Chapter 15 The Luftzeug
Chapter fifteen
The Luftzeug
“Love is a fire that burns unseen.” - Luís Vaz de Cam?es, Rimas
When Hailey approached Tage on graduation day to offer her congratulations, he looked straight through her as if he couldn’t even see her. Then Mina appeared and like a kid in kindergarten, she poked her tongue out at Hailey as Tage wrapped his arm around her.
Tage wasn’t the only man snubbing Hailey. She hadn’t seen or heard from Fin in over two months, and her dream man, well, he was giving new meaning to the phrase “keeping a low profile.” Hailey was starting to think he was just a figment of her imagination after all.
And then there was Tomas. When her bathroom mirror disappeared, her phantom hair-dresser had disappeared with it.
Thankfully, Uncle Pix clapped her on the shoulder, startling her out of her trance before disbelief turned to self-pity.
“Congratulations, dear.” Pix lifted her off the ground in a great hug.
“Thank you,” she said with a bittersweet smile, imagining Holly standing next to him as he put her back down.
She didn’t feel much like celebrating—or existing—without her. Hailey needed a change of scenery.
August first couldn’t come soon enough.
Hailey laid out all the things she wanted to take to Alaska and set her little purse next to it, scratching her head.
What she really needed was a stuff-shrinker, she thought as she surveyed her pile. There was no way she’d fit all this into one small, seven-pound bag.
Shaking her head, she picked out the absolute necessities.
When it was all said and done, she barely got her micro-duffel closed over: one hand towel, a bar of soap, a bottle of shampoo, a comb, a toothbrush, one pair of jeans, three t-shirts, one sweatshirt, socks, undies, and her laptop.
That’s one strong zipper, she thought, deciding she’d just have to buy everything else she needed once she got to Alaska.
She grabbed the only picture she had of her and Holly dancing together from her bedroom mirror, tucked it in her back pocket, and left.
Twenty-five minutes in to their thirty-minute drive to the airport, Hailey slapped her forehead.
“I forgot my wallet.” She turned to Pix, eyes wide.
“I’ll mail it,” Pix said, but Hailey shook her head.
“I need to pay my initiation fees or else they won’t give me a boarding pass. I don’t even know how much it is.” She turned to her uncle. “How much do you think it is?”
“How am I meant to know these things?”
Pix pulled up to the curb, got out, and fished his “wallet” from his back pocket. He shoved it into Hailey’s hand. “There,” he said. “I’ll fetch your bags.”
“I can’t take all your money, Uncle Pix.” It was a wad of cash wrapped around a credit card and held together by a gumband.
“You will. Now, where’s yer bags?”
Hailey nodded to the small duffel on the ground next to her.
“That’s it? How in the name of God…” He shook his head and pointed to his wallet in Hailey’s hand. “Use it,” he said, “and remember, your Uncle Dale is there. He’s right there at the university, out digging in the mountain, but you call him should yeh need him, yeah?”
Hailey nodded and he hugged her like he was never going to see her again. “Remember your rhythms, Hailey,” he said.
“Uncle Pix, are you alright?”
“Right as rain, dear,” he said with a hoarse voice. “I’m so proud of you. Now I’ll see you again in a few months.” He gave Hailey her “luggage.”
“Love you Uncle Pix,” she said. “And make sure you eat!”
“I will yeah,” he said, which meant that he absolutely would not.
“Bye,” she breathed with a brave smile, waving as he drove off.
She turned around, took a deep breath, and walked inside the terminal.
There were several trembling and ashen-faced travelers about Hailey’s age standing inside, but they each had a pile of luggage next to them.
Some had several clear plastic bins, which were filled with sheets and blankets, pillows and comforters, parkas and boots, hair dryers and curling irons; others had giant duffle bags and snowshoes and skis.
Hailey’s jaw fell.
Nobody had “one piece of luggage—purse size.” Her heart splashed into her stomach. What’s worse—all of them carried a winter coat and a sleeping bag separate from their bags.
This was bad.
She looked around for a sign or airport worker or anything that could direct her to the Bear Towne kiosk.
As she scanned the area, her eyes fell on a young man with multicolored hair and trendy eyeglasses, who was standing in front of a mountain of luggage, clutching a large silver envelope in one hand and holding onto a bulging duffel bag with the other.
He looked exactly how Hailey felt: absolutely terrified.
Hailey crept up to him.
“Are you heading to Bear Towne?” she said, and he started. Loudly.
“Oh God, why?” He retreated away from her, clutching his swollen bag against his chest as if she were going to steal it.
“I just…I’m going too, and I was wondering if you knew where the kiosk was.”
“No.” He looked at her like she had warts, and then he turned his back on her.
That worked well to chase her bravery away.
“It’s over there,” said a girl with bright eyes and long, beautiful braids. She jabbed her thumb at a garbage bin.
Hailey looked at the bin and back to the girl.
“No, behind the trash can,” she said.
With her mouth clamped shut and her one, small bag, which held absolutely nothing, she strolled to the trash, and to her delight, she found, sitting on the opposite side, and butt-up against the recycle bin, a small, unassuming metal box with 2 blank screens, three buttons, and a slot.
“Bear Towne” was stamped in faded black across the front.
She tapped the bigger screen, but nothing happened. Maybe it wasn’t plugged in, she thought, and she tried the smaller one, pressing her finger against the screen before she tried the buttons. A large man with a pony tail stood behind her and huffed.
“Sorry,” she said with a weak smile. He stuck his hand out, palm up, and motioned her to finish, annoyance etching a line across his smooth chin.
“Come on,” she coaxed the machine, once again tapping the screen, and a static charge arced up her finger, a streak of tiny blue lightening.
“Ouch!” she yelled, yanking her hand away, and the machine spit out a paper.
Hailey tore it from the slot, turning it over.
BOARDING PASS, it read.
Flight: Luftzeug/Traumzeug
Her name was printed along the side, along with her seat number (Cargo Hold) and her meal choice (Human).
“You done?” asked the man.
“Sorry,” Hailey said again, as she scooted away from the kiosk, still staring at her boarding pass. She watched as the machine shocked the man and spit out another slip of paper. When he turned around, she gasped. His face was covered in stubble, like long stubble. Like fur.
“It’s very rude to stare,” he growled, and Hailey bowed her head.
“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 shape behind the beautiful jet. “That’s the Bear Towne Luftzeug.”
“That’s our airplane?”
“It’s not an airplane—it’s an air tool. 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.”