Getting Air (4 page)

I didn’t die. I
thought
I had died. How could I have survived? I thought that maybe I was in heaven. That would have been nice, a pleasant way to die. But then I opened my eyes. Heaven probably didn’t have the smell of burning rubber. Heaven probably didn’t have the wreckage of a small jet plane. That’s what I was looking at.

My skateboard was clutched to my chest. Where did that come from? I didn’t remember picking it up. But I must have. It was like I was holding on to it for dear life. Maybe it had saved my life. Maybe, like a bulletproof shield, it had stopped whatever I crashed into when the plane hit the trees. I would never know for sure, but I was glad I had it. The best thing that ever happened to me was that my skateboard didn’t fit in the overhead bin.

I had no idea how long I had been laying there. It could have been seconds after the crash, or I could have slept a whole night. It was daytime, in any case. When I rolled over and saw the front of the plane about twenty yards to the left of me, I felt sore all over. Every muscle ached. Most likely I had tensed up just before we hit the trees. That’s what happened. I remember somebody once told me that drunks often survive car crashes because they’re so out of it they don’t tense up their muscles. When you tense your muscles, you get hurt.

I felt my arms and legs. Nothing was broken, as far as I could tell. There were cuts on my arms and some blood, but nothing too serious. My shoulders were bruised. My head was throbbing with pain. But I could stand. I could move all my limbs. I could see, hear, and smell.

Hey, I was alive. That was what mattered. I had survived. Anything was better than the alternative.

The first thing I thought of was that book,
Hatchet
, my sister had been reading. I had to read it in fourth grade. The kid was in one of those little two-seater prop planes when the pilot had a heart attack. The plane crash-landed in the wilderness and all the kid had was a hatchet. He used it to build a shelter, make a fire, kill an animal, everything. Julia loved that book. I think she read it four or five times.

Julia! Suddenly, I remembered my sister, and Henry and David, and all those old ladies. They must still be in the plane!

Thoughts raced through my brain. What if I was the only survivor? My parents made me promise to keep an eye on Julia, and now she was dead. My best friends were dead.
Everybody
was dead except me. Was it my fault? What right did I have to be alive while they were all dead?

But wait! Maybe the others weren’t dead. Maybe they were still in the plane. Maybe…

I struggled to my feet and ran toward the plane. Or what was left of the plane, anyway. Only the front section was still there. It was obvious what had happened. The nose had come down between the trunks of two trees. They must have ripped off the wings on each side and taken the rear of the plane with them. The front separated from the rest of the plane like a rocket separates in stages. It skidded along the ground until it was stopped by a tree. The nose was touching the base of the tree. I couldn’t even see where the rest of the plane was. Maybe it blew up.

The cockpit windshield was shattered. There were little pieces of glass scattered around on the ground. I must have gone flying through the windshield when we hit the tree and landed on the ground outside the plane.

“Julia!” I hollered. “Henry! David!”

No answer. The cockpit window was too high off the ground to climb into. So I ran to the tree. There was a low branch I could grab and pull myself up on. My arms and legs were sore, but I did it. From the first branch, I grabbed another branch and shimmied along it until I could reach the window. I didn’t think about my pain. I was thinking about my sister and my friends.

I pulled myself up until I could see inside the cockpit. There were bodies in there. They were on the floor, tangled up in a crazy mess of arms and legs. There was moaning.
Somebody
was alive. I struggled to climb in through the hole where the window used to be. Some of the glass still had to be knocked away.

“Julia!” I yelled, grabbing my sister and shaking her. “Come on, get up!”

“Stop it,” she moaned. “My leg is killing me. I think it’s broken.”

I was so happy she was alive, I didn’t care if every bone in her body was broken.

“I’m okay,” Henry said, rolling over on his back. “I’ll help Squirt. You see about David.”

“I’m fine,” David said, coughing and struggling to his feet. “It’s
her
I’m worried about.”

The flight attendant, Arcadia, was still on the floor, lying on her side with her eyes closed.

“Is she alive?” I asked.

David knelt down and put his ear to Arcadia’s face.

“She’s breathing, I think,” he said.

“It’s going to be hard to carry her and Julia out through the window,” I said.

Henry and David looked at me like I was stupid.

“You climbed in through the window?” David asked.

“Well, yeah,” I said. “How else do you think I got in here?”

They both looked toward the rear of the plane. Or I should say, where the rear of the plane
used
to be. Everything behind the first class section was gone. There was just a big hole there. I didn’t have to climb in the window. I could have simply walked right into the plane from the hole in the back. It hadn’t even occurred to me. I must have been in shock.

“Here, grab her legs,” David told me.

David and I carried Arcadia out the back and lowered her gently on the ground. She didn’t open her eyes. She was asleep, or maybe unconscious. Henry carried Julia out of the plane. We gathered around Arcadia.

“What do you think we should do?” I asked.

“I don’t see any bleeding,” Henry said. “She could be in shock.”

“We should wake her up,” Julia said. “She could lapse into a coma.”

“Anybody know how to do CPR?” I asked.

“Is that the same as mouth-to-mouth resuscitation?” Henry asked.

“I do!” David quickly volunteered.

I had to laugh. It felt
good
to laugh. Despite everything that had happened, despite the fact that our plane had been hijacked and we had to kill some guys and we almost died in the crash, I had to laugh. There was a smile on Henry’s face too.

“Hey, I want to give her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation!” Henry said. “I took a course in CPR once.”

“You took a course in
everything
once,” I said. “I talked to her first. I should be the one who gets to give her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.”

“I called it!” David said. “I got dibs.”

“You guys are sick,” Julia told us.

“Hey, it’s not that different from kissing,” insisted Henry.

“I’m
fine
,” Arcadia said, sitting up suddenly. She scared the carp out of us.

“Oh,” me and David and Henry said, only partly relieved that Arcadia was okay. None of us would need to give her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Briefly, I allowed myself to think about how nice it might be to pass out and have Arcadia give
me
mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

“What happened?” Arcadia asked, struggling to her feet.

“Henry is the hero,” I explained. “He steered the front of the plane between two trees. That sheared off the wings and the rest of the plane. You can’t even see it from here. We must have skidded on the ground a long way. I went flying through the windshield. We carried you out.”

“It was luck,” Henry said. “A miracle, really.”

“Are you guys okay?” Arcadia asked.

“Yeah, mostly,” Henry said. “I think Squirt’s leg is broken.”

“I’ll be fine,” my sister said, but she was wincing with pain.

“I can make a splint for her,” Arcadia said. “We need to stabilize the injured area. We’re trained for this kind of thing. What about all the other passengers? Those old ladies?”

“We don’t know,” David said. “Dead, I guess.”

I felt guilty about laughing and fantasizing about kissing Arcadia. People had died. Not just the hijackers, who deserved it. But those nice old ladies, those old ladies with their blue hair. They never hurt anybody. All they wanted to do was go to their knitting convention. And now they were dead.

Arcadia started crying first. Then it was this contagious thing like when one person yawns and then the person next to them yawns. I started crying too. I guess Henry figured that if I was crying it was okay for him to cry and he also started crying. Then Julia started crying and even David, who I don’t think
ever
cried in his life, started crying. None of us even knew any of those old ladies, but all five of us were sobbing and we couldn’t stop. And why not? Even though we were probably the luckiest people in the world, we had just been through the most horrible experience of our lives. We had to do something, and crying seemed to make more sense than laughing. I couldn’t imagine that I would ever have a reason to laugh again.

“What are all you babies bawling about?” somebody said.

We turned around to see who it was.

Mildred Herschel was standing there.

“It looks like I’m going to be late for my knitting convention,” Mrs. Herschel said, brushing some dirt off her dress. “Blast it!”

“Mrs. Herschel!” I shouted.

She was messed up pretty good, like all of us. Her dress was torn and her gray hair wasn’t neatly in place, the way it had been when we took off. Her glasses were broken. There was a dark smudge on her face. But she was alive, and Arcadia went over to hug her.

“How did you get here?” David asked. “You were in the back of the plane.”

“Everything from the wings on back got stuck between two trees,” she said. “I’m a lucky bugger. I had my seat belt off. The impact threw me clear of the wreckage. I figured the front of the plane must have broken off and slid forward. Had to walk a kilometer or so until I found you.”

“What about the others?” Arcadia asked. “Your friends?”

“I don’t know,” Mrs. Herschel said softly, “I didn’t look back.” And then she began to tear up quietly and put her head on Arcadia’s shoulder.

So it looked like there were six of us who made it out alive. Me and my sister. Henry and David. Mrs. Herschel and Arcadia. We were all banged up, but the worst injury was Julia’s leg. We were probably the luckiest unlucky people in the world.

Henry went back in the plane to see what we had that might be useful. There was a first-aid kit, a defibrillator, a life raft, and a fire extinguisher. He couldn’t find the axe that the hijacker had been waving around at us.

Arcadia went to a nearby tree and ripped off a few straight branches and some vines.

“Sit down,” she told Julia. “You need to keep that leg out straight so it’ll heal right.”

Arcadia seemed to know what she was talking about. Julia’s leg was swollen, painful, and she couldn’t put weight on it, which meant it was probably broken. Arcadia said that maybe it was just a hairline fracture. She started working on her splint. Henry and I ripped another branch off and made it into a simple crutch for Julia.

I knew there was a lot we had to do. We should probably be getting some water and food, maybe building a shelter. But I was just so tired. The sun was lower in the sky and it would be dark out soon. It had been a long day. No point in trying to get anything done. I flopped down on the ground and sat back-to-back against my sister to give each of us something to lean on. At home, we would do that sometimes and see if we could stand up without using our hands.

I guess the others were as exhausted as I was. They formed a little circle on the ground, while Arcadia worked on Julia’s leg.

As I looked around, I was grateful for one thing. At least we were a group. What if I had been the only survivor? I don’t know if I could handle it, being out there all alone in the woods at night. I would have freaked out.

We were all tired, but it was the kind of tired where you’re so tired that you can’t sleep. We were all revved up over what had happened to us. We had seen death close up. It was still sinking in. You can’t just roll over and fall asleep after that.

Mrs. Herschel told us she was going to turn eighty years old in a few days. She had been planning to celebrate in California with her children and grandchildren. She said she used to be a champion roller skater “in her day.” I couldn’t imagine her on skates.

Arcadia told us she came from New Orleans. She said she became a flight attendant right after high school so she would get to see the world.

“From the time I was a little girl, I always loved to fly,” she said, shaking her head.

It got quiet. We were all lost in our own thoughts. I shivered. I didn’t know if it was because it was a little cold out, or because of what we had been through. I had never been close to death before.

There was sound in the distance. Some kind of an animal, maybe.

“You think there are wolves out here?” Henry asked in a hushed tone. “Squirt can’t run. She’d be a sitting duck if we were attacked.”

“Wolves are afraid of people,” Julia said. “They’d run from
us
.”

It got quiet again. All I could hear were the leaves rustling in the trees. It was getting dark.

“I’ll say one thing,” Arcadia said. “I’ll never complain about anything ever again. I don’t care what happens to me. I’m just grateful to be alive.”

“Thank God,” said David.

“What do you think happened to
them
?” Arcadia asked.

“Them?” I said.

“Those guys. The ones who hijacked the plane.”

“I know one thing,” David said. “They didn’t go to heaven.”

“That’s where they were
trying
to go,” Henry said. “Did you hear that guy yelling during the fight? He said he welcomed death and that they’d all meet in heaven.”

I remembered. Just before Henry nailed him with the fire extinguisher, the guy screamed, “Eternal bliss will be ours!” I’ll never forget it.

“Guys like that go to hell,” David stated firmly. “That’s all there is to it.”

“How do you know?” Henry asked quietly.

“Thou shalt not kill,” David said. “It’s right there in the Bible.”

“The hijackers believed in some kind of a Bible, or holy book too,” Henry said. “They believed in a god. They thought they were doing God’s will. What makes you so sure your god is right and theirs is wrong?”

“Because I’m sitting here and they’re dead, that’s how,” David said. “What’s the matter? Don’t you believe in God? Why do you think we’re alive?”

“Because we got lucky,” Henry said. “You think God loves us more than all those people who died? Where was God when that guy killed the flight attendant?”

Wow. I never heard anyone suggest they didn’t believe in God before. Julia and I had gone to Hebrew school, and I had my bar mitzvah. I knew that David went to church every Sunday and Henry didn’t, but that was as far as it went. The three of us guys had never had a discussion about religion before. Mostly, we talked about skateboarding. To be honest, I had never given much thought to religion before. I guess I just believed what I was told.

“So you’re an atheist,” David said to Henry. “Why don’t you believe in God?”

“Why should I?” Henry replied. “It’s not like God is sitting here talking with us and I’m pretending I don’t see him. Where is he? Where was he on 9/11? Where is he whenever there’s a natural disaster? Where is he whenever
anything
bad happens?”

“God isn’t like some superhero who flies in to save the day,” Arcadia said. “Whatever happens, good or bad, is all part of his plan.”

“So his plan was for those old ladies to die?” Henry asked. “Some plan.”

“I believe God chose us to be on that plane,” David said. “He knew we were strong, that we would know what to do. God plans everything.”

“Then you have to believe God planned the hijacking, too,” Henry said. “If you’re gonna give him credit for the good things, you have to blame him for the bad stuff, too. So when babies die, and kids starve, and people get run over by drunk drivers, God planned all that stuff. Right?”

Wow. I never heard anybody say anything like that before. Certainly not Henry. He was never serious. Most of the time he was the one who kept us laughing.

“Forgive him for what he says,” David said, putting his hands together.

“And why would he let me survive, the atheist?” Henry continued. “There are a lot of dead believers back there.”

“God works in mysterious ways,” David explained. “On Judgment Day, we’ll understand.”

“I’ll tell you what I think,” Henry said. “I think we all become worm food when we die.”

“I believe in God,” said Arcadia.

“I don’t know what I believe,” said Julia.

I looked over at Mrs. Herschel. She was being quiet. I guess I figured that somebody her age must know something the rest of us didn’t. She must have gained some wisdom in all those years.

“I don’t know if there is a God, or an afterlife, or whatever,” she said. “There’s no way any of us can know. Anybody who claims they know is a liar or a fake. But I’ll tell you one thing. I’ll find out before any of you.”

It got quiet again.

“We’d better get some rest,” Arcadia finally said.

She finished wrapping the vines around Julia’s leg to hold the splint in place. Then she cleared a little spot on the ground and tried to make herself comfortable.

“G’night, y’all,” she said, closing her eyes.

It was dark now and almost impossible to see. I found a smooth spot to lay down on. If the wolves or mountain lions were going to come and eat me, I guess there was nothing I could do about it. The others lay down too and said good night. Somebody was sobbing quietly. I couldn’t tell who it was.

I wasn’t going to cry. Whether it was God’s will or random chance, the six of us had survived. In all probability, somebody would be there to rescue us by the time we woke up in the morning. Life would return to normal.