The Thing I'm Most Afraid Of

by Kristin Levine

  The thought rattled around in my head, like a gumball in an almost empty machine, for months. It was still there as I sat in the airport McDonald’s and finished up my Diet Coke. “Penny for your thoughts?” Mom asked.

  “Groschen, Mom,” I told her. “Pennies in Austria are called groschen.” Dad had sent me a few coins in the mail. I wanted to tell her my worries about Dad, but I was already so embarrassed about the metal detector. I wanted to say I was going to miss her, but I couldn’t say that either or I’d start blubbering again. Instead I asked, “Do you have your AT&T calling card? With the country codes? No matter where you are, you just dial the number for that particular country and—”

  “And it will automatically charge my account. Yes, I know.” Mom rummaged in her blue backpack and pulled out a brown paper bag, which she handed to me. “I brought you something.”

  Inside the bag were apple slices, peanut butter and crackers, and three soft-baked chocolate chip cookies. This was the lunch Mom had packed for me every single day of elementary school. Every. Single. Day. In first grade, she’d tried to give me different things, put in a turkey sandwich, or an orange, or Oreos instead of chocolate chip cookies, but I’d always given the offending food away and come home complaining of being hungry. Finally, she gave up.

  This lunch screamed home to me like nothing else. The peanut butter smelled so good. Dad had promised to have some peanut butter for me in his kitchen when I arrived.

  “I thought you might like some comfort food on the plane.”

  “Thanks.” Okay, so maybe a tear or two sneaked out. And I guess Mom noticed, because she wiped them away with her thumb.

  “Becca . . .”

  “I’m fine!” I said.

  “You’re going to have fun.”

  “I’m going to miss you.”

  Mom came over to my side of the booth and whispered, “I’m going to miss you too.”

  We sat like that for a minute, and I started to feel a little better, at least until I heard the announcement over the PA system. “Austrian Airlines Flight 743 to Vienna. Boarding now.”

  “Time to go.” Mom wiped her eyes, her voice falsely bright.

  “Yeah.”

  “I bet you’re excited to see Dad.”

  “Yeah.” Thump, thump, thump went my heart. Dad had been methodical about staying in touch (he wrote twice a week, and we talked on the phone every Sunday), but it wasn’t the same as being together. What if he liked it better this way? What if he liked me better when he didn’t have to deal with all my worries?

  “I can’t do it,” I cried. “I want to see Dad, but I’m so scared.”

  “Oh, sweetie, we’ve discussed this. Flying is safer than driving!”

  I hadn’t been talking about the plane—but now I was worried about that too!

  Mom pulled me into a hug and sang softly into my ear, “I’ve always longed for adventure, to do the things I’ve never dared. Now here I’m facing adventure. Then why am I so scared?”

  I knew that song. It was from The Sound of Music, when Fräulein Maria is leaving the abbey for the first time.

  “You’re going to be just fine,” Mom said firmly. She grabbed my arm and marched us both over to the gate agent.

  “We are going on a grand adventure!” she announced.

  I was so embarrassed, but the gate agent just looked at us blankly. “Boarding passes, please.”

  My mom handed her our tickets and then pushed me onto the gangway. I looked back. “Right behind you, sweetie.”

  And so I didn’t have a choice except to turn and start walking. I imagined Maria from The Sound of Music, starting out so hesitantly as she leaves the abbey, then gaining strength and courage until she’s literally skipping down the road.

  I tried to channel her. I strode more confidently down the walkway toward the plane.

  But I didn’t skip.

  CHAPTER 3

  The Doomsday Journal

  At the door to the airplane, a woman in a red dress with white trim and matching heels smiled at us. “Grüß Gott!” she exclaimed cheerily. “Welcome to Austrian Airlines.” She looked a bit like Little Red Riding Hood, minus the cape. Mom beamed at her, and we stepped into the plane.

  The Benadryl had started to kick in, and I felt a little woozy. I didn’t remember planes being quite so big. There were two aisles, the seats arranged in a two-five-two configuration. We had seats 22A and 22B, but we picked the wrong aisle to walk down, so we had to continue to a little galley kitchen, then cross over to the other side. Finally, we reached our seats.

  “Do you want the aisle or the window?” Mom asked.

  “The window.” Dr. Teresa had suggested that since I wasn’t scared of heights, maybe being able to see the ground would make me feel a little bit more in control. It was worth a try.

  Mom nodded and stowed her backpack overhead, while I shoved mine under the seat in front of me. I tried not to think too far ahead, focusing on putting the bag lunch from my mom in the seat-back pocket, right next to the bag for motion sickness, and pulling on my anti-nausea wristbands. Next, I kicked off my Keds and dug out my compression stockings. Now I’ll admit, they’re not particularly attractive, being long black socks that go up almost to my knees, but blood clots are nothing to mess around with. And sitting around on an international flight increases your risk of developing one by almost 50 percent! I was not taking any chances.

  Finally, I pulled out the airplane safety card. I tightened my seat belt firmly across my lap, checked under my seat for the life jacket, and looked for the nearest exit. When I was done, I pulled out my journal so I could write everything down.

  I guess I’d better explain about my Doomsday Journal. After we had to drive home from Chicago, my parents started to notice how I seemed to have more fears than the average kid. I worried about the mean sixth grader on the school bus, falling off the jungle gym, learning my math facts, forgetting my lunch, getting kidnapped, nuclear war, finding a razor blade in my Halloween candy, getting a Tylenol bottle with the safety seal removed—you get the idea.

  My parents didn’t know what to do. They told me again and again that I didn’t have to worry about those things, but it didn’t help. Finally, they took me to a child psychologist, Dr. Teresa. I liked her. We’d color happy pictures or build safe places with blocks. As I got older, she taught me about deep breathing and distracting myself when I started to feel anxious. And she was the one who came up with the idea of the journal.

  Dr. Teresa didn’t call it a Doomsday Journal; she just said maybe I should write down my fears and think about the worst-case scenario and how I would handle it. My parents thought that approach sounded a little weird, but my mom drove me to the store, and I picked out a hot-pink diary with a unicorn and rhinestones on the front. (It’s a little embarrassing to look at now.) Truthfully, I was pretty doubtful too, but my parents promised me a chocolate-vanilla-twist ice cream cone with rainbow sprinkles if I tried it for one week.

  And the funny thing is, it worked! Well, mostly. Once I wrote down my math facts in my journal, I didn’t worry about forgetting them anymore. If I wrote down a bunch of different comeback lines I could use if the mean sixth grader teased me on the bus, I could relax and talk to my friends. (I was a little disappointed she never bothered me after I wrote them down—there were some real zingers!) Once I made a shopping list of all the nonperishable food supplies I’d like to have on hand in case there was a nuclear attack by the Soviets, I didn’t have to worry about it anymore.

  But some of my fears, especially the ones about illness or getting hurt, were harder to get rid of. Sometimes I’d get over my fear of choking on an apple, only to discover I was really much more afraid of popcorn getting stuck in my throat. It felt like a never-ending game of Whac-A-Mole. As soon as one fear was gone, another would pop up. So I kept writing.

  In fifth grade my f
riend Chrissy nicknamed it my “Doomsday Journal,” and the name stuck. By the time I turned twelve, I had filled three diaries, creating my own little reference collection of worries/survival guides. The old journals were packed in my checked luggage, but I had my current one (#4) with me in my backpack. Chrissy had given it to me for my birthday, right after she had heard I was going to Austria for the summer. It had an old-fashioned map on the cover and the words Don’t be afraid to get a little lost.

  That quote made me laugh because I was afraid of getting lost, but that was covered in my rainbow diary, otherwise known as Doomsday Journal #2, on page 47 (DJ #2, p. 47). Anyway, I pulled out my map journal, flipped to the first blank page, picked up a pen, and started writing.

  International Plane Flight Safety Procedures

  Nearest exit: 25A, wing exit.

  If that exit is inaccessible, nearest exit is at front of plane.

  In case of a water landing remove life jacket from under seat.

  I drew a little sketch of recommended crash positions for an emergency landing.

  And so on. When I finished, Mom asked, “Did that help?”

  “Yeah,” I said, even though I wasn’t quite sure if it had. I focused on the flight attendant’s safety spiel (I already knew everything). We hadn’t even left the ground yet, and I already felt like I was going to throw up. I must have looked a little green, because Mom gestured to the motion-sickness bag in her seat-back pocket, but I waved her off.

  We turned onto the runway, the engines roared, and I grabbed Mom’s hand. Well, if I’m going to die, I hope it’s quick. Would dying in a plane crash be quick? I thought it probably would. We accelerated, and the speed pushed me back into my chair. I closed my eyes, and suddenly my stomach dropped as if we were on an elevator. I gave a little shriek.

  “It’s okay,” Mom said, squeezing my hand tighter. “We just left the ground. Look out the window.”

  CHAPTER 4

  On the Plane

  Obediently, I opened my eyes and looked out the window. It had been five years since I had been on a plane, and I’d forgotten how cool it was to see the cars and buildings and trees from a different perspective. Before I knew it, we were in the clouds, the ride smoothed out a bit, and takeoff was over.

  I’d done better than I’d expected. I was glad, but it was also frustrating, because I never knew exactly what would set off an attack. I mean, going up in an airplane was a lot scarier than a metal detector, and yet here I was, absolutely fine, while in the airport I had been a sniveling mess.

  Mom and I watched Sister Act until dinner arrived. As I peeled back the plastic from the tray, I saw a beef pot roast, a few tiny potatoes, a cup of clear-broth soup, and a hot roll with warm, melted butter. It actually tasted pretty good! But when I put the meat in my mouth, I started to worry. It was only lukewarm. Did they heat it up properly and it just cooled down? How do they heat meals on an airplane? Is it possible their microwave isn’t functioning correctly?

  “Is everything okay, Becca?” Mom asked.

  “Fine,” I said, “fine.” I wanted to ask if she knew the proper cooking temperature for beef, but I was pretty sure she didn’t. Mom didn’t worry about stuff like that. And I didn’t have a meat thermometer, anyway.

  I carefully covered the rest of the meat with a paper napkin. I ate the soup and the roll, gobbled down the vinegary green bean salad (vinegar is a very effective preservative), and then pulled out the peanut butter and crackers.

  The familiar taste of sticky peanut butter on salty crackers almost made me cry. All the thoughts I was trying so hard not to think came rushing in at once. I didn’t know anyone in Vienna except for my father, and I hadn’t seen him for four months. What if he had changed? I mean, he had changed. He’d sent me a pic, and he had a beard now. He also had a girlfriend.

  That was news he’d dropped on me just last week, on our final phone call before my visit. “Katarina is a newspaper reporter. She’s Austrian and lives two doors down from me.”

  “Oh,” I said. I mean, I assumed my parents dated from time to time, but I’d never met anyone they were seeing before.

  “She wants to come with me to pick you up from the airport.”

  “Okay,” I said politely. “It’ll be nice to meet her.”

  “And get this,” Dad continued on. “She has a son your age. His name is Felix, and he loves to read. He’s a bit on the quiet side, but I’m sure you’ll like him a lot. The au pair will be there too.”

  The French term au pair is basically a fancy word for nanny, a glorified babysitter, usually from another country. It’s really more of a cultural exchange than a traditional childcare arrangement. I only knew what one was because Dad had told me a few days before.

  “What’s her name again?” I asked.

  “Sara Tahirović. I believe she’s Muslim.”

  “How old is she?”

  “Nineteen, I think.”

  “Where’s she from?” I asked. “England? Scotland? Australia?”

  “Sarajevo. That’s in Bosnia.”

  I didn’t know where that was either. “Does she speak English?”

  “Of course, Becca! I’m not going to hire you an au pair who doesn’t speak English.”

  “Okay.” I didn’t know what to do. Dad sounded exasperated, but I had a million more questions. Before I could ask any of them, Mom came in to confirm our arrival times, and then it was time to hang up.

  On the plane, the flight attendant came down the aisle to pick up our dinner trays. Mom pulled out a book while my thoughts continued to swirl. What was Felix like? What TV channels did my dad get? Would Dad remember to buy me a jar of peanut butter? The stewardess came back again, handing out pillows and thin red blankets this time. Mom and I both took one of each.

  “Time to get some rest,” Mom said, closing her book and placing it in the seat-back pocket. “I love you, sweetie. Sleep well.” She kissed her fingers and, like always, pressed them to the worry crease between my eyebrows.

  Mom took off her purple glasses and tucked them in next to her novel. She draped her new “travel” sweater (Never wrinkles! Wash in hotel sink!) around her shoulders and tucked the red blanket around her legs. Her eyes closed, and a minute later she was snoring—small, soft, dainty snores. Mom could sleep anywhere, anytime—bus, train, automobile. Sleep was another thing I wasn’t very good at.

  I sat there, staring at the illuminated seat belt sign, trying not to imagine the oxygen masks popping out. I forced my eyes closed and tried to count sheep, but my thoughts would not keep still. Why does it have to be sheep? Could I count kittens? Or pigs? Or baby rabbits? Finally, I ditched the animals and just counted backward from a hundred. I had almost drifted off when we hit a patch of turbulence. I grabbed Mom’s arms so hard, I was sure I had woken her up. But she just mumbled, “Feed the gerbils” and turned her head the other way. That was weird. We didn’t even have gerbils.

  I thought about counting gerbils, but instead, I pulled out Doomsday Journal #4. Reading it sometimes helped me to relax when my thoughts wouldn’t stop spinning. Unfortunately, the first page I opened to was page 7:

  How to Prevent Blood Clots on Long Plane Flights

  Get up and walk around as often as possible.

  Wear compression socks.

  Make sure to stretch.

  Okay, then. I guess I’d forget about sleep and do some stretches.

  I crawled over my sleeping mother and walked down the aisle. The bathroom was next to one of the galley kitchens, and there was a bit of room in the aisle between them. I bent over and touched my toes, feeling the blood rush to my head.

  “Nice socks,” said a woman in the seat closest to the kitchen.

  I stood up so quickly I felt dizzy for a moment. The woman wore a white shirt and a blazer. I could see gold hoop earrings pee
king out from her shoulder-length hair. She looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t figure out why in the world she was complimenting my socks. “They are compression stockings,” I said seriously. “They prevent blood clots.”

  She laughed. “Yes, I know,” she said. She rolled up one leg of her black trousers to reveal her own long, ugly compression stockings.

  I smiled and started to do some heel lifts.

  “Couldn’t sleep?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “Me neither,” she agreed. “You ever been on an international flight before?”

  “No,” I admitted. “Have you?”

  “Lots of times.”

  “Then why can’t you sleep?”

  “I’m thinking about a story I’m working on. I’m a reporter.”

  “Cool,” I said. “What’s going on in Vienna?”

  “Lots, I’m sure,” the woman said. “But I’m actually going to Sarajevo.”

  “Oh!” I said. “I’m visiting my dad in Vienna, and the au pair he hired is from Sarajevo.”

  “How nice!” the woman said. “Is she a refugee?”

  “Refugee?”

  “There’s a war going on in former Yugoslavia. That’s why I’m going to Bosnia. I’m a correspondent with CNN.”

  “A war reporter!” I exclaimed. “Isn’t that scary?”

  “Sometimes.”

  I stood on one leg, stretching the other while I thought that over. I had heard about the war, of course, watching the news at night with my mom. But I hadn’t paid it much mind. It seemed like something very far away. “Where is Bosnia exactly?” I asked. “I mean, I’m not very good at geography. I thought Austria was the place with the koala bears.”

  “Well,” she said as she pulled out a cocktail napkin, brushed off some peanut crumbs, and started to draw a little map. “Austria is here. And right next door is the country that used to be called Yugoslavia. It had six states: Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia, and Montenegro. Sarajevo is the capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina.”