallas, I’m going to be very angry. Stewardess, what does this mean? Why are we landing? I only have fifteen minutes to get to my connecting flight as it is!”
The stewardess shook her head. “I’m sorry, sir. I don’t know any more than you do. Excuse me, I must prepare for landing. I’m sure your questions will be addressed as soon as we’re on the ground.” She moved away, and the buzzing voices continued around us.
“Engine trouble? Do you think it could be engine trouble?”
“Aunt Sophie will have kittens if our plane is late. She’ll think something dreadful has happened to us.”
“Planes are late all the time. We were late taking off from Seattle, remember?”
“If we get a tail wind, maybe we can make up the lost time. Don’t worry about it, Gladys. We’ll handle it when we get there.”
Charlie’s eyes were shining. “I’ll bet I know,” he whispered.
“What?” I asked automatically. I didn’t see how Charlie could know if the flight attendants didn’t know.
It was as if Charlie read my mind. “They wouldn’t tell us, because they don’t want to panic the passengers.”
Eddie’s eyes were huge. “What? What is it, Charlie?”
“I’ll bet,” Charlie said, keeping his voice low so it wouldn’t carry beyond the three of us, “that terrorists have planted a bomb aboard!”