Up Over Down Under (3 page)

“Aren't you eating those?”

“What's that?” Billie Echols looked up from her video iPod to find the seat mate on her right side bearing down on her affably.

Flight 181, Row 20 was cramped enough as it was without this man, a friendly but nonetheless undeniably…rotund American, invading Billie's personal space. Australians were known for being easygoing, Billie realized, but seeing as how this was about a twenty-two-hour flight (that was including the layover in Los Angeles, of course), Mr. Seat J really needed to learn some boundaries.

“Were you eating those? The chips?”

“Er, I guess not,” Billie said, hesitant. While the chips themselves—some terrifying flavor hybrid of onions, cheddar, and a hint of ranch dressing—weren't all that appealing, she knew there wouldn't be any more food until breakfast service, and worried about midnight hunger pangs. Assuming her jet-lagged body would recognize midnight, that is.

“Would you—” she began tentatively.

Seat J needed no additional encouragement.

“Thanks!” he boomed, squeezing even farther onto Billie's seat—it was almost as though he was trying to meld his body into Billie's through the science of osmosis—and scooping up the sad, wrinkled foil bag. He tilted his head back and downed the last crumbs of potato chips as though he were a marathoner on his last leg and the bag was a bottle of designer sports water.

“Miss, if my husband is bothering you, just let me know. I can get him to back off.”

That was the input of Seat L, or the woman directly to Billie's left. She and her husband, Billie noted, looked exactly alike: smooth, hairless faces and pink, smiling mouths. It was a little bit creepy.

Billie had offered, when they all first boarded the plane, to swap seats with the wife so that she and her husband could sit side by side, but for reasons that Billie truly could not fathom, they had demurred. Speaking of creepy.

“No worries,” Billie lied, trying her hardest to keep her patience. She had specifically downloaded as many back episodes of
The West Wing
as she could fit on her iPod before heading off to the airport—“research,” she reasoned, for her upcoming internship.

Internship.
The word sounded exotic and glam, even inside of Belinda's head. S.A.S.S. was an incredibly competitive program, and she couldn't believe that she'd been accepted. She'd been a greenie ever since her mother first taught her to separate the plastics from the paper, but in her hometown, Melbourne, everyone had a pretty healthy attitude toward the outdoors and the environment.

In D.C., however—that was where she would have the chance to test her political passions, to stretch and flex and really
feel
the power of her convictions. She would be interning with Alan Ritter, a key player in the EPA. Ritter was most recently in charge of an effort to clean the Chesapeake Bay, specifically to eliminate pollution from a nearby sewage plant, and everyone in D.C. was waiting to see what his plan would be, and when and how it would go into effect.

The thought made Billie shiver. This trip to D.C. was the most grown-up thing she had ever done, and she couldn't wait to find herself in an honest-to-gosh office workspace.

Billie could just see it now: her, on the phone, screaming demands at a reluctant wonk. Her, tirelessly marching in a (nonviolent) demonstration just outside of the White House. Her, working into the wee hours of the night, grossly overpriced designer coffee in one hand, as she entered corrections to a fellow politico's speech. She was going to save the environment—single-handedly, if she had to. And she was traveling to America—America!—to do so.

Okay, she wasn't going to go to that Hollywood cliché of America being a melting pot, a land of opportunity, where the streets were paved with gold. That was a little too Disney for someone who'd been raised in what had once been a British penal colony, after all. But if programs like
Gossip Girl
,
One Tree Hill
, or…yes, even
The West Wing
, were to be believed, Americans were…interesting.

It was almost worth the sacrifice of trading in her trainers for fluorescent lighting for a whole entire semester. So what if Billie, dedicated introvert and adventure enthusiast, would be giving up the great outdoors? At the same time, she'd be saving it. This was what they called one of those tough decisions.

“He'd pick your whole tray clean, if you turned your back on him,” Seat L screeched, poking Billie in the rib.

Billie didn't doubt that for a moment, but she smiled weakly, nevertheless.

The plane touched down on the runway in Melbourne ten minutes early. Eliza looked out the window for signs of anything “Australian,” but the tarmac, at least, really looked a lot like landing at Dulles back home in Washington, save for the red and white kangaroo Qantas logo adorning most of the planes.

After taxiing to their gate, Eliza's personal flight attendant (thanks again to Dad's “can-do” assistant!) came to help gather her belongings, and they walked off the plane. There they hopped onto a golf cart to ride through the terminal. Eliza felt one part kind of special from all of the attention, but one part kind of babysat. She wasn't sure which sensation was stronger.

“Is this your first time down under?” the attendant asked, breaking Eliza from her post-flight daze.

“Um, yeah.”

“Don't worry, you'll be right at home before long.”

Eliza wondered whether the flight attendant mistook the exhaustion on her face for fear—not that they should look much alike.

As they zipped through the terminal, Eliza watched the posters on the wall going by. Many were for products she knew, but there were other ones for things she'd never heard of. Phone companies and candy bars. Even models of cars that they didn't have back home.

I guess a Subaru Outback has a different ring to it in a place that really
has
an outback,
she thought.

Her little airport golf cart came to a sudden halt as they arrived in the immigration hall. Because Eliza was an “unaccompanied minor,” the attendant was able to take her to the immigration line reserved for the crew. They waited behind several flight attendants and an older man in a wheelchair being pushed by another airport attendant. Eliza felt a little silly to be given the same preferential treatment as a disabled person, but this was the sort of thing that tended to happen when her father's team called in a favor. For better or for worse.

Soon they were next. Eliza slid her passport and immigration form to the man in the booth. She beamed at him, half expecting some sort of acknowledgment that she had arrived—as though the continent of Australia had been waiting for her. Instead, he glanced at her, grunted, and stamped several documents before sliding them back across the counter to her and calling the next person up.

“Follow me,” called the attendant as she pointed the way to the baggage claim.

This pampering is getting to be a bit embarrassing,
Eliza thought, for the first time regretting her general status as favored daughter and pseudo-celebrity traveler.

They continued on to the baggage carousel and waited what felt like an eternity for her suitcases to come out. As person after person from her flight found their things and moved on, Eliza began to wonder what would happen if her bags weren't there. It dawned on her just how far from home she was.

Logically, she knew, it was unlikely that she would wind up wandering the streets of Melbourne without a toothbrush or a change of clothes. Still, the longer she waited, the more nervous she became that the Echolses, Billie's family, wouldn't be there when she finally claimed her luggage. Now her mind raced into lunatic-thinking mode:
What if they think I've missed my flight? Or that I got lost? What if I do get lost? How will I find them?

Eliza realized she knew nothing about this place. For the first time since she'd decided to apply to the S.A.S.S. program, it occurred to her that she might just be in way over her head.

Eliza was furtively checking her international cell phone, as if to reassure herself that she had some means of self-preservation, when suddenly, as if by magic, her two matching bags—bright red canvas suitcases that were impossible to miss—appeared on the conveyor belt. She and the airport attendant lugged them onto a cart and headed past the customs officials toward two big sliding doors made of frosted glass.

The doors parted, dumping passengers into the main terminal, where a horde of people was gathered, waiting for arriving passengers. Eliza scanned the crowd. She saw families reunite joyfully and business types make their way toward hired drivers holding hand-scrawled placards bearing their names. Men and women awaited their spouses with bouquets of fresh flowers in hand. She saw tons and tons of people…

She just didn't see anyone for
her
.

Then she spotted him: a tall, thin man with a bushy mustache and a big grin waving frantically in her direction. This had to be Mr. Echols. At his feet, two identical little boys waved a piece of paper with her name on it. She tentatively waved back, and they rushed toward her.

“Eliza?” the man asked.

“That's me.” Eliza's voice was softer to her own ears than usual.

“Welcome to Oz!” Mr. Echols shoved his hand out enthusiastically. “I'm Frank Echols, and these two ankle biters are Nick and Sam,” he said. He gestured to the twins, who were, by now, tugging at his pant legs.

Eliza knew that Billie had two younger brothers, but somehow the idea that she, Eliza, would now be living with two little boys hadn't quite connected. Looking at these twin balls of energy, who were by now grabbing at her bags, Eliza suddenly wondered if she was going to be wishing for her own very quiet house in D.C. before too long.

“And somewhere around here is Estelle. She went off to get us all something to drink,” Mr. Echols continued.

He spoke with a charming Australian accent. He turned his
r
's into
ah
's, and everything had a singsongy lilt to it. Eliza liked him immediately; he seemed fun-loving and full of spirit. In a way, it reminded her of her own father. Fun-loving without the threat of public scrutiny sounded like a potentially ideal combination.

“It's very nice to meet you, Mr. Echols,” Eliza said, “and you too, Nick…Sam.” She had no idea which was which but figured that she could work that out later.

“It's Frank to you, Eliza,” continued Mr. Echols. “Now, why don't you two be of some use and help Eliza with her bags instead of getting in the way?” he said, nudging Nick and Sam.

The two of them took Eliza's baggage cart and, with arms stretched over their heads, pushed it forward. They were too short to see over her bags, and soon the cart careened toward the crowds ahead with the twins pushing it at top speed and cackling to each other. People yelped and parted to make way for the trolley as Frank yelled after the boys to slow down.

Stepping through the sea of strangers, a woman wearing jeans and a knit sweater and sporting a cute blonde soccer-mom bob came rushing up to them with an arm full of sodas.

“There was a Maccas around the way there, but I had to go 'round to the vendy to find some cans!” she said, turning the cans over to Frank and extending an arm toward Eliza so as to encircle the girl in a half embrace.

Eliza looked toward where Mrs. Echols had come from and saw a McDonald's sign with an arrow pointing around the corner.

“Welcome! You must be stuffed after that trip from the States!”

“Um, well, they fed us well on the plane,” Eliza said, thinking back to the cookies she had secreted out of the galley. She wondered if there was one still in her jacket pocket.

“No, no,” explained Estelle, “you must be
exhausted
!”

“Oh…right, yeah, well, I guess. I sure am glad to be on the ground.”

“Well, let's get you home so you can get cleaned up and eat a proper meal,” said Estelle. “We're very happy you're here, and we're going to have a great time!” She threw an enthusiastic arm across Eliza's shoulder again and squeezed. It was a change from Eliza's own mother, who as a general rule was more formal and subdued, but Eliza didn't mind this burst of affection.

It was sunny and a bit chilly as Eliza stepped outside and got her first breath of fresh air in what felt like decades. She inhaled deeply. She didn't know what exactly she was expecting, but it smelled just the same as the air at home. Weren't you supposed to be able to smell the eucalyptus trees when you stepped off the plane?