Hey, anyone want a snack? This manly sting stuff is making me hungry.” Flip got up and tripped a little trying to walk in his ankle cast.
“Sit down, dummy.” Fawn jumped up from reading her magazine and passed Flip in the aisle. “I’ll get your food. You also have a concussion, remember?”
“Oh yeah. Riley, that must be why I lost.”
“Are you even supposed to be flying?” Dad asked Flip.
Flip sat back down and rubbed his head. “Doesn’t matter, does it? Anyway, we’ll be landing in an hour or so.”
Ah, a clue! I checked my watch. I wished I had paid attention to the time when we took off. Rats. We had to have been in the air at least an hour. How far could we get from California in two hours? And what direction were we flying?
My brother Brady would know. That kid can pick up a blank piece of paper and draw the whole United States in about three minutes — disgusting. Too bad he wasn’t here. The lucky duck was staying with my grandparents for a few days while Mom worked on investigating the Swiftriver mess.
My mom’s the chief of police in Clovis. That’s a city right next to where we live in Fresno, California. She was the one who figured out that Flip and Fawn weren’t really Flip and Fawn. She’s suspicious of everyone, which used to bug me, but considering I’m on the run with people who are being hunted down by bad guys, I guess that’s a good thing now.
Fawn returned with a plate of fruit and a big bowl of goldfish crackers. I grabbed a handful real quick, just in case Flip was tempted to stick his face in.
“So, what’s your ‘secret’ cabin like?” I asked. “Will I have to sleep on the floor in a sleeping bag?”
Flip laughed so hard that a goldfish cracker flew out of his mouth. He caught it in the air. “Our cabin is . . . well, I guess calling it a cabin is a little deceiving. It’s more like —”
“A resort.” Eric reached over to the fruit plate and snatched up some grapes. “I’m pretty sure you can see the place from outer space it’s so big.”
“I love that place.” Fawn closed her eyes. “It’s so peaceful by the lake.”
“You have your own lake?” I elbowed Dad, who was reading his magazine again. “Did you hear that, Dad?”
“Well, it’s a small lake,” Eric said. “But you can still take a boat out —”
“A boat?” Dad got all excited. “Is it, by chance, a fishing boat?”
“We have a lot of boats,” Eric said. “Fishing boats, ski boats, row boats, kayaks —”
“Wow,” Dad’s eyes got wide. “I may never go back to work.”
That started a really boring conversation between Eric and my dad about fishing. The plane bumped again, so I buckled my seat belt. Great — no escape. I had no choice but to rest my head on my pillow, close my eyes, and pretend I was on a roller coaster.
I guess I fell asleep, but I’m not sure for how long.
“Riley.” Dad shook me. He grabbed my seat belt and pulled. “Are you all buckled in? We’re landing.”
I had to think about where I was for a minute. Oh, yeah. I had no idea. I looked out the window. Maybe there would be a clue now. This time I saw bunches of trees and mountains in the distance. Tall ones, some covered in snow.
I rubbed my eyes. “Are we in Alaska?”
“Good guess, but no,” Fawn said.
We flew over a lake, and I wondered if it was the Stevens’s secret resort lake. The ground came up quickly, and I heard a jolt underneath the plane. The landing gear coming down made me jump, but then when I remembered what the noise was all about, I relaxed back into my seat.
That’s when the plane rose back up.
“How come we’re not going down?” I asked.
Flip looked confused. “Not sure. Hang on . . .”
He got up and limped to the front of the plane. Fawn didn’t stop him this time. He disappeared into the cockpit as the plane rose even higher in the air.
“Maybe Tyler got his states mixed up,” Eric said.
A couple minutes later, Flip returned, with a fake grin on his face. “Anyone got a parachute? Our landing gear’s busted.”
“Don’t even joke about that,” Fawn said.
“I’m not joking. The right wheel won’t come down. Tyler’s going to fly around a little and try to fix it.”
My head started pounding. “How’s he gonna do that?”
“Oh, it’s an easy fix. He just needs to climb out the front window and swing down there and pull it out. Should only take a minute.”
I must have looked panicked, because Eric got up off his seat to come over to pat me on the shoulder.
“That’s not the real plan. Flip’s always been a kidder.” He turned to look at his older brother. “What’s he really gonna do, bro?” Eric was breathing a little hard, and he kept flipping his head to the side to keep his blond, curly bangs out of his eyes.
Next, Dad got up and went into the cockpit. That made me nervous. He came back in a couple of minutes, looking very concerned. “Okay, gang. Here’s the plan. Tyler’s going to run the plane out of fuel, and if the landing gear hasn’t righted itself by then, he’ll land on the front and left wheels.”
“Why do we have to run the plane out of gas? Won’t we crash?” I grabbed my pillow and squeezed.
“Oh, we’re definitely going to crash. We just don’t want to blow up. Right, Mr. Hart?” Flip threw a grape in the air and caught it in his mouth.
“Flip! Will you just stop? Haven’t we had enough drama in the last week?” Fawn grabbed the grapes from Flip, and a few bounced down the aisle.
Eric was the next one to visit the cockpit. Maybe he’d come back with a better story.
Nope.
“He can’t fix it,” Eric said. “So, he’s going to let her down . . . gently.”
“A soft crash. I like that. Better than Half Dome, right kiddo?” Flip reached over and flicked my arm.
“Dad, can I go talk to Tyler?” I needed to do something to keep the adrenaline from squirting out of my ears.
“No, you just stay put.”
“Can I go to the bathroom?”
“Do you really have to go?”
“I’m not sure, but I don’t want to wet my pants during the crash.” I couldn’t believe I was even saying the word crash. We weren’t really going to crash, right?
Next, Fawn got up. It wasn’t fair that everyone had been up but me, so I escaped before Dad could stop me. I followed Fawn into the cockpit.
“Hi, ladies. How’s your afternoon going?” Funny. Tyler didn’t look nervous at all.
Fawn got right to the point. “Are we going to crash?”
Tyler shook his head. “Oh, no. I’ve had this happen tons of times.”
“Really?” That made me feel better.
“Well, it was on a simulator, but each time I landed my plane with just a tiny scratch.”
“Wait,” I said. “Isn’t a simulator a practice thing?”
Fawn pushed me out of the cockpit. “He’s got this under control. Let’s go get buckled up and ready for our ‘tiny scratch’ landing.”
We hurried back, shoved all our stuff under the seats, and piled pillows in our laps.
Dad had his Bible open. “Hey Riley, listen to this. Remember the 9-1-1 Scripture?”
Uh-oh. Dad only saves that Bible passage for super scary situations.
Dad began reading from Psalm 91, verses 1–2:
“The person who rests in the shadow of the Most High God will be kept safe by the Mighty One. I will say about the Lord, ‘He is like a fort to me. He is my God. I trust in him . . .’”
Dad put his hand on my back and kept reading, and that’s when I got really nervous. I tried to listen to my favorite parts of the psalm — about being covered with feathers and about God ordering angels to protect you wherever you go. I thought back to the worst crash I’d ever been in. It was when I was riding my bike a couple of years ago. I had turned around to say something to TJ, and I ran into a parked car. My bike got mangled, and I ended up with a huge headache and a hundred little cuts all over my body. It was horrible. But at least I didn’t know it was coming.
A few minutes later, the ground got closer again. I heard Tyler yell, “Here we go, everyone hold on!” I wish I didn’t know this was coming.