WIP - Carabello Beach

Chapter One

Welcome and good morning.

When I wake up in a cold sweat today, this time it's not from a nightmare tens of thousands of feet in the air. No plane seat or window. Ample leg room. Real blankets and pillows. One thing is the same, however, and that's the blasting aircon. I'm in bed, which for reasons I will explain, is not as relieving as I want it to be.

I've been a country girl forever. I loved living in Logger's Point, where the houses were far apart and cute and big. When I close my eyes I see the expanses of yellowing grass, the highways and their far-off lights, and the supermarket. The creaky steps. My cousins, from my mom's side, in the sitting room drinking tea and lemonade in little jars that I was sure we'd only bought for photos. The stacks and stacks of books.

But no. This is an apartment halfway across the country and my mom is back in Logger's Point, to which my dad says we will never return. And my backpack is beside the cheap bed. And my coat is in a box because it is always 65 degrees Fahrenheit or higher here.

Unwelcome and bad morning to Carabello Beach.

I feel like I'm in a movie. I get up and check my phone, which is new but not really, because we bought used. I find that I'm up before my alarm. A few enrollment emails are scheduled to tell me that yes, I got into the school I picked. By picked, I mean that when my dad was packing up everything and frantically shoved a list of seven high schools in my face, I chose the one with the theatre program. This is the most spontaneity I have been able to show since moving. The stakes are higher now, I've noticed.

After a short, hot shower, I dress myself and tiptoe past my dad's room to the kitchen to grab a bite before doing my hair in the bathroom mirror. The bob cut I got sometime this summer is still holding up, so I don't immediately look at my scissors. I look like I haven't slept. Which I have. So my face can learn to suck it up with no makeup.

Walking to school makes me realize how much I miss the small things. Mom used to homeschool me. I would sleep in and she wouldn't care because her baby was home with her. Life was indulgent. I'm trying to find ways for Carabello to be like Logger's Point, so that I don't have to miss it.

Watching the buses pull into the lot is like watching the airport shuttles. Couldn't be me this time.

This has been a loaded morning. And it's 7:57.

On my way into the building, I pick up the pace. It's mid-September, so everyone in my grade has been here for a few weeks. I look around the halls, and it's strange how fast cliques have formed. I know where I'm going: the office. And when I arrive, the lady sitting at her computer looks up.

"You're not late." She tells me.

"Uhm, I'm new. And I'm not familiar with the schedule software, so could I have a print-out?"

"Name?"

I give her a smile. "Maura Parr. M-A-U-R-A."

The woman clicks around for a few seconds, straightens her collar and leads me to a small room with a messy desk and a printer. I wait for the low hum to stop as my paper slides out cleanly, before taking it. The sheet of paper is warm.

"Thank you."

She nods and I set off to my homeroom, passing the girls' bathroom. Briefly poking my head in to determine that nobody is doing drugs teen-drama style, I catch a glimpse of someone's sneakers, someone sitting on the ground probably propped against the wall, a chocolate milk carton and plastic bowl of cereal beside them. I hear sniffling, tempting me to reach out.

And then the first bell rings, and I book it to class, still feeling a little bit bad. I look around my homeroom for an empty table, slumping down in the first seat I reach and putting a book under my head. People talk, and I use it as a soundtrack to fall asleep.

Darkness swallows me and I feel like I'm in the sky again. To my right, a circular window with a view of black black night, and to my left a faceless stranger. The air whooshes past, the kind of sound that demonstrates in real life the concept of wind resistance. We're in an airplane.

A flight attendant is making his rounds and stops at my seat. It's my dad.

He asks me if I want a drink. Nobody's mouth moves, but I tell him somehow I want a water bottle. But before he can walk down the aisle, the plane buckles and shakes in immense turbulence and he trips. Everyone disintegrates into yellow sparks. The sounds are loud, and outside the skies are flashing with orange and turning hazy with smoke. I realize it's billowing from the underside of the airplane.

I hear my mother's voice screaming bigger and louder than anything I've heard before.

"Oscar! Do you hear me? I will tear that place apart brick from brick and you will regret lying to me! You'll regret hiding and you'll wish we never met! Fine, drive to the airport. Bring her along. But know that all of you are going to pay. I'm never far." Her voice is shrill and it blows the cockpit to shreds. Bullets the size of liter bottles are shooting through the bottom of the plane and making burning holes in the metal. I cover my mouth to shield from the smoke. She's still yelling.

We're plummeting.