What Could Go Wrong?

by Willo Davis Roberts

  “I did, too,” Charlie said, “after Grandpa put out the fire and explained it all to me. Okay, Gracie, no disasters. I’m going to be on my honor not to spoil our trip. Come on, let’s go check out the horses.”

  Everybody went, except Cheryl, of course. You can’t ride horses wearing a skirt and panty hose.

  It wasn’t easy getting through that week.

  Most of the time Charlie really tried. It was just that he forgot once in a while that it was important not to get into trouble.

  Even Wayne, who had no stake in the trip, tried to help. He caught the pitcher of lemonade when Charlie hit it with his elbow and nearly knocked it off the porch railing into the lilac bushes. Nobody but me saw it.

  When Charlie and Eddie were having a rodeo and Eddie fell off old Dusty (Grandpa hasn’t used horses to plow since he got the tractor, but he keeps a couple for us kids to ride), I could tell his leg really hurt, but he didn’t hightail it to the house for help. He sat in the dirt until the worst of the pain had eased off, and then we rolled up his pant leg and looked at where he’d scraped against a nail that was sticking out of the corral fence.

  “How long’s it been since you had a tetanus shot?” I asked. I knew about those from having stepped on a nail last summer.

  Eddie thought about it, his face still sort of puckered up from looking at the gash. “Two years ago, I guess it was. When I stuck the pitchfork through my foot.” He squinted up at me. “Do I have to have another one? I hate shots.”

  “Tetanus shots are good for ten years,” Charlie said. He’d dismounted and was holding the reins on Sister, who wasn’t Dusty’s sister at all but his mother. “So you got eight more years to go. You didn’t break the leg, did you?”

  “I don’t think so.” Eddie looked down, then quickly away from his injury. “It’s bleeding.”

  “I’ll go get some disinfectant and a bandage,” I said. “You stay here, so nobody will see you.”

  Charlie gave me a dirty look. “Hey, I didn’t throw him off the horse! This isn’t part of the catastrophe business, is it?”

  “You were playing rodeo with him when he got hurt,” I told him bitterly. “And my dad will probably decide that makes it your fault.” It still made me mad to think of it, how Dad was counting on my not getting to go.

  “Okay. Fix him up. I’ll turn the horses back into the pasture,” Charlie said. He knew it was my dad I resented, not him.

  Luckily the grown-ups weren’t around when we went swimming in the river later that day, or Eddie would have had to explain why he had six Band-Aids on his leg. As it was, when his mother asked why he was limping (even though he tried to walk without doing it) he just said he’d bumped his leg, but it was okay. That was the truth. Sort of.

  It almost spoiled the reunion for me, more or less holding my breath every time Charlie moved for fear something would go wrong. I couldn’t figure out what it was, exactly, that made him a menace. He didn’t do mean things on purpose, the way Wayne sometimes did. And he wasn’t especially klutzy, either.

  It was just that when Charlie was around, exciting things happened. And some of them were more exciting than he’d planned. Like the day he showed us how he’d learned to drive and took us for a ride in Grandpa’s old pickup. How did he know the brakes were gone? Nobody’d told us.

  The truck was so beat up we decided nobody’d notice a few more dents, and we hardly did any damage to the corner of the pig pen. Wayne and Charlie straightened the fence post and propped it up with some big rocks.

  That was probably why the pigs got out later that day, but Grandpa just thought they knocked over the post on their own. It was lucky Cheryl wasn’t with us in the truck; she’s an awful tattletale.

  That was why for once I wasn’t sorry when the reunion was over. It was a strain, expecting something to happen that would ruin our plans for the trip.

  On the last day Uncle Bill asked Dad if he was still anticipating a reprieve, which I guess meant that Charlie would still mess up. Dad said, “You know Charlie, he’s a ticking time bomb.”

  It made me mad all over again, that Dad didn’t really think I’d get to go. So when Charlie offered to show us how he could “tightrope walk” on top of the corral fence, I talked him out of it, just in case he slipped and fell off.

  That was the end of the week, and it seemed appealing to go home and sleep in my own bed for a few nights.

  And get ready to fly to San Francisco. I could hardly wait.

  • • •

  I had new jeans and a pink knit shirt for the flight.

  Dad had gone around saying, “I don’t believe that kid actually made it through a whole week without crippling himself or anyone else,” but otherwise he was a good sport about losing the bet he’d made with himself. He even got me a flight bag to carry some of my stuff in, besides what I was taking in Mom’s medium-size suitcase.

  “The flight bag’s for a change of underwear and your toothbrush and things like that,” Mom said. “Just in case your luggage doesn’t match up with you immediately in San Francisco.”

  “Why wouldn’t it?” I asked. “Don’t they put it on the same plane?”

  “In theory,” Mom said dryly. “But I remember the night we spent in Indianapolis once, when we had rushed to change planes and our luggage came on the following flight. That plane was struck by lightning and had to turn back, so our suitcases didn’t catch up with us until the following day. We didn’t have any clean clothes until twenty minutes before we were supposed to leave the hotel the next morning, when your father was scheduled to make a presentation at a convention. All we had with us was a carry-on bag like this, and we were grateful we at least had his shaving gear and our deodorants.” She paused, deciding how many pairs of socks to put into the suitcase. “As I remember it, we really needed the deodorants.”

  “Okay. I’ll take something to read, too, in the air,” I said, though I thought I’d probably be too excited about flying to read. I stuck a book into the flight bag, just in case. I knew seasoned travelers always carried reading materials.

  We met the others at the airport. Eddie had been staying at Uncle Jim and Aunt Lila’s instead of going home with his folks after the reunion, and while they were checking in our baggage at the counter, Eddie spoke to me out of the side of his mouth. I thought he’d been watching too many old black-and-white gangster movies.

  “It was a close call,” he said.

  “What was?”

  “Charlie fell off a ladder into those glass things Aunt Lila has for her flowers. He made his folks promise not to mention it to Uncle Don.”

  “That wouldn’t have counted against the trip!” I protested, understanding why Charlie had a few nearly healed scratches on his arms and face. “Dad said during the reunion, not afterward.”

  “We weren’t taking any chances,” Eddie said. “Come on, are you checking that bag?”

  “No, I’m carrying it on board in case the other one gets mislaid. I’ve got snacks in it, too, for if we get hungry and the stewardess doesn’t feed us enough.”

  Eddie nodded. He had a flight bag, too, a bright red one. Mine was light blue with a white stripe. He unzipped his and showed me a bunch of Milky Ways and Almond Joys. “I thought of that, too.”

  “Listen,” Uncle Jim said, resting a hand on Charlie’s shoulder, “Cissy and Dawn are due at a birthday party this afternoon, so if it’s okay with you, we’re going to go on home and not wait for the plane to take off. You don’t need us for anything, do you?”

  “No, Dad, don’t wait. All we have to do is get on the plane when they tell us.” Charlie wasn’t the least bit nervous, the way I was, just a little. But of course he’d flown before, and I never had. Eddie simply looked excited.

  “We’ll stay until the flight leaves,” Mom said. “We can sit down over there and wait until the plane comes in, all right, kids?”

  Sea-Tac is a big airport, and there were hundreds of people, but after Charlie pointed out how organized it all
is, it wasn’t so scary. We were leaving from Gate 48, and all the information about our flight was posted over a booth, as well as being shown on a television screen with a lot of other flights. Once in a while the information on the TV screen would change, but mostly it said each flight was on time. Except that after we’d sat there for a while and Max was getting tired of watching planes land and take off and wanted something to eat, the passenger agent in her dark blue uniform made an announcement over the loudspeaker.

  “Flight 211 to San Francisco will be delayed slightly,” she said. “Flight 211 to San Francisco will be delayed.”

  I jerked. “That’s us! Won’t we get to go after all?”

  “Delayed only means it won’t leave quite on time,” Dad said calmly. “Sit tight. I’ll see what’s up.”

  He wasn’t gone long. I was tense, because I didn’t want anything to happen to spoil my first adventure on an airplane, my first trip to San Francisco.

  “The plane was held up in Salt Lake,” Dad told us. “Had a passenger taken ill, it sounded like.”

  Mom looked at her watch. “Will it take much longer? You told Mr. Hudson you’d be home to accept his call by two thirty.”

  “Well,” Dad speculated, consulting his own watch, “we’ll be okay if it’s only half an hour or so. Otherwise, if the traffic is heavy, it might be cutting it sort of fine.”

  “You don’t have to stay with us, Uncle Don,” Charlie said confidently. “I’ve done this before, and there’s nothing to it. We just sit here where the passenger agent can see us, and when they tell us, we board the plane. We’ve already got our boarding passes. Why don’t you go ahead? No need to miss your call.”

  “Sure,” Eddie added. “We’re not babies. We don’t need a sitter for an extra half hour of waiting.”

  My parents hesitated. “Maybe we should go, Don,” Mom said. “It’s an important call.”

  “Sure.” I put in my two cents worth. “We’ll be okay.” The adventure wouldn’t actually begin until we were on our own.

  It was a good thing Dad didn’t know all the things we knew, or he’d have been more dubious than he was. He was still hesitating.

  “We could ask the passenger agent to keep an eye on the kids,” Mom said. “There’s no question about the plane taking off, is there?”

  “No. It’ll be here soon! It’s on the way. Then it’s only a matter of getting it loaded with supplies.” His gaze rested on Charlie, who was smiling calmly.

  Dad said afterward that he was suspicious of that smile. But I’m sure he wasn’t really. If he had been, he’d never have let us stay alone.

  “I guess you’re right. I’ll speak to the attendant,” Dad decided.

  And then there we were, like seasoned travelers, on our own. I felt like electricity was crackling along all my nerves, I was so excited. It would be the biggest adventure I’d ever had, and I was sure we’d do fine.

  I’ll have to admit, though, that it wasn’t Charlie after all, but me, who took the first step that would change our adventure into a horror story.

  Chapter Three

  I was glad Charlie was there, because Sea-Tac is this enormous airport, full of people who acted as if they didn’t see us. Eddie put down his flight bag and a hurrying man tripped over it and sent it skidding across the slippery tiled floor. The man never even looked back, let alone apologized.

  Eddie rescued the bag, looking uneasy, and sat down again with the bag on his lap.

  “There sure are a lot of people going somewhere,” he observed as a family group of seven moved past us. They were Asian, loaded with cameras and flight bags similar to ours, wearing shorts or jeans and running shoes. We couldn’t understand the language they were using.

  Almost as if he were reading my thoughts, Charlie offered, “It takes about fourteen hours to fly to Japan. Of course they show movies, but that’s an awful long time to be fastened in with a seat belt. Dad says it’s a good idea to keep your seat belt on even if the sign doesn’t say you have to, just in case you encounter turbulence.” He seemed to take it for granted that I understood that, but he added for Eddie’s benefit, “That’s when you hit rough weather. If the plane drops suddenly, and you aren’t belted in, you could get hurt.” And then, to both of us, “On a long flight you get fed quite a few times, though.”

  He sounded as if he’d been to Japan, but I knew he hadn’t.

  “Could we go ride on the shuttle?” Eddie asked. That was a sort of little underground train that took you out to the North Satellite, if that was where your flight left from; I’d been on it when we went to meet Grandma Cameron once, and it was fun.

  “No,” I said firmly. “There’s no telling exactly when our flight will leave, and we’re not running around taking any chances on missing it.”

  “Yeah, we better stay here,” Charlie backed me up, and Eddie sank back in disappointment.

  I was getting tired of sitting facing the big floor-to-ceiling windows, because not much was happening out there that we could see. There was a 747 sitting at the next gate over, but nothing was going on over there; nobody was getting on or off. Once in a while, off in the distance, a jet lifted off or landed, but they were only visible for a few minutes.

  I shifted around to look back at the people milling around. Two old ladies were having an argument with the passenger agent because the plane was late. We couldn’t hear what the uniformed young woman was saying, but the lady with the funny hat was getting quite loud, demanding to know exactly when Flight 211 would take off.

  I guess when I turned back around I must have stuck my foot out in front of me farther than I intended, because the next thing I knew a man was falling over it. He lurched forward and dropped the folded newspaper he was carrying as he grabbed at the next chair arm to keep from going all the way to the floor.

  I yelped and leaned over to rescue the newspaper, murmuring an apology, but he jerked the paper away from me as if I had some contagious disease. He was rather fat and sloppy, with a wrinkled Hawaiian print shirt and pale blue slacks belted under his belly. His eyes were pale blue, too, and smallish for his face. My mother would have washed out my mouth with soap if I’d said what he said to me.

  I know my face turned red. Charlie made a protesting sound that died when the man snarled at him, too.

  I felt awful. People close to us were staring. “I’m sorry,” I said again. “I didn’t mean to . . .”

  I let the words trail off, because he wasn’t staying around to listen. He stalked away and took a seat in a back row, away from everybody else.

  “What a jerk,” Charlie said. “It wasn’t like you tripped him on purpose!”

  The old ladies who had been making a fuss over the delay went by, giving me disapproving glances. My face burned. I pretended I was interested in a plane that was just landing.

  Eddie squirmed on the hard seat beside me. “I’m getting hungry. I wonder if I should eat a candy bar or go buy something. Dad gave me some money. Would I get lost if I went and found something to eat? Do you think the plane would take off before I got back?”

  I didn’t know if he was really hungry already or only changing the subject to make me feel better.

  “Our plane isn’t even at the gate yet,” Charlie said, standing up and stretching. “It’ll come right here when it’s ready to load, so we’ve got plenty of time to get a bite. There’s a place down that way, cafeteria style. I’m hungry, too, and we don’t want to eat up the stuff we’re carrying because we may need it worse later on. Come on, let’s go. Bring your flight bags; it’s not safe to leave them sitting here.” He paused after he picked up his own bag and said under his breath, “What’s the matter with him, anyway?”

  “Who?” I asked, but I knew, and I didn’t turn around quite yet.

  “That guy who tripped over your leg. He just gave me a dirty look. He must’ve been to the islands. Or maybe he’s just going there. He doesn’t look like he’d have much fun on the beach, if that’s where he’s going.”
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br />   “What’re the islands?” Eddie wanted to know. For twelve, he was sort of naive. He got his feet tangled up in the straps of his bag before he could pick it up, and then he swiveled around to look past the Japanese family group and an elderly couple talking in whispers. “Wow! You need sunglasses to look at his shirt.”

  “The Hawaiian Islands, stupid,” Charlie said. “Come on.”

  When I finally turned around, the fat man was reading his newspaper and didn’t pay any attention to us. I walked very carefully after the boys, making sure I didn’t bump or trip anyone else.

  We each got a hamburger and a Coke and Eddie had a bag of potato chips he shared. Eddie eats more for a boy his size than anyone else I know; he was still hungry, but Charlie said maybe we’d better head back to our gate, so Eddie didn’t get the second burger he wanted.

  We came back down the broad corridor, munching chips. There were more people now. Two planes were loading. It sort of gave me prickles down my spine, because in a short time it would be our turn.

  I wondered if it would make me queasy to take off. Charlie had already explained about airsick bags, and I prayed I wouldn’t have to use one. I never got carsick, though, so Mom said I’d probably be fine. It would sure be embarrassing if I wasn’t.

  We were almost back to the seats near our departure gate when it happened.

  The old lady walking ahead of us, carrying a light blue bag just like mine, was jostled by an anxious-looking couple running to make their plane, I guess; they knocked her sideways and her purse flew out of her hand and came open, scattering its contents all over the floor.

  “Oh, no!” She stopped and half-turned, and I thought she could have been a twin, nearly, to Dad’s aunt Letty, who was eighty. She wore plain sensible white shoes and a blue-and-white striped summer dress, with a white sweater over her shoulders.

  She stared down with dismay at her belongings, rolling every which way, and someone else came along and kicked a glasses case so it slid under one of the seats on the carpeted area.

  “Sorry,” a woman muttered when she stepped on a small mirror, but she didn’t stop.