by Ellen Potter
By the time we finished decorating our cereal-box suitcases, we had to leave for gym class. We were doing flexibility this week, so Ruby, Camilla, Allie, and I all sat on the gym floor together and stretched ourselves.
“I can’t wait for our trip today!” Ruby said. “I love planes. Well, I don’t like it when they’re bouncy. My favorite part is when we’re in the clouds.”
“For spring break, my family and I are flying to Florida,” said Allie. “For the third time.”
“One time we went to New York City,” said Camilla, “and we saw a mermaid parade. We also saw a guy wearing a hat made of socks getting arrested.”
I felt jealous just listening to all those great places everyone had been. I would LOVE to see a mermaid parade and watch a guy in a sock hat getting arrested!
But all I’ve ever seen is nothing.
“You never told me you’d been on a plane before, Piper,” Ruby said. “Where did you go?”
“Oh, all over the place,” I told her. I worried if my face was looking funny because I was lying, so I pretended I had an itch on my forehead. I scratched it so that my face could duck behind my hand.
“Really?” Allie said. “Like where?” She said it in that voice of hers that I hate. It’s the voice that acts as if it knows something bad about you.
“Like Africa,” I said. I thought for a second and scratched my forehead some more. “And that place with the Heightful Tower. Utah, it’s called.”
After that, the lies just started popping out my mouth. It was like when you make popcorn in a pan and you use too many kernels and they start flying all over the place. Pop, pop, pop! I just couldn’t stop them!
“I’ve gone to all those places because my uncle is a pilot,” I said. “His name is Uncle Bobby.” Pop, pop, pop! “And he flies people all over the world.” Pop, pop, pop! “Sometimes he lets me sit up front with him and drive the plane. It’s not as hard as you would think.” Pop, pop, pop, pop!!!
“Wow! Do you think he’d let me fly his plane sometime, Piper?” Ruby asked.
“Yup,” I said. My forehead was starting to itch for real.
“You’re so lucky that Ms. Arabella made you flight attendant,” said Camilla. “You’ll get to give out snacks and barf bags. Plus, you get to say the ‘in case of an emergency’ speech.”
I had a lumpy feeling in my stomach because I didn’t want to give out barf bags and I didn’t know what speech she was talking about.
SUPER SNOOPER
When we went back to our classroom, the door was closed. Ms. Arabella was standing in the hallway, wearing her blue captain’s hat. She held a big manila envelope.
“Hello, passengers! My name is Captain Arabella.” She took a bunch of blue booklets out of her envelope. “These are your passports,” she said as she handed them out. “Keep them in your suitcases. When we get to each country, I’ll stamp your passport. That proves you have visited that country.”
I opened my passport. A photo of me was glued onto the first page. I was smiling like the blue crunch-ball shark.
It wasn’t my best picture.
“All right.” Captain Arabella looked at us and clapped her hands. “Let’s start our journey.”
She opened the door and OH WOW! Because there was a plane right in the middle of our classroom!
All our desks were gone, and our chairs were set up in two rows. There were also two chairs in the front of the plane, one behind the other. Long pieces of cardboard were taped together and wrapped all around the outside of our chairs. The cardboard was painted white with a red stripe down the center. It had little round windows cut into it and airplane wings coming out the sides and everything! The words “Island Airlines” were painted along the side too.
Of course we all rushed over to the plane, but Captain Arabella told us we couldn’t board just yet.
“First everyone has to go through security.” Captain Arabella pointed to her desk. On top of it was a long cardboard box, painted black, which was open at two ends. Next to it was a clear plastic bin. All our cereal-box suitcases were lined up on her desk too.
From her tote bag, Captain Arabella pulled out a little pin in the shape of an airplane. She pinned it on Allie O’Malley’s shirt.
“Allie, you’ll be running the luggage scanner,” she said.
“What’s a luggage scanner?” I asked Ruby.
She gave me a funny look. “A luggage scanner, Piper. You know.”
“It X-rays your suitcase to make sure no one smuggles anything on the plane,” Jacob said.
“Ohhh, right,” I mumbled. “I forgot about those scanner things.”
Then I had another brainchild! I already had X-ray glasses! I should be the one in charge of security, and Allie could be in charge of barf bags and that speech.
“Captain Arabella!” I rushed over to her and Allie. “Allie and I should trade jobs because look.” I reached into my suitcase and pulled out my X-ray glasses. “I can put on my glasses and just stare at the suitcases to see what’s inside them. I’m like a super snooper when I wear these. I’m perfect for the job.”
“Piper, you’re the flight attendant; Allie is security. Now please get in line with everyone else, and Allie will scan your luggage.”
I wasn’t happy about it, but I got in line behind Camilla. Garth was the first person to have his suitcase scanned. He put his suitcase into the plastic bin and put the bin in the big black box. Allie reached in through the other side of the box and slid the bin out.
“BEEP, BEEP, BEEP!” said Allie. “I’ll have to look inside your suitcase, sir.” She was very professional. You could tell she had been to lots of airports.
She turned Garth’s suitcase upside down.
Something fell out of it.
Allie looked at it.
Everyone else looked at it too. It was small and reddish and splotchy-shaped.
“What is that thing?” Allie asked Garth.
“A piece of my face,” he told her.
Then he pointed to a white splotchy-shape of skin on his forehead where a scab used to be.
Blech.
Next was Nicole’s suitcase. Allie beeped that one too. Nicole had packed a lot of stuff, so it took Allie a long time to go through it all. That was a good thing, I thought. Maybe if she took long enough, there wouldn’t be time for my speech.
Next up was Camilla. She put her suitcase in the bin, and then she put the bin in the scanner. Allie pulled it out through the other side.
“Okay, your suitcase looks good, ma’am,” Allie said.
“But you didn’t even look in it!” I said to Allie. “She might have a stuffed animal or something inside it.”
“So?” Allie said.
“So that’s not allowed.”
Allie put her hands on her hips. “What’s wrong with bringing a stuffed animal, Piper?”
“There is no snuggling allowed on the plane, don’t you know?” I said.
“Smuggling,” I heard Jacob say very, very quietly behind my ear.
I got hot in my face.
Allie squinched up her eyes at me suspiciously.
“I said, no smuggling allowed,” I mumbled.
“I am not smuggling!” Camilla said.
“Settle down, everyone!” said Captain Arabella. “No one is smuggling anything.”
“But how can you be sure?” I said.
“Because you all have honest faces. So let’s put the rest of the suitcases through the scanner, and we can all board the plane.”
I put my suitcase in the bin, but I tried not to let Captain Arabella see my face. Because it was not being honest today.
IN CASE OF EMERGENCY
When all our suitcases were scanned, Captain Arabella pulled another little airplane pin out of her bag. She pinned it on my shirt.
“Piper, you are officially a flight attendant,” she said. “That’s your seat up front, behind mine. After you put your suitcase under your chair, please make sure the passengers’ suitcase
s are under their chairs too. I’m going to go check on something in the lunchroom. I’ll be back in a minute.”
I put my suitcase under my chair. Then I made sure that everyone else had their suitcases under their chairs too.
Everybody was chittering and chattering with excitement, except for me because I was too worried.
“Shhh, you guys!” Ruby said to everyone. “Now Piper is going to do the ‘in case of emergency’ speech.”
She sat up straight and smiled at me. You could see that she was going to listen very carefully. Everyone got quiet and looked at me too.
Uh-oh.
I tried to think of all the things that I knew about emergencies. I suddenly remembered the firefighter who came to talk to our school last year. She gave us a coloring page of a fire truck and then told us what to do if a fire happens.
“In case your head goes on fire,” I said, “just roll around on the floor till the fire goes out.”
Everyone looked at me kind of confused. Jacob was doing little shakes of his head at me. I guessed I was supposed to say something more.
Then I remembered a commercial that always comes on when my dad watches the TV weather report. I remembered the whole thing perfectly, too, because it’s on every single night.
“If you are injured in an accident, call the law offices of Sam Klammer and Sons,” I said. “Your problem is our business.”
I bowed quickly.
“The end,” I said, and sat down.
“That is not what flight attendants say,” Allie announced. “Have you really been on a plane, Piper? I mean, ever?”
Ruby leaned forward. “That was weird, Piper.” Her voice sounded sort of nervous.
I felt my face get hot again.
Luckily, Captain Arabella came back right then. She sat down in the chair at the front of the plane. She was holding a joystick from a video game in her lap.
“Good morning, folks. This is your captain speaking.” She put her hand over her mouth so that her voice made a muffled sound. “You are flying on Island Airlines, destined for Beijing, China’s capital city. The weather in Beijing is sixty-five degrees, with plenty of sunshine. On Island Airlines, we take safety very seriously, so please buckle your seat belts.”
We all pretended to buckle our seat belts.
Captain Arabella took hold of the joystick. She made an engine sound with her mouth. She did a good job. It got louder and louder and louder.
“Prepare for takeoff!” she said.
Captain Arabella’s head leaned back, as if the plane was going up in the air. All of us leaned our heads back too.
After a minute, Captain Arabella announced, “We have now reached our cruising altitude of thirty-five thousand feet. You can unbuckle your seat belts. Sit back, relax, and enjoy the flight.” She sat up straight again. Everybody else did too.
“I can see clouds!” said Camilla, looking out the round windows.
“I see mountains down below!” said Garth.
Suddenly, I had an idea.
I began to bounce in my seat.
That’s because I remembered what Ruby said about how the plane was bouncy.
“What are you doing?” Jacob asked.
“Riding in a plane,” I said.
I bounced a little faster.
“Piper, please stay in your seat,” said Captain Arabella.
I sat back in my seat. After a minute, though, I made the seat rockity around.
Rockity, rockity, rockity.
ROCKITY, ROCKITY, ROCKITY!!
The kids started laughing.
“Piper.” Captain Arabella turned and looked at me. “Stop that.”
“Watch where you’re going, Captain, or we’ll fly right into those mountains over there!” screeched Garth.
That made me rockity-rockity like mad!
All of a sudden, my chair slid out from under me. It flew up in the air, and I crashed down on the ground.
After that, Captain Arabella told me to take my suitcase and sit out in the hallway.
We had to make an emergency landing and everything.
SPILLING MY BEANS
I sat on the floor in the hallway. I tried not to cry, but my heart felt too tragic. Not only was I the only person in my class who had never gone anywhere, but now I couldn’t even go to bunny-ear-fingers China.
The news got even worse, though. My suitcase was totally smooshed because I landed on it when I fell off my chair. I stuck my hand inside it to check on my X-ray glasses. My fingers felt too many pieces of things in there. I pulled out one of those pieces, and guess what? It was part of my X-ray glasses, all smashed up.
I sat there and cried and cried until even my nose was leaking. When I heard the classroom door open, I quickly tried to wipe up my face with my shirt.
It was Jacob.
“Ms. Arabella says you can come back in now,” he told me.
He handed me a whole wad of tissues.
“How did you know I was crying?” I asked. My voice sounded squeaky.
He shrugged.
I wiped up my face while Jacob waited. That’s when I decided to spill my beans.
“Jacob?”
“What?”
“I’ve never been on a plane before,” I told him.
“Yeah, I figured,” he said.
“I’ve never gone anywhere in my whole entire life,” I told him.
“You will, Piper,” he said.
“Hmmph,” I said glumly.
“You might even go to the real China someday,” Jacob said.
I snuffled back the leaks in my nose.
“Maybe when we’re married?” I said.
Jacob sighed, then turned to go back into the classroom.
In the classroom, the plane had already landed. Everybody was standing in line by Captain Arabella’s desk. They were holding their suitcases and their passports, and Captain Arabella was asking them questions and then stamping their passports.
I got in line behind Ruby. She looked at my eyeballs, which still felt wet and swollen.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
Now that I had already spilled my beans once, it felt a little easier to spill them again.
“Ruby, I’ve never been on a plane before. Not even one time.”
“You were lying?” said Ruby.
“Yes,” I said. “I’m really sorry.”
Ruby looked so disappointed that I couldn’t even stand it. I stared down at my sneakers so I wouldn’t have to see that sorrowful face.
“Does that mean your uncle Bobby isn’t really a pilot either?” she asked.
“No,” I said. “I got a little carried away there. I don’t even have an uncle Bobby.”
“Oh, shoot,” she said. “I really wanted to drive his plane.”
I had a solution for that problem, though.
“Hey, Ruby, when you grow up, you could become a pilot,” I said. “And you could wear that cute hat and drive planes all over the place.”
“Oh yeah. I could,” said Ruby. “If I was a pilot, I could visit my great-grandma whenever I felt like it.” She cheered right up, so I felt a little better about things too.
When I got to Captain Arabella’s desk, she smiled at me in a nice way.
“May I see your passport please, miss?” Her hat was not on her head anymore.
“Are you still the pilot?” I asked.
“Nope. Now I am a customs agent,” she said.
Good! I thought. Because it was the pilot who kicked me off the plane.
Ms. Arabella looked at my passport photo carefully. Then she looked up at my face, then down at the photo again.
“That really is me in the picture,” I told her. “I was just smiling like the blue crunch-ball shark.”
“Okay, Miss Green, you are all set,” said Ms. Arabella. She stamped my passport. The stamp was of a panda bear. “Have a pleasant visit.”
Once everyone was stamped, we followed Ms. Arabella down the hallway. She stopped in front of the l
unchroom door.
“Are you ready for China?” she asked. She wiggled her eyebrows.
“YES!! YES!! YES!!” we screamed, and jumped around.
Ms. Arabella squinched up her face at that.
“Let’s hope China is ready for you,” she said quietly.
NI HAO!
The lunchroom looked very festive! There were red paper lanterns hanging from the ceiling and posters of different places in China taped to the walls. There was a delicious smell coming from the kitchen too. And guess who was there? Ruby’s mom, Mrs. Biggie! Only she wasn’t dressed like Ruby’s mom. She wore a beautiful shiny green dress with a funny high collar. Her black hair was in a bun, and she had little flowers all around the bun.
“Mom!” Ruby cried out. “You didn’t tell me you were coming!”
“I wanted it to be a surprise,” said Mrs. Biggie. She turned to all of us. “Ni hao!” It sounded like “knee how.” “That means ‘hello’ in Chinese.”
“Mrs. Biggie is going to tell you some interesting things about China,” said Ms. Arabella.
Ms. Arabella had us all sit down at a round table. There was a lot of stuff on the table, like a soccer ball, drawing paper, a tiny, fuzzy white oval thing on a plate, a kite, a roll of toilet paper, red nail polish, and a compass.
“So many things!” said Mrs. Biggie. “What do you think they all have in common?”
Hunter raised his hand.
“They’re all on the same table,” he said.
Mrs. Biggie laughed. “That’s true, but they have something else in common too. They were all invented in China. The Chinese are great inventors.”
“Especially if they invented toilet paper,” said Garth. He opened his arms wide and yelled, “I love you, Chinese inventors!”
Ms. Arabella gave him the stink eye.
“What’s that?” I asked, pointing to the tiny, fuzzy white oval thing in the dish.
“Ahh! Now that is something very interesting.” Mrs. Biggie carefully picked up the little white thing and held it out in the palm of her hand for us to see. “It’s a cocoon made of silk. Inside this ball is a tiny worm called a silkworm. The silkworm makes the silk. Chinese people discovered how to use silk to create all kinds of beautiful things. My dress is made out of silk.”
