Flight #116 Is Down

by Caroline B. Cooney

She slithered down the hill. A woman she had never seen before, with white hair and fragile ankles, took one end of the ladder. “What are we doing?” said the woman. She was old. Blue veins stood out on her age-spotted hands.

  “Making a bridge,” said Heidi.

  The two of them worked easily together, Heidi in the ravine, ice water sloshing over her feet, until the ladder was in place. “Stabilize it with river rocks,” said the woman. The rocks were unbelievably heavy. Heidi felt as if she were shifting continents. But she got two rocks moved where she needed them, just as two men—neither of them Patrick—came down with a horse-stall door. It took two doors, actually, and by now there were so many people assisting that one took up a permanent position as ladder-bridge supervisor, calling out, “Put your weight dead center, don’t step on the edges, go slow, put your foot here, now you’ve got it.”

  Heidi yearned to be the one supervising. But she didn’t know anything.

  The elderly woman said to Heidi, “Your feet are soaked. Go into that big house up there and get your feet dry.” Heidi protested that she was fine, but the woman gave her a piercing look: the kind that really good teachers have: Move it or die, kid.

  So Heidi ran back to the house to get boots.

  She was amazed to find she was not slipping.

  There was no longer ice or even grass on the hill.

  Four women were hauling a canvas sheet covered with wood chips and dumping it to make a very wide path up to the house and a second path to the archway that led to the courtyard. They dumped their load of mulch, turned around, and crossed the hill for more.

  Heidi had no idea who they were. It gave her such a warm feeling that these hills, where she knew no neighbors, were in fact full of neighbors: of good people hurrying to help.

  Back in the house, kicking off her icy sneakers, she rubbed her feet dry and ran up to her room for boots. She tugged socks on over her bare feet, swelling up now that they were warm, and jammed them into the boots just in time. Another minute and they would have been too swollen to cram in.

  They’ll need more blankets downstairs, she thought.

  She went down the hall toward Mrs. Camp’s wing, planning to raid the linen closet there because it was full of old blankets nobody used anymore.

  Mistake; big mistake. The dogs leapt out on top of her, barking insanely. Winnie and Clemmie headed for the stairs, while Fang stood up on his hind paws and began licking her to death. Heidi shoved Fang back in, slammed the door, and raced through the house trying to gather up stupid, worthless Winnie and Clemmie.

  She skidded past people carrying coffee trays and bandages and IVs. Her stupid, worthless semidogs cut between ankles and slipped yippily out of her grasp. I must look like a total jerk, thought Heidi. How humiliating. “Sorry,” she kept muttering. She was actually blushing. Hoping that at least Patrick would not see her.

  Now she could smell bacon frying. I’m demented, she thought. Bacon?

  In her kitchen, older people who could not toil outdoors were calmly running a canteen, making sandwiches and coffee, heating soup.

  She found Clemmie there, yapping for bacon, picked the wretched hairball machine up, ran back upstairs, and threw Clemmie into Mrs. Camp’s room again, only to have Fang slip back out.

  It did not help the atmosphere in the lower hall when a huge, galumphing dog raced joyfully toward wobbly survivors, and a girl at the top of the stairs shouted, “Fang! Down!”

  Saturday: 6:55 P.M.

  Patrick meant to join the firemen.

  They had divided into two groups: those putting out the fire on the detached wing and those rescuing passengers stuck high in the rest of the plane.

  Driving down the hill proved to be impossible, so instead, they detached the immense ladders from their trucks and carried them. They were now removing from the plane passengers who had not been thrown free and were too badly hurt to use the rubber slide. Most were badly injured, and each transfer to a backboard or stretcher was scary and hard. But it was nothing compared to lowering the stretchers back down the ladders to the ground.

  Plus, everybody who remained conscious was afraid of the fire. The wind tossed sparks from the burned plane section, which crackled now and then, threatening like a volcano. Although a stream of water was now showering the wing, it wasn’t out yet. And there had to be more fuel in other tanks.

  Everybody’s stomach was clenched with the desire to hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry—get out of here—get the victim out—get myself out, too.

  A man who appeared to be completely unhurt kept walking back and forth screaming. There was something machinelike about his screams: he was rhythmic, as if supplying backup for a rock band.

  He’s in shock, thought Patrick.

  The man’s screams were unbearable, and yet Patrick did not want to waste time escorting an unhurt man to the house, calming him down, putting him indoors, getting his feet up to get the blood back to his head and heart. Not when there were people dying all around.

  But the screaming went on and on until Patrick gave in, and, shuddering against the impact of the man’s screams, dragged him up to the house saying, “It’s okay, it’s okay,” which was probably the stupidest thing he had ever said in his life.

  Saturday: 6:59 P.M.

  Chainsaws screamed.

  Carly thought the worst punishment of all was that shrieking metallic whirr buzzing through her mind, her teeth, her bones.

  She was bleeding.

  Strangely enough, there was no pain. Just fear; fear that came in surges, like aftershocks from earthquakes, rippling through her and bringing her to the edge of vomiting. Each time, she managed to stop herself. She knew that she was passing in and out of consciousness.

  People were working all around her.

  Sometimes somebody patted her shoulder or her hair or her hand.

  “We’re coming,” voices kept saying, “we’re coming, you hang on.”

  She wanted to answer them, but she had no voice. She was still inside herself, she knew that, but talk was something she no longer did. Still as Carly lay, she was spinning in circles.

  I’m out of time, thought Carly. I’m seventeen and out of time.

  The whirling effect spun her gently out of herself, and for a while her eyes closed; the scream of sirens and saws ended. A light as bright as bombs penetrated her skull.

  She opened her eyes, thinking this might be heaven or hell. But it was still a plane crash. They had brought floodlights, and one was trained on her. She tried to tell them that it was blinding her; that she had no way to turn her head. She wanted to say, “Get my sunglasses, they’re in my bag.” She wanted to make a joke. “Hey, you guys, darken up there.”

  But it was not the world that darkened.

  It was Carly, growing slowly less attached, less aware, less alive.

  Shirl, she thought, Shirl, I’m sorry. Don’t be mad.

  “We’re coming, honey,” said a voice, or several voices. A chorus of echoes rang in her head. We’re coming, honey, we’re coming, honey, I’m going home, Shirl, I’m coming, honey.

  Her sense of what was going on grew thinner and thinner, narrower and narrower, dizzier and dizzier.

  This is what it means, thought Carly, to hang onto life by a thread. I am not attached by jugular vein or pumping heart or spinal column. I am attached by a thread.

  Saturday: 7:00 P.M.

  This is so ridiculous, thought Heidi. I’m exhausting myself more fetching dogs than saving lives.

  She finally cornered Winnie in the front hall, barking death wishes at a tall, slim, beautiful girl using the hall phone.

  “A taxi,” the girl was saying with intense anger. “I want a taxi at this address. What do you mean, you can’t get here? This is where I am.”

  A man in a fireman’s uniform tapped the girl on the shoulder. “We need the phone.”

  The girl shrugged off his hand irritably, glaring at him.

  “There are no taxis in this town,” Heidi explained, t
rying to catch Winnie. Winnie escaped between the beautiful girl’s beautiful legs. This was definitely a person on whom clothes hung perfectly. This was the kind of girl her roommates had expected for a roommate.

  The girl looked Heidi up and down. Heidi had not felt so rejected since boarding school. How could this girl be neat under these circumstances? How could her hair be sparkly and her scarf at a jaunty angle? She had to be a passenger. She looked as if she had suffered no more trauma than a paper cut.

  She looks as if she’s the one who lives here, thought Heidi.

  “I need the phone,” said the fireman sharply.

  “I’m using it,” said the girl, even more sharply.

  For a moment Heidi and the fireman waited their turn.

  Then Heidi said to him, “Why are we being polite?” She put her finger on the phone buttons and disconnected the girl. “Give him the phone,” she said.

  “Who do you think you are?” said the girl, furious and imperious.

  “I’m the owner of the phone,” said Heidi. “And I say the firemen use it first. How come you’re not in the back helping?”

  The fireman savagely punched his numbers.

  “Because I have a plane connection to make,” said the girl.

  The fireman and Heidi looked at each other in perfect harmony, and for once in her worthless little life, Winnie did a good deed.

  She bit the beautiful girl’s ankle.

  Nine

  SATURDAY: 7:01 P.M.

  Flight #116 was really quite late, but people accustomed to meeting planes didn’t get worked up about it. So what else was new?

  They heaved large sighs every time they looked up at the arrival-time screen, as if hoping airline personnel would be humiliated by all this sighing and quickly land the plane.

  It was not a strategy that worked.

  Teddie’s parents were laughing. They had walked back to one of the wall pay phones and called Gramma and Poppy. The details of Teddie’s departure had delighted them.

  “I can’t wait to see that quarter taped to her palm,” said Teddie’s mother. “Let’s get her hand on the camcorder. Our daughter’s first solo air flight, complete with Mickey Mouse Band-Aid assist.”

  “I wish there was a place where I could film the plane actually landing,” said Teddie’s father, circling a row of chairs for at least the hundredth time. He had enjoyed the two weeks alone with his wife while Teddie visited her grandparents. Yet it had been a long two weeks. Maybe next year they would make it one week. When you had only one child, you needed all the child time you could get.

  Come on, plane, he thought irritably, get a move on.

  Near them, a child bounced around, zinging with sugar energy. The parents had so far kept him patient by letting him drink all the soda and eat all the candy bars he wanted. “I haven’t seen Aunt Louise in a whole year,” said the little boy excitedly. “Do you think she brought me a present?”

  “I’m sure she did, dear. Aunt Louise always brings the best presents. But don’t ask Aunt Louise, because that would be rude. Wait until Aunt Louise gives it to you.”

  “Aunt Louise doesn’t mind if I’m rude,” said the little boy. “Aunt Louise likes me.”

  People close by hid smiles. They had either been an Aunt Louise themselves or had one.

  Shirley Foyle phoned her parents. “The plane’s late. Wouldn’t you know? I’m a wreck.”

  “Now, honey. We told you we’d get Carly.”

  “I have to be the one. We have to start over again. I have to be here when she lands.”

  Shirl had done her hair for the occasion; as if Carly had ever cared how her sister’s hair looked. Carly, who had been the type a year ago to shave her head and tattoo her skull.

  “Chin up, darling,” said her parents. “We’ll see you both in a few hours.”

  Shirl hung up, savoring their voices. She pictured the homecoming. Carly and I, Shirl thought; we’ll come in the front door, and Mom and Dad will—no; they’ll be out on the lawn, yanking the taxi door open. They won’t wait for us to come up the steps and cross the porch. Not when both their daughters are coming home together.

  Carly. Coming home.

  Shirl had not known how much she would miss her sister. The bathroom jostling, the giggles, the shared clothes, even the fights. Nobody could be as thoroughly satisfying or as thoroughly obnoxious as your only sister.

  My sister. Coming home.

  Saturday: 7:09 P.M.

  Patrick had not looked at his watch in some time, but as he maneuvered another victim onto a backboard, and he and another man began the uphill struggle to carry the stretcher without tilting and terrifying the victim any more than he already was, somebody shouted out the time to somebody else.

  The Golden Hour was up. Had been up for a long time.

  He felt a queer chill around his eyes. It was not a physical sensation he had ever had before. It was as if his body said to him—don’t look, don’t think, tune that out.

  It was like a horse wearing blinders: look straight ahead, keep working, keep believing you can save them. If you believe hard enough, you can make it work.

  Patrick thought that maybe he knew what his mother meant: that the Golden Hour was similar to the Golden Rule. For in this grim night, he had seen only decency. He could not get over it, the way people were helping. It was almost as if they were glad to have the chance: as if the walking wounded were saying, So what if I’m a little bloody? I can still help. As if the neighbors were saying, So we had plans for Saturday night. So big deal. This is what matters.

  We’ll save them, he said to himself, very strongly.

  And thought, in the corner of his mind that was calm and scientific, It’s like clapping for Peter Pan to keep Tinker Bell alive. It’s a fairy tale. These people we’re taking out last—how can they make it? No matter how hard I clap, how can they make it?

  Saturday: 7:09:30 P.M.

  From the hall phone came a voice full of wrath. “Where the hell is Life Star?”

  Heidi had not heard much swearing. Now the absence of swearing struck her. The horror of the plane crash was beyond foolish four-letter words. Or perhaps swearing took energy, and nobody had any to spare.

  So why was the fireman swearing?

  He’s helpless, thought Heidi. We’ve done all we can. Now we need something else. It isn’t here, we can’t get it, we can’t make it happen, and he’s afraid.

  She had always thought of swearing as hostility. This was not. It was fear. It was like cold sweat.

  “We’ve got the stretchers lined up!” yelled the fireman. “We’ve got the hospitals notified. We’re Go. So where are the helicopters?”

  She could not help with helicopters.

  She could not bear listening to the rising pitch of the fireman’s voice, either; the tone that said, People are dying and where are you?

  They’re probably busy, thought Heidi. They didn’t know a plane was coming down any more than I did. They’re probably ferrying somebody else to a hospital. What are they supposed to do? Chuck him out and turn around?

  A disaster is not just what happens, thought Heidi. It’s also what comes next. Part of this is a second disaster.

  She moved on, only to find herself next to Mr. Farquhar. He was yelling at some newly arrived volunteers. “Assume every single passenger has back injuries and internal injuries,” he shouted angrily. “Impact does that. Move nobody without proper support. You wanna kill ’em yourself? What’s the matter with you?”

  I moved eight people without ever thinking of that, Heidi thought. What if they die because I moved them? What if I killed them?

  She swallowed a horrible-tasting swallow, like poison, hemlock, arsenic. But then, she had expected the rest of the plane to burn. She had thought speed mattered more than back support. Not that she had even known back support mattered at all.

  These later rescue workers have more time than I did, she thought. I thought we had only a few seconds to work in. But the fire n
ever went anywhere, and if there was more fuel, it’s just sitting around in its tank.

  Time.

  A weird and perhaps meaningless thing. For the people in pain and terror, minutes were centuries passed in screaming. For the rescuers, the minutes were fractions—nothings—zeroes—in which they could hardly even get downhill, let alone move debris, slice through seat belts, get the backboard down, strap the patient on, and move him up the hill to where the medical teams could actually work.

  There is no such thing as time, thought Heidi. Man invented it, but pain and fear are not acquainted with it.

  It seemed to Heidi that the doctors on the scene were doing very little. She was rather angry at them. The ambulance volunteers were doing much more of the work.

  I want to do this, thought Heidi. I want to do emergency work. I want to know what they know! I want to understand what they understand.

  It occurred to Heidi that neither her brilliant father nor her successful mother would have had any idea what to do here, either. How they would have hated being helpless! They probably would have gone outdoors and directed traffic rather than submit to the sensation of not knowing what to do.

  It came to her that it must take terrific courage for these volunteers: to walk right up to the unknown and start. She, Heidi, had been so demoralized by the unknown—like the piercing broken bone of the little girl Teddie—that she had fled. What courage it took not to flee. To do the best you could, however simple, and keep going. They are people who dare, thought Heidi. People who can take risk.

  From somewhere had come large brightly colored cards with which each patient was tagged.

  “Triage,” explained the doctor.

  Triage. Pronounced like tree: tree-ahj.

  “French word,” he said. “You divide the living into three groups. There are the ones who are going to be okay whether they get looked at quickly or not; we’re putting them in the house, where it’s warm and dry and they can take care of each other. They have a broken arm, or their forehead’s split. It’ll be too bad if they have a long wait, but none of them is going to die. Then we have the badly wounded. We divide those into the ones who are probably going to die no matter how much attention they get and the ones we can save if we get them help fast.”