Chapter
3
By Rachel
The article I
was reading in Sports Illustrated about the records Cal Ripkin set
started to get blurry as I fought the sleepiness that had started to come over
me.
“Hey, Frick?”
I heard the sleepy and slightly frightened voice of Nick say.
“Yeah, Frack?”
I asked as I shook my head trying to keep myself awake.
“Why is it
getting so dark outside all of a sudden?” asked Nick as he bent over and put
his Gameboy in his bookbag. My sleepy brain didn’t register the question for a
few seconds, and I looked at my watch to make sure that time had slipped by us
too quickly and it was almost nighttime. The time on the watch read 1:37. I
looked outside to see what the problem was. What I saw shocked me.
Even though it
was 1:37 in the afternoon, the sky was turning dark slowly. I looked across the
aisle at Nick who looked back at me with wide, frightened blue eyes. “It will
be okay, Frack,” I told him as I put my magazine into my bookbag and undid my seatbelt.
“You okay, Nick?” I asked as I looked over and saw him shudder.
“Yeah, I’m
just tired and cold, Bri. No big deal,” he replied with a large yawn escaping
his mouth moments after he said those words.
“Okay, man.
Just making sure. I don’t want you sick on this trip and you ruin our
vacation,” I teased him as I reached across the aisle and ruffled his short
blond hair.
“Hey, no
fair,” he whined as he put his hands over his hair. I laughed as I reached into
my bookbag again and got out an extra sweatshirt I had packed for emergencies.
“Here ya go,
Frack,” I said as I threw the sweatshirt at him and watched with a grin as the
sweatshirt landed on his head.
I watched in
amusement as he sat up and pulled the sweatshirt off of his head and struggled
to put it on in his tired state. I struggled to control my laughter as Nick
unconsciously tried to put his left arm through where his head was supposed to
go. I quickly lost the battle of not laughing as I heard a mumbled whine of
“Not fair” come from behind the sweatshirt.
Out of the
goodness of my heart and also to not cause further embarrassment to Nick, I got
up out of my seat and walked over to help him get the sweatshirt on.
“Thanks,
Frick,” he said as he lowered himself in the seat and crossed his arms over his
knees to rest his head on.
“No prob,
Frack. Get some rest; I’m gonna check on Kev and Jason.” I didn’t receive any
answer because seconds later I heard light snoring coming from Nick. I shook my head with a small smile on my face
as I walked up the short aisle towards the cockpit.
I opened the
curtain to the cockpit and seen Kevin and Jason joking around with each other
and talking about the “good old Disney days” as they like to call it. “Hey
guys,” I quietly said so I wouldn’t startle them. They both turned around
towards me and smiled.
“Hey little
cuz, what’s up?” asked Kev.
“Nothing
much,” I replied with a yawn.
All of a
sudden, Jason said in a loud but shaky voice, “Kev I need help here, man. The
visibility is close to nothing now. It seems like a blizzard has moved in and
we are right in the middle of it.” Kevin’s attention immediately returned to
the controls as he tried to help Jason get the plane safely through the
horrible storm.
I knew in my
mind that I should have gone back to my seat and put on my seat belt and pray
that we would live through this, but I stayed up front for two reasons: one, I
was too scared to move, and two, I wasn’t about to leave my cousin alone.
I saw both
Kevin’s and Jason’s faces pale a few shades as I felt a downward sensation. It
was then Kevin turned around and noticed I was still there. “Brian get back to
your seat now!” he yelled, but it was too late. I heard a loud scream, and the
last thing I saw was Kevin’s terrified face as I heard a loud bang, and then
everything went black.
***
