“Sorry!” she sputtered, backing away. She hurried to the window and surveyed the tarmac, shaking her head in mental beratement. She hadn’t meant to stare at anyone, and so she stared outside.
Shining like a new penny in the summer sun, a glittering, bronze-colored private jet sat next to the terminal with the words, “Bear Towne” emblazoned in silver lettering on the side.
This was going to be the best 10-hour flight ever.
Hailey smiled, breathing a sigh of relief just as a terrible racket screeched behind her. A troop of tall, thin men, all wearing gray flight suits and full-face gas masks marched through the terminal, pulling several pallet jacks behind them. Stopping at each terror-stricken student, they loaded pile after pile of luggage onto a cart, shrink wrapping their load as they went. When a cart grew to six feet high, one of the flight suits would wheel it out of the terminal. They did this several times before they approached Hailey.
“Luggage?” one of them asked her in a muffled almost mechanical-sounding male voice, and Hailey saw he wore a Bear Towne patch on his shoulder.
“This is my luggage.” She held up her purse.
The flight suit made no move to take it and seemed to be staring at her, though she couldn’t tell because of the gas mask.
“Where’s the rest?” he asked her in a voice laced with static.
“This is it—this is all I brought.”
Despite the instructions in her letter, she suddenly felt an irresistible urge to panic and run home to pack a footlocker. She checked her watch.
“I think I have time to run home and pack a footlocker.” She turned to leave, but another flight suit grabbed her by the neck and squeezed. Hailey made a choking sound, and the gas mask that held her cocked its head. The other gas mask clapped the one holding her on its shoulder, waving his finger slowly at the offending crewmember until it let her go.
Hailey fell to the floor, doubled over and gagging.
“There’s no time,” the first one spat. He snatched her bag. “The Luftzeug will leave in twenty minutes.” He popped to attention, did an about-face, and marched outside.
“Thank you,” she called through a bruised throat.
Through the window, Hailey watched as they pulled their pallets past the Bear Towne plane. She turned around to see if anyone else noticed and saw the kid with the multicolored hair disappear through a jet-way door along with a gaggle of others. Hailey ran to catch up and tugged the rainbow-headed boy’s sleeve as they emerged outside.
“They took our bags right past the Bear Towne Luftzeug,” she said, pointing to the luxury jet in front of them.
“That’s not the Bear Towne Luftzeug.” He pointed to an ugly gray shapebehind the beautiful jet. “That’sthe Bear Towne Luftzeug.”
“That’s our airplane?”
“It’s not an airplane—it’s an airtool. The Airbus is for the Pre-Med students,” he explained with disgust, as if Hailey should already know this, but he was clearly pleased to tell her. “It makes stops in Chicago, LA, and Seattle before heading north.”
“Oh.” Hailey hadn’t realized Bear Towne had a Pre-Med program. She drew a breath, but the rainbow held his hand up.
“I know, I know… Now, you’re wondering about the geology students…”
Geology?
“They left from Columbus last week on the bus, geez, didn’t you read any of your handbook?”
“There’s a handbook?”
He scoffed. “You’re in for a few shockers,” he said like a brat, and he turned his back on her.
No use asking if she could borrow his copy to read during the flight, she figured. She walked behind him on her tiptoes, trying to get a full-on look at the gray blob that was the Bear Towne Luftzeug. To her, it looked like a modified military cargo plane. Barely visible on the side of the hull, faded letters read: Bear Towne Luftzeug:Traumzeug.
When they reached the mobile stairs leading up to the Luftzeug’s entry hatch, the rainbow stopped suddenly with wide eyes, grabbed Hailey by the arm, and shoved her ahead of him. At the top of the stairs stood the source of his angst—a gangly, contorted-looking man-thing, clad in a gray flight suit and elephant- nosed gas mask. It leaned unnaturally on the platform at the entryway door. If they were at an amusement park, Hailey would have sworn she was looking at a reflection from a fun-house mirror rather than a real man.
Reluctantly, she lifted her foot and climbed the steps.
“Not scared, are you, dear,” the contort-incarnate crackled when she reached the top. He handed her a heavy metal lunchbox.
“Not at all.”
