Chapter 2

By Julie

We reached the airport a half an hour later. I pulled into a parking space and turned off the Jeep. Then I reached over and lightly shook Kevin.

"Hey, wake up, cuz," I said. "We're here." Kevin lifted his head up and rubbed his eyes.

"Is Nick awake?" he asked sleepily.

"Not yet," I told him. I reached back and gave Nick a light smack. "Wake up, Frack!" I called to him.

"Shut up, Frick," Nick whined, without even opening his eyes.

I wish I had some water with me right now so I could get him back, I thought.

"Come on, Nick. We're at the airport. Now, get going. We don't want to keep Jason waiting," Kevin said firmly.

"Fine, I'm up," Nick said, pulling himself to a sitting position. We all piled out of the Jeep and grabbed our bags. I locked up the Jeep, and we headed into the airport.

We weren't taking a commercial flight to Denver, so we didn't have to worry about tickets or checking out luggage. Instead, we were going in a private plane with a good friend of Kevin's, Jason Warner. Jason and Kevin had known each other for years, ever since they had worked together at Disney World. Jason had been one of Kevin's fellow Ninja Turtles. His father was a pilot and owned his own plane. Jason also knew how to fly the plane. He had kindly offered to fly us to Denver, free of charge. That was wonderful for us, not only because it was free, but because we wouldn't have to worry about any fans bothering us on a regular airplane.

"So, where are we meeting Jason and the other guys?" I asked Kevin, as we walked through the large airport.

"There's a small runway for private planes at the end of the building. We're meeting everyone at one of the gates down there," Kevin replied.

We hurried to the gate the very end of the building. It was nearly empty. I looked around and immediately spotted AJ, Howie, and Jason sitting in some chairs together.

"Hey guys!" I called, hurrying over to them.

"What took so long?" AJ asked. Kevin and Nick both pointed to me.

"Hey!" I exclaimed, but couldn't think of any good excuses to tell them.

AJ rolled his eyes. "Well, we're all ready, so let's get going!" We all stood up and grabbed our bags, and Jason led us outside to where his plane was parked on the runway. It was not a big plane, but I was still impressed.

We all got on the plane and took our seats. Jason and Kevin climbed into the cockpit.

"Hey, how come you get to sit up there?" Nick asked Kevin.

"He's like my co-pilot," Jason replied. "If anything goes wrong, he's here to back me up." Nick's eyes widened.

"Hey, don't worry, buddy, nothing's going to happen," I assured Nick, knowing he hated flying.

"Yeah," Jason said. "I've flown this baby tons of times. I know what I'm doing." Nick seemed to relax a bit. "Alright, we're ready to take off," Jason said. "Fasten your seatbelts." We all put on our belts.

A few minutes later, we started down the runway, increasing speed. It was very bumpy. Then, we took off. There was a lot of turbulence at first.

"Don't worry, guys," Kevin called back to us. "It'll get smoother when we get up higher. It's just shaking like this because it's a small plane." We nodded. I didn't like all the shaking though. I was afraid enough of heights as it is. All this bumping was starting to make me even more scared and nauseous too.

A few minutes later, we stopped going up, and the turbulence stopped. The flight became much smoother, and my stomach relaxed some.

The flight was supposed to last about four hours. I made sure I had packed plenty to do. I grabbed a copy of Sports Illustrated and began to read it. Nick took out his Gameboy. Howie pulled out a book, and AJ looked through another magazine.

The first three and a half hours of the flight went okay. We all found ways to occupy ourselves so we didn't get too bored. In fact, we were so occupied, that we never noticed the storm clouds forming around us.

***

 

 

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