Paper Airplanes

Chapter 4

I stood up and followed Rosalinda out of the luxurious room. I almost forgot I was on an aeroplane, or a private jet for that matter. Not that it makes a difference; it’s still a flying vehicle thousands of miles above walking ground and that unnerves me. We could plummet to our deaths at any second and the mere thought sent shivers down my spine. I stepped into the bathroom and took some deep breaths, finally allowing this new information to sink in. For the past few hours all of this information has been thrown at me from all angles, to the credibility of my best friend to the authenticity of this new school I’m supposed to be attending. I took long slow breaths that I knew would get oxygen pumping to my brain; it seemed that with every time I

 And Topaz is gonna be there. She’s 14 now. Maybe she’s a First Year too. But if so, where the hell has she been for the past two years? I thought about this while I changed into my clothes. It’s weird how they got the right size for everything! I thought I’d find something wrong but nothing. It felt comfortable. I ran my hand over the belt and was shocked to feel stuff in there. Closing my eyes, new anxiety set in as the prospect of these objects being weapons dawned on me. My stomach began to churn even more and I slid down to the floor in self defeat. I cannot possibly do this.

I cannot walk out of here and just accept what’s happening, it’s absolutely absurd. This isn’t a movie hitting the box office this is my life and it just seems to grow weirder and weirder every day that passes without my parents. Hugging my knees I sniffed sadly as tears streamed down my face and my chest began to tighten. All of this along with the motion sickness was wrecking havoc on my health at the minute. This isn’t what I was expecting at all and it scares me. Thoughts trailed back to what I was wearing as I tried to concentrate on anything but what was going on inside my head.

The swimsuit underneath hugged my body, as did the actual jumpsuit. The vest felt warm and even though it was padded, it was still kind of thin. The material was so soft, it felt like cotton. It felt comfortable, but it doesn’t feel like me. As I tied my hair back in a high ponytail, with no comb in sight, I pondered over some nagging thoughts. How come I didn’t know this about my parents? How come a random woman with black eyes knows more about my parents than me, their first daughter? A knock at the door brought me back to my senses.

“Ashleigh! You ready?” a muffled voice questioned behind the door.

Rosalinda. I took one last deep breath; I have to do this. I hate to admit it, but I think they are telling the truth. And so with that last piece of advice I stood up and brushed away all the doubt that had clung to me for the past hour. They already have me; there isn’t much left I can do unless I want to consider death as an option.

“Yeah, sure.”

I opened the door and smiled at Faith and Rosalinda. There’s nothing else to do I told myself as I continued to walk out, smiling and ignoring the sickness I felt at the pit of my stomach.

Rosalinda handed me a black, sleeveless padded jacket and I shrugged it on, zipping it up and putting my bag pack on over it. Why would I need this?

“Preparing for our exit” Rosalinda clipped quickly, her attention focused on tightening a bunch of straps around her vest. Frowning I started to walk towards a window feeling such relief when I came to the conclusion that we were no longer flying.

“Cool, so we landed already?” I asked as I finally made it to the window. Oh well, the sooner we are out of here the better; except I couldn’t see any land whatsoever. My eyes looked deeper outside, looking for land, buildings, any form of civilisation that would indicate that we were no longer in the air. But I couldn’t see anything. My hands reached for my ears, waiting to hear the pop that unfortunately didn’t come. My hands began to grow clammy as I struggled to remain calm. My ears always pop when we’re landing on a plane, so why wasn’t it happening now?