Castaways {Jariana}

New York

"Ya know...", Ariana mumbled with her mouth full of food, "despite how gross that diner experience was, this is the best burger I've ever eaten."

They were sitting cross-legged on some crushed cardboard boxes they'd found in the cargo hold, having a sort of pseudo picnic on the metal-grated floor of the aircraft.

Jai couldn't help but smile at her. He'd never seen anyone dig into a hamburger with so much gusto. "Yeah, it is pretty good. I read somewhere once that it's because they never clean the grill."

Ariana stopped mid-bite. "What?"

Jai chuckled at the look of disgust on her face. "I'm serious, but it's nothing to worry about, the heat from the flames burns off any germs. It's plenty safe."

"Well...", she looked dubiously at her half-eaten burger, "it is awfully good." She took a big bite.

After they finished their meal, Ariana, who was, once again, wearing Jai's hoodie, pulled out her iPhone and was delighted to see that she had a signal.

"Woo hoo! I finally got a signal", she exclaimed happily as she flopped down into her jump seat and immediately started flipping through her address book.

Jai yawned to clear his ears. "Feel that? The plane's going down. We must be getting ready to land. You'd better buckle up."

She quickly buckled and then, impatiently pushed another button on her phone. After a few rings the voicemail picked up and she left a message for her mother. Slamming the phone down, Ariana grumbled, "This is just great. I finally get a signal and they're probably in the air somewhere so I still can't reach them. At least I got to leave a message." Then, her eyes sparkled with an idea. "Hey, why don't you try to call?"

"Oh, I didn't bring my phone. I figured it wouldn't work in another country."

"Ugh!" She closed her eyes and leaned back against the dirty wall of the aircraft. Then, she had another idea. "How about you use my phone, then?"

"Oh...well, Miley's on the plane with your parents, so who would I call?"

Miley... how could she forget?

"I meant, call your mom."

"Luke's going to talk to her and to be honest, I'd rather not talk to them right now. I don't want to hear the lecture about how I ended up here. That can definitely wait until we get home."

She smiled in understanding. "I see your point."

Since they had no windows like in a commercial aircraft, they weren't able to tell where they were or even when they were about to touch down, so when the plane hit the tarmac it came as a shock and surprise to both teenagers. They both reached over in unison to seek out the other's hand and clasped them tightly together. Sometimes, you needed the comfort of another human being, even if you were on shaky terms with that person.

Once again they had to suffer through another extreme temperature change as the cabin seemed to go from 30° to 100° in under two minutes. Ariana quickly removed Jai's hoodie and even attempted to fan herself by flapping her shirt in and out. Not only did it not cool her off, but it seemed to have the opposite effect on the aircrew. The pilot tripped coming out of the cockpit; the co-pilot quickly fell right on top of him, followed closely by the flight engineer. Ariana, who was completely oblivious to the effect she was having on the men, stood over them with her hands on her hips and demanded that they open the airplane door immediately.

Ariana was shaking her head, completely baffled, as she descended the stairs barefooted, with her heels in her hands. She'd learned the hard way that it was impossible to traverse the metal grated stairway while wearing four inch spiked heels. She led her entourage (that's how it appeared with Ariana in front and four males following closely behind her) to the courtesy van which would take them to the main terminal of John F Kennedy Airport (JFK).