by Dave Barry
When the plane was loaded the same flight attendant came down the aisle checking things, and she told the little guy he couldn’t hold his backpack in his lap.
He said, “I need to hold it.”
“I’m sorry, sir,” she said, not sounding sorry. “You can’t hold it during takeoff or landing.”
“Is very important.”
“You can hold it after we take off. Right now it has to go in the overhead.” She reached for the backpack.
“No!” said the little guy, pulling it away.
“All right,” she said, “then you’ll have to put it under the seat in front of you.”
“I am not comfortable doing that.”
“Sir,” said the flight attendant, “you cannot have that in your lap. Either you stow it now, or you’ll have to get off the plane.”
This time the big guy said something quietly to the little guy, in what I think was a foreign language. The little guy sighed and stuck the backpack under the seat in front of him, which was the seat that Matt was sitting in. The flight attendant gave the little guy a look and walked away.
Matt leaned over to me. “What do you think’s in the backpack?” he said—whispering, fortunately.
“How would I know?” I said.
“You think it’s a bomb?”
“No!”
“Why not?”
“Because, moron, he had to go through security.”
“Well, then what is it? Why’s he acting so weird? Him and his friend with the missile…”
“It’s not a missile!” I said, too loud—that’s the kind of thing Matt makes you do—and all of a sudden I realized the big guy was leaning forward and glaring at us again, so I shut up. We stayed quiet during the safety lecture where they show you how to fasten your seat belt and tell you that your seat cushion floats, which I’m sure would be really helpful if the plane actually crashed into the ocean at five hundred miles an hour.
I noticed that after we took off, the little guy immediately reached down and got the backpack out from under Matt’s seat. But then I stopped thinking about him and started trying to figure out how to talk to Suzana, two rows behind. My idea was to pretend I had to go to the bathroom, and then, when I walked past her, I would say some funny thing that would make her laugh, and we would start having a conversation, with me standing in the aisle, which was good because I would be standing and she would be sitting down so I’d be taller.
This seemed like a solid plan, except for one thing: I didn’t have anything funny to say. I spent the first half hour of the flight trying to think of jokes, which wasn’t easy because Matt kept whispering to me about the guys behind us, who he was convinced were terrorists planning to blow up the plane.
Finally I came up with a joke: I’d walk by, and I’d say to Suzana, casually, like I just thought of it, “Do you know where the emergency exit is?” And she’d say something like, “Why are you looking for the emergency exit?” And I’d say, “Because I’m sitting next to Cameron Frank, and I need some fresh air!”
I’m not saying this was hilarious. I’m saying this was the best I could do under the circumstances. I was going over my lines in my head (“Do you know where the emergency exit is?”), rehearsing for my big moment. Meanwhile Matt kept sneaking peeks back at the weird two guys behind us and whispering reports to me.
“They’re looking at something,” he said.
“So what?” I said.
“We need to find out what it is,” he said.
“No we don’t,” I said.
Anyway, we finally got to the altitude where you can walk around, so I got up and started toward the back of the plane. I noticed out of the side of my eye that the two weird guys behind us actually were looking at something, kind of hunched over it so you couldn’t see what it was. But I was focused on Suzana. I was so focused on Suzana that I didn’t see that the man in the seat right across the aisle had his leg sticking out.
What happened next was the kind of horrible embarrassing failure that your brain memorizes every single detail of so it can torture you by playing it in your head over and over and over for the rest of your life. This is how it went:
ME (to Suzana, pretending I am just thinking this up as I pass by): Hey, do you know where th—WHAM (sound of me tripping and falling on my face in the aisle).
SUZANA: Ohmigod! Wyatt! Are you okay?
ME (getting up, trying to look like nothing happened): I’m fine! I’m fine!
SUZANA: Are you sure?
ME (thinking for some moronic reason that I should still do my moronic rehearsed joke): I was just wondering if you knew where the emergency exit was.
EIGHTY-JILLION-YEAR-OLD FLIGHT ATTENDANT (coming down the aisle to see why I fell down and not looking happy): What’s going on here?
ME: Nothing. I fell down.
SUZANA: Why do you need the emergency exit?
EIGHTY-JILLION-YEAR-OLD FLIGHT ATTENDANT: What about the emergency exit?
ME: Nothing!
SUZANA: You just asked me where the emergency exit is.
ME (reaching new heights of being a moron): I did?
SUZANA: Yes, you did.
EIGHTY-JILLION-YEAR-OLD FLIGHT ATTENDANT (to me): Do you not understand that the emergency exits are an important safety feature of this aircraft, and it’s a very serious matter to tamper with them in any way?
ME: No.
EIGHTY-JILLION-YEAR-OLD FLIGHT ATTENDANT: No?
ME: Yes! I mean, yes, I understand. I wasn’t really…I was just…There’s this kid who farts….
EIGHTY-JILLION-YEAR-OLD FLIGHT ATTENDANT: What?
MR. BARTO (coming down the aisle from his seat): Is something wrong?
EIGHTY-JILLION-YEAR-OLD FLIGHT ATTENDANT: This young man seems to think there’s something amusing about the emergency exits.
MR. BARTO: Wyatt, do you think there’s something amusing about the emergency exits?
ME: No. I was—
EIGHTY-JILLION-YEAR-OLD FLIGHT ATTENDANT: He also said something about farts.
MR. BARTO: What about farts, Wyatt?
ME: No! I was only…nothing. Never mind.
MR. BARTO: Wyatt, I want you to return to your seat right now, and if you don’t want to be sent home from this trip, there had better be no more of this behavior, am I clear?
ME: Yes.
I went back to my seat. Behind me I could hear Suzana and her friends giggling. Now I really did wish I could jump out the emergency exit.
“What was that all about?” said Matt.
“Shut up,” I said.
“Listen,” he said, not shutting up, “the guys behind us were watching you.”
“Great.”
“No, listen. While they were watching you, I got a look at what they were looking at.”
“Good for you.”
“And get this. They’re looking at aerial photographs.”
“So?”
“They’re aerial photographs of the White House.”
I looked at him. “Are you sure?”
He nodded twice really fast, up-down-up-down, and whispered, “Aerial photographs of the White House.”
I thought about that for a couple of seconds. “There could be a simple explanation,” I said.
“Like what?”
“Like, I dunno, they’re tourists, and they’ll be walking around the White House area, and they want to see what’s around there, from the air.” Even while I was saying this, it sounded stupid.
Matt shook his head. “Tourists use maps. Not aerial photographs.”
I ducked down and snuck a peek between Matt’s and my seatbacks at the weird guys behind us. They were looking at something, and they were definitely hunching over it like they didn’t want anybody walking past in the aisle to see. But from my angle, I got a quick glimpse. And Matt was right: It was a photo of the White House, taken from the air. I looked back at Matt. He raised his eyebrows.
“See?” he said.
“Add it up,” he said. “There’s two weird guys, both carrying things that they’re acting all weird about, right?”
“Right.”
“And now they’re looking at an aerial photograph of the White House, right?”
“Right.”
“Now think about it: What does this airplane practically fly right over when we get to Washington?”
I thought about it. I went to Washington with my family in fourth grade, and I remembered that when the plane was landing, it flew over the Potomac River, and my dad was pointing to famous stuff out the left-side window, really close—the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial…and the White House.
“Oh, man,” I said.
“Yeah,” said Matt. “And you laughed when I said they had a missile.”
“But they can’t have a missile. They got through airport security.”
Matt snorted. “Did you see those airport security people? I think you could drive a tank past them, as long as it didn’t contain any liquids.”
“No, seriously, there’s no way they could—”
“Okay, okay, say it’s not a missile. Maybe it’s some other kind of weapon, something that has two pieces, and it’s only dangerous if you put them together. One piece is in the big guy’s black bag up there, and the other’s in the weird little dude’s backpack. When we get near Washington, they put the pieces together and it forms some kind of new thing that does something bad.”
“Like what?”
“Like blow up the plane. Or it’s some kind of high-tech gun, or a thing they can use to smash through the cockpit door. I don’t know what it is. But it’s something.”
I thought about it some more. Matt can be an idiot, but he’s not a complete idiot.
I said, “So what should we do?”
“Maybe we should tell the flight attendant.”
I looked toward the front of the plane. The mean eighty-jillion-year-old flight attendant was glaring around the cabin like she was about to cast a spell and turn everybody into a frog. I imagined what it would be like to go up to her and tell her that we thought the two guys behind us were terrorists, based on…based on not a whole lot, really.
“Why don’t you tell her?” I said.
“I’m not gonna tell her,” said Matt. “Why don’t you tell her?”
“She already hates me,” I said.
“I think she hates everybody,” said Matt.
“Okay,” I said. “We won’t say anything now. But we’ll watch them. If they do anything weird, especially when we’re getting near the White House, we’ll do something.”
“Like what?”
“Like yell. Or something.”
“That’s our plan? We yell? Or something?”
“Do you have a better plan?”
“No.”
“Then that’s our plan.”
For the next hour or so we just sat there feeling nervous. I was so nervous I didn’t even think about Suzana. Every now and then we snuck a peek back between the seats at the weird guys. They had put away the photograph and mostly talked in low voices. The little guy kept the backpack on his lap.
Then the pilot announced that we were beginning our descent into Washington. He said there was turbulence and it was going to be “a little bumpy” and everybody should make sure their seat belts were fastened. They told us to turn off our laptop computers and put everything away. Matt and I peeked back and saw that the weird little guy still had his backpack in his lap. The eighty-jillion-year-old flight attendant came by and stopped next to him.
“Sir,” she said. “You have to put that away.”
“I would prefer to hold it,” he said.
“Sir,” she said, and you could tell she was about to lose it, “you have to put it away.”
The little guy looked like he was about to say something. But then he put it away. The backpack was now right under Matt’s seat.
We could feel the plane descending, then turning. We were over the Potomac River now. Matt and I were sneaking a lot of peeks back. The two weird guys were staring out the window. The air started getting bumpy. Really bumpy. Stuff on the plane was rattling and people were making nervous sounds. The plane was really low now. I could see buildings out the left-side window. I peeked back. The two weird guys were glued to the window, the big guy leaning over into the little guy’s seat, the two of them staring out.
“We’re coming up on the White House,” said Matt.
Right then the plane bumped hard. It felt like we slammed into an elephant in midair. Some people screamed. I was really scared. There was another huge bump and the whole plane lurched sideways. More screams.
Suddenly Matt grabbed my arm and said, “He’s getting the backpack!” I looked back and saw that the little weird guy was leaning down toward the storage area under Matt’s seat.
“We gotta stop him!” said Matt.
I was going to ask him how, but before I could say anything he turned around and slid down off his seat onto the floor, into the foot space.
“What are you doing?” I said, but then I saw. He was reaching under his seat and grabbing the guy’s backpack, trying to pull it through the opening under his seat.
“No!” shouted the little weird guy, from behind us. “Let go of that! Let go!”
Now there was a tug-of-war going on, with Matt trying to pull the backpack forward and the little weird guy trying to pull it back. The little weird guy kept yelling at Matt to let go, but he wouldn’t. The big weird guy leaned forward over the seat, also yelling at Matt and trying to grab him, but he had his seat belt on, so Matt was too low for him to reach. People around us saw what was happening, but the plane was still bumping and shaking pretty hard, so most of the passengers were too busy being nervous to notice. Outside the window I could see the land getting closer, and then whump the plane touched down hard, bounced, and then stayed down. Some people cheered. Meanwhile Matt and the little weird guy were still fighting their tug–of-war, the little guy still shouting at Matt to let go of the backpack. The big weird guy was standing up now, leaning over into our row.
“Sir! Sit down!” This was the eighty-jillion-year-old flight attendant shouting over the P.A. system. The big guy sat down, but he kept trying to reach Matt. The plane was slowing down. More people were looking at our row, trying to see what the yelling was about. The eighty-jillion-year-old flight attendant was coming down the aisle toward us, looking very unhappy.
“Got it!” said Matt, pulling the backpack all the way through the seat.
“GIVE IT TO ME!” shouted the little guy, practically diving over the seat, grabbing at Matt.
Matt was leaning over the backpack, protecting it with his body. I could see he was unzipping one of the side pockets. Now both the big guy and the little guy were leaning over him. The big guy grabbed him under his arms and started lifting him, pulling him right up through the seat belt.
“Wyatt, here!” said Matt. He shoved the backpack at me, and without really thinking about it, I took it. Which meant I was holding it when the flight attendant got to our row. The plane had just rolled to a stop, and pretty much everybody was now looking in our direction.
“What’s going on here?” said the flight attendant. “Why are you holding that boy?”
The big guy let go of Matt, who plopped back down into his seat.
“That boy has my property!” shouted the little guy, pointing at me.
So now everybody on the plane was looking at me. Not Matt. Me.
“Is that his backpack?” said the flight attendant.
“Um,” I said. Which I admit was not a brilliant statement, but it was definitely smarter than what Matt said, which was, quote: “It has a bomb in it!”
You can imagine what a big hit that was, on a crowded airplane. People started screaming and trying to get away, but we were still taxiing on the runway, so the doors were closed, and there was nowhere to go.
&nb
sp; “QUIET!” shouted a deep voice, so loud that people actually got pretty quiet. “Everybody back in your seats now.”
The deep voice belonged to a wide man in jeans and a sweater who was coming down the aisle from first class. People were getting out of his way and sitting back down.
“I’m a Federal Air Marshal,” the wide man said. “What’s going on here?”
The flight attendant pointed to me and said, “He says he has a bomb.”
This was not really true, but before I could point that out, the marshal said to me, “What’s your name, son?”
“Wyatt Palmer.”
“What’s in that backpack?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then why’d you say it was a bomb?”
“I didn’t.”
“Then who did?”
“I did,” said Matt.
The wide man looked at Matt.
“And you are?”
“Matthew Diaz.”
“Okay, why did you say it was a bomb?”
Matt pointed at the two weird guys behind us and said, “It belongs to them and they were acting weird.”
“How were they acting weird?”
“They were looking at aerial photos of the White House.”
The marshal looked at the two guys and said, “Is that true?”
The big guy said, “Yes.” He held up a book. On the cover was an aerial photo of the Capitol. The book was titled Washington from the Air. “We are tourists,” said the big guy. “We are first time coming to city of Washington, so we are reading this book.”
The marshal looked at Matt. “So that’s why you thought they had a bomb?”
“Not just that!” said Matt. He pointed at the little guy. “When the plane was coming over the White House, he was reaching for his backpack!”
The marshal looked at the little guy and said, “Were you reaching for the backpack?”
