Page 27

“I just have a quick question. Do you have a preference regarding live band or a DJ at the reception?”

I glanced at Slash, who knew I was talking to my mom, but couldn’t hear the conversation. He raised an eyebrow at what was likely the panic on my face. “Uh, I don’t think so. Are we dancing at the reception?”

“Of course. Do you plan to have a father-daughter dance?”

The engine and propellers roared to life with just a few sputters. “Mom, I have to go,” I said, raising my voice over the noise. “We’re about to take off. Don’t forget, I won’t be able to get texts or calls once we are in the rainforest, so if it’s an emergency, email me. Otherwise, I’ll call when I get back, okay?” I hung up and stuck the cell in my purse with a sigh.

“What was that all about?” Slash asked.

“Don’t ask,” I said and he wisely didn’t press further.

While the engine was warming up, a car suddenly zoomed up alongside the aircraft and a woman hopped out carrying something. I craned my neck to see what she was holding, but I didn’t have a clear view. She ran over to the pilot’s window and started gesturing and shouting. The pilot opened his window and the two of them hollered at each other over the noise of the engine.

Finally our pilot opened the plane door, and lowered the steps, taking whatever she was carrying. He returned to the plane and put it on the floor in the second row behind Gwen. For the first time I was able to see what she’d been carrying. It was a cage containing three chickens.

The pilot yelled something at Gwen, Slash and I, but I had no idea what he’d said.

“Did you understand any of that?” I shouted over the engines at Slash. He spoke fluent Italian, Spanish, French and German, so I figured out of the three of us, he had the best chance of knowing what was going on.

Slash shrugged. “I think he said he’s doing this as a favor to his wife, who’s giving the chickens as a present to her cousin or friend who lives in Coari. But don’t quote me on that.”

The pilot gestured for us to make sure our seat belts were fastened—they already were—before he gave us a thumbs-up. I guess that was the only in-flight safety training we were going to get.

I squeezed my eyes shut for the entire takeoff. I was hyperventilating a bit, but Slash’s hand in mine anchored me to what little sanity I still had, if only by a thread.

The flight started normally as we rose above the jungle. After several moments, I dared to open my eyes. The engine noise was so loud it nearly deafened me. As Slash had mentioned, we weren’t flying too high, as the plane wasn’t pressurized. Once we moved away from Manaus, all I could see below us was green in every direction. Despite my abject terror, I had to admit it was breathtaking. I found it interesting that the Amazon River looked black from above. When I asked Slash about it, he told me it was from all the silt being washed downstream.

As we flew, I relaxed a little bit. I discovered the pilot was navigating by following the main branch of the Amazon River upstream to Coari. When we came to a large divide in the river, he veered left. I saw dark clouds on the horizon, probably rain, but so far, the flight had been fairly smooth, so I didn’t panic.

Unfortunately, as we got closer to the dark clouds, the ride started to get a little bumpier. Thunder boomed, followed by a jagged rip of lightning flashing off to my right.

“Holy crap.” I started breathing faster. “Maybe we should turn back. We could get hit by lightning.”

“There’s a small statistical chance of that,” Slash said soothingly, holding my hand. “We have to trust that he’s an experienced pilot,cara. Certainly rainstorms are the norm in the Amazon.”

Despite the calmness of his voice, he didn’t look as confident as he sounded. I gripped his hand as we started to descend slightly. Once in the clouds, it was difficult to see the river. I sincerely hoped the pilot relied on an instrumental GPS and not simply a visual charting of the river as his main source of navigation. The plane started bouncing around quite a bit, leaving my stomach at least five hundred feet above.

“I’m going to add terrifying airplane rides to my little black cloud spreadsheet,” I said as my shoulder slammed against the side of the plane.

“I thought you already had that on the spreadsheet.”

“No, I have planecrash.” The plane was vibrating so hard, I could feel my tonsils shaking. “That one would also qualify as a terrifying plane ride, of course, so now that I think about it, I’ll have two things to add to the spreadsheet, dependent on whether or not I survive this incident.”

“You will,” he said, bracing his legs against the seat in front of him. “Positive thinking and all.”

“I appreciate you’re focusing on a positive outcome when we may be moments from plummeting out of the sky. But in regards to the spreadsheet, do you think I should add it in a row or a column? If there are going to be a lot of different locales, such as jungles, mountains or oceans, maybe they would fit better in a row. But since this incident, and the previous one, involves jungles only, maybe it would be best to limit the data to a single column.”

“Make it a row.”

I stared at him. “You do realize that implies I’m going to be involved in more incidents involving scary plane rides.”

“Si, I do. It also means you’ll survive this one since you’ll be alive to take the other ones. Positive thinking, remember?”

“Good point.”

We hit another patch of turbulence, this one worse than the one before. The plane violently pitched up, then nosed down. This negative G movement caused everything in the airplane to float momentarily, defying gravity. In a slow-motion moment, I realized I was floating, held down only by my seat belt. In front of me, Gwen’s hair flew straight up over her head, as if she were hanging upside down. The chicken cage floated directly in front of me.

With a violent slap, our downward movement was halted by another gust of air. We were all slammed back into our seats. The chicken cage bounced off some seats and hit the floor hard. The door popped open.