Flight #116 Is Down (19 page)

“You didn’t get hit or burned or anything.”

“No, Mom, I’m fine.”

“We have been trying for
hours
to get through to you.”

“I know, Mom. But I was too busy to talk anyway.”

“I wouldn’t have wanted you to see any of that,” said her mother.

“You couldn’t have stopped it,” said Heidi. “This is where the plane came down.”

“You’ll have nightmares,” said her mother. “Are you sure you’re all right, Heidi-eidi-O?”

“I’m sure I’m all right.” She rolled her eyes at Patrick, who rolled his back. Parents.

“I’m flying to Connecticut in the morning,” said her mother.

“Mom. Take a bus.”

“
A bus?
” said Rebecca Landseth, truly horrified.

“Mom, I love you, okay? I don’t want you to crash.”

“I would rather take my statistical chances,” said Rebecca Landseth, “than ever set foot on a bus. Now, who are these people you said you’re spending the night with? I mean, can you trust them?”

Sunday: 12:48
A.M.

The FAA was putting up yellow plastic ribbons, cordoning off each section, keeping people out. You could still see some of the victims, waiting, but they were not waiting to be resuscitated. They were waiting to be buried. Video cameras rolled, and regular cameras flashed. They were immortalizing the crash, getting it on tape, to be analyzed, like ash and bone. To find out what went wrong.

She did not need a tape. She had it in her brain. I will play this in my head for the rest of my life. If I live to be ninety or if I die like Carly—so young—this will be mine, this will be me, this will never let go.

Heidi said to the inspector, “Do you know yet what caused the crash?”

He looked at her with pity for her stupidity and ignorance. In the wisdom Heidi had gathered from this terrible night, she realized this was the only expression his face had. It was probably why he held the job—so he could look superior. Poor thing, she thought. He’s just an ankle biter like Winnie and Clemmie.

“The Dove House crash is very interesting,” said the FAA inspector.

Interesting? thought Heidi. That’s the best word he could come up with?

“A plane crash is not usually a mass casualty incident,” added the inspector.

“Incident?” repeated Heidi. As if it were the same as doing wheelies on the school lawn. “What do you mean?”

The inspector was the kind of person who loved to put things in simple terms, to show how simpleminded you were not to have understood in the first place. “Mass casualty,” he said condescendingly, “is injuries. A lot of hurt people. You don’t usually have that with a plane crash.”

Heidi could not grasp what he was saying. How could you not have a lot of hurt people? Of
course
they’d be hurt.

“They’re usually all dead,” said the inspector.

What if they had all died?

Could she spend another night here if her barn had been nothing but body bags? Could she call this Dove House—doves, the symbol of peace—if four hundred people had died in its shadow? Could anybody ride a pony, pick a yellow rose, or walk along the reflecting pool if what was reflected was the end of four hundred innocent lives?

She thought of the little girl: Teddie: Teddie’s quarter.

She thought, Somewhere in my grass is Teddie’s quarter, like a tiny, round gravestone.

She prayed that Teddie was all right. She thought of Carly and wondered if death was all right: if Carly was safe. She reached out blindly for a hand to hold again and ended up with Patrick’s father’s. He grinned at her and transferred her to Patrick. Heidi blushed. “You’ve done this a lot, haven’t you, Mr. Farquhar?” she said, trying to rescue herself.

“No, thank God,” he said. “I’ve never done this before. Nobody here has ever done this before.”

“But you knew what you were doing.”

“Not really. We were doing exactly what you did, Heidi. Lurching forward. Hoping to be right. We get mass casualty training, of course. In case the nuclear plant goes. In case there’s a chemical fire at the factory. In case the school bus crashes.” He sighed. “But I didn’t feel very trained, for sure.”

They stood in the courtyard, in the astonishing amount of debris that had accumulated from the rescue efforts. Heidi thought momentarily of what it was going to take to clean up, to dismantle and get rid of the 747 body, and dismissed the problem. Much too much to think of now.

“Let’s go home, kids,” said Mr. Farquhar.

Heidi thought of Carly again. Of going home. She circled Patrick’s chest with her arms and wept there, as if he were not a person, but a wailing wall, like the one in Jerusalem. After a long time she heard his heart, thudding regularly. A living heart. She listened to it, and then to her own heart keeping time with his. They were both alive. They had both done the best they could.

Patrick said, “My mom fixed the guest room for you at our house.” He said, “Get a change of clothes and we’re heading home.”

“I could never sleep,” said Heidi, but she knew that she would; that her terrific overdosing energy had sapped her like chemotherapy, that she would sleep for hours, in any bed.

They walked slowly toward Patrick’s truck. They did not look back. And strangely, they did not have to hold each other up. They were, in some terrible unfair way, stronger than they had been eight hours ago.

Built by death and suffering, thought Heidi. She said to him, “We’re alive.”

He nodded, tightening his grip on her hand. What a great thing a hand was. He thought, I’m starving. I hope Mom has something to eat.

His mother always had something to eat. They were an eating family. There was nothing like food. He said, “You like spaghetti? Steak? Hamburgers? Or are you in a pancake mood? Sausage? Syrup?”

“I could eat all of that,” said Heidi.

He was suddenly so tired he wondered if he was going to be able to drive home. His eyes drooped, his feet stumbled, his brain began to shut down.

He looked at Heidi. He thought, I’d rather be dead on the plane than ask a girl to drive me. A grin showed up on his face. A little energy returned.

“What’s funny?” said Heidi, smiling, too, ready to share it.

He’d never share it.

He said, “Race you to the truck.”

“What, are you insane? I couldn’t race a falling leaf. I’ll be lucky if I even reach the truck.”

He thought mundanely that life went on. You could be at a plane crash and still fall in love. You could see death and mutilation and still want spaghetti. He patted his pocket, and his heart lurched. You could be a hero and still not be able to find your car keys.

There they were. Other pocket. If he had lost his car keys in this mess, years could go by before he located them again.

“Keys,” he said to Heidi triumphantly.

“Home, driver,” she said.

He thought, Heidi. It’s a nice name.

He thought maybe he would boost her up when they got to the truck. He thought it would be nice if she stayed several days. He thought …
Dear God, I’m glad I’m alive.

Caroline B. Cooney is the author of ninety books for teen readers, including the bestselling thriller
The Face on the Milk Carton
. Her books have won awards and nominations for more than one hundred state reading prizes. They are also on recommended-reading lists from the American Library Association, the New York Public Library, and more. Cooney is best known for her distinctive suspense novels and romances.

Born in 1947, in Geneva, New York, Cooney grew up in Old Greenwich, Connecticut, where she was a library page at the Perrot Memorial Library and became a church organist before she could drive. Music and books have remained staples in her life. 

Cooney has attended lots of colleges, picking up classes wherever she lives. Several years ago, she went to college to relearn her high school Latin and begin ancient Greek, and went to a total of four universities for those subjects alone!

Her sixth-grade teacher was a huge influence. Mr. Albert taught short story writing, and after his class, Cooney never stopped writing short stories. By the time she was twenty-five, she had written eight novels and countless short stories, none of which were ever published. Her ninth book,
Safe as the Grave
, a mystery for middle readers, became her first published book in 1979. Her real success began when her agent, Marilyn Marlow, introduced her to editors Ann Reit and Beverly Horowitz.

Cooney’s books often depict realistic family issues, even in the midst of dramatic adventures and plot twists. Her fondness for her characters comes through in her prose: “I love writing and do not know why it is considered such a difficult, agonizing profession. I love all of it, thinking up the plots, getting to know the kids in the story, their parents, backyards, pizza toppings.” Her fast-paced, plot-driven works explore themes of good and evil, love and hatred, right and wrong, and moral ambiguity.

Among her earliest published work is the Fog, Snow, and Fire trilogy (1989–1992), a series of young adult psychological thrillers set in a boarding school run by an evil, manipulative headmaster. In 1990, Cooney published the award-winning
The Face on the Milk Carton,
about a girl named Janie who recognizes herself as the missing child on the back of a milk carton. The series continued in
Whatever Happened to Janie?
(1993),
The Voice on the Radio
(1996), and
What Janie Found
(2000). The first two books in the Janie series were adapted for television in 1995. A fifth book,
Janie Face to Face
, will be released in 2013.

Cooney has three children and four grandchildren. She lives in South Carolina, and is currently researching a book about the children on the
Mayflower
.

The house in Old Greenwich, Connecticut, where Cooney grew up. She recalls: “In the 1950s, we walked home from school, changed into our play clothes, and went outside to get our required fresh air. We played yard games, like Spud, Ghost, Cops and Robbers, and Hide and Seek. We ranged far afield and no parent supervised us or even asked where we were going. We led our own lives, whether we were exploring the woods behind our houses, wading in the creek at low tide, or roller skating in somebody’s cellar, going around and around the furnace!”

Cooney at age three.

Cooney, age ten, reading in bed—one of her favorite activities then and now.