The Stronghold

Land Of The Free

After grabbing what few belongings we had, withdrawing quite a lot of money from my bank account and converting it to dollars then getting new passports we were finally ready to leave for the airport.

Catching the bus was easy. Finding the right gate was not and so we had successfully got lost, yet again. I blamed Tom.

"Come on," I whined, hopping from foot to foot impatiently. "We're going to miss the damn flight!"

"Maybe if you hadn't changed my hair colour," Tom grumbled, forcing through the throngs of people staring at him, "then we'd be able to get there quicker."

"I have it worse with these scars," I said, falling into step with him. He raised an eyebrow and said nothing.

"Gate B will be closing shortly," a snooty voice said through the speaker system. I yelped in fear and blurred through the crowd, dragging Tom behind me like he was a piece of luggage. We had no suitcases, only things that counted as hand luggage - little rucksack style bags that were almost splitting apart under the strain.

"Speed, peasant, speed!" I yelled. Tom was too busy keeping his balance to answer verbally or even think a rude thought to me but he glared at me instead.

"Gate B will be closing shortly," the voice repeated. Luckily for us I spotted the gate and ran, sliding through just as the boarding woman was just about to close it off.

"Sorry," Tom apologised for me. "He gets excited."

"Plane!" I hollered, sprinting across the gangway and up the stairs. Tom followed close behind, his long legs keeping up with my mouse strides easily.

"Shut up, sit down and calm down," he growled, forcefully pushing me into the window seat and sliding the rucksack things into the luggage compartment.

"Seatbelt," Tom reminded me. I clicked it into place and sat there with a large smile plastered on my face, jumping about in my seat.

"Please calm down," Tom murmured. "You're being incredibly embarrassing."

"I aim to please," I said cheerfully. "When does the plane take off?"

"This is your captain speaking, the plane will be taking off in approximately one minute. Please fasten your seatbelts and listen to the stewardess as she tells you where to get off in case of emergency, thank you."

"I thought all planes were controlled from afar?" Tom said to me.

"They are," I nodded, "the pilots stay in the air control tower and fly as if they're in a simulator. They can see everything that the plane sees but there's less risk of it being hijacked."

"What if the pilot goes to the loo and there's no one to take over?" Tom asked.

"Only you think of awkward questions like that," I muttered. "There's a co-pilot ready and waiting."

"What if they go to the loo?"

"You're afraid of flying, aren't you?" I realised. Tom twitched his nose and looked over at the stewardess as she moved her arms to point where all the escape routes were.

"Allons-y," I said as the plane's wheels began to rotate, taking us along the runway and into the air.

Tom whimpered and stuck his earphones into his ears, turning up whatever he had on his television screen to drown out any interference. I glanced over and saw that somehow he'd found Romeo and Juliet, the Leonardo DiCaprio version.

Has Leo ever won an Oscar? I sent Tom, knowing that anything I said wouldn't get through the soliloquies.

Not to my knowledge, no. He should have got one for either this or Titanic, I think.