“Oooh—yummy!” Kristi exclaimed as she came to the table and saw their supper laid out there. The grilled corn on the cob and burgers and hot dogs her dad had cooked outside on the grill were done to perfection. She knew from experience that her mother’s potato salad, coleslaw and baked beans were the best. There was a tossed salad, as well, and inside on the kitchen counter was an apple pie just waiting to be topped with vanilla ice cream for dessert.
Dan and Pete were practically drooling as they jostled for the same seat—until Skeeter slipped in behind them and took it with a mischievous grin. Anna and Robyn were a little more polite as they took their seats, but their eyes were glowing as they took in the bountiful spread. Finally, the whole family and their guests were gathered around the table, and they held hands and bowed their heads as Mr. Cameron led them in prayer.
“Father, we thank you for the many blessings you give us each and every day. Thank you for bringing me safely home again to my family, and for helping me as I flew that jet with all those people across the world. Thank you for bringing Pete and Robyn and Anna here tonight to share in this wonderful meal, and please bless the hands that prepared it. May we all be a blessing to one another tonight. In Jesus’ name, amen.”
Anna looked up shyly. “I wish we did that at our house,” she said. “We go to that big cathedral downtown on Sundays, but we don’t really pray much at home. And I like the way you pray, Mr. Cameron—like you’re really talking to God.”
“I am really talking to Him, Anna,” Mr. Cameron said. “He’s my Father and my Friend and I talk to Him often every day.”
Anna ducked her head and didn’t say anything else. Soon the food was going around the table and disappearing rapidly. Happy chatter circled the group and laughter echoed across the yard.
Finally, when even Dan and Pete had eaten their full, Kristi said, “Okay, Mom and Dad—the suspense is killing us! We’ve been patient, we haven’t begged—well, not much anyway. It’s time to make that big announcement!
Please? Pretty please?”
Steve Cameron laughed. His eyes twinkled as he turned to his wife. “Well, Rachel? What do you think? Should we put these kids out of their misery or make them wait just a little longer?”
“Oh, I don’t know, Steve. Maybe we ought to have dessert first. My mouth is just watering for some apple pie á la mode!” She grinned up at her husband.
“No!” the young people yelled in unison. “Please?” “Come on!” “What is it?”
Steve looked around the table from face to eager face. Finally he gave a wink at his wife and said, “Well, my dear, I’ll let you have the honor of revealing the big surprise.”
“Great!” Rachel slowly stood up at the table. “Drum roll, please!” Skeeter began beating the table top with his hands.
Rachel raised her hands and the drum roll stopped. “I have a big announcement,” she began.
“We know!” Kristi said. “Come on, Mom! Tell!”
“Okay, okay!” her mom laughed. “Well, as you know, Kristi, your fourteenth birthday is coming up in just over a week. Remember when Dan had his fourteenth birthday two years ago and the whole family went to the NASCAR races and then on to Florida for a week at the beach? Well, we have another trip planned for your birthday, Kristi, and Robyn and Anna and Pete are invited to go, too!”
“What?” their friends exclaimed. “Wow!” “Thanks, Mr. and Mrs. Cameron!” “That’s great!” They looked at one another and grinned.
“But where are we going, Mom? Dad, make her tell!” Kristi pleaded.
“Patience, patience!” her mother laughed. “Aloha! We are all flying on Dad’s airline to Hawaii!”
“Hawaii!” “Wow!” “How cool is that!” the kids all exclaimed at once.
“But wait! That’s not all!” Steve Cameron said above the excited voices. Six pairs of big, wide eyes turned to look at him and silence fell around the table. “We’ll spend a couple days in Hawaii, but then we’re chartering a small plane and going off on our own to a small island a few hundred miles from Oahu called Fire Island. There aren’t any fancy hotels there, and we may have to rough it a bit, but it should be quite an adventure.”
Pandemonium broke out around the table. The air was filled with high fives and expressions of “Cool!” and “Fire Island, here we come!” Suddenly Rachel Cameron heard Anna’s quiet voice. She saw tears in Anna’s eyes as she said, “Thank you, Mr. and Mrs. Cameron, but I don’t think I’ll be able to go. My mother needs my help too much with my little sisters and brothers. I can’t leave her alone for that long.”
Rachel’s eyes softened. She quickly slipped her arm around Anna’s shoulders and gave the girl a squeeze. “It’s okay, Anna. I’ve already spoken to your parents—actually I’ve spoken to your parents, too, Robyn and Pete—and they’ve all given their blessing to our little surprise. Anna, your mom and dad want you to go. They say you are such a big help at home that they think you deserve a vacation. And I’ve already arranged to have a lady I know go over to your house and help your mother for an hour or two each day.”
“Wow! Oh, Mr. and Mrs. Cameron—how can I ever thank you? You are so kind!” Tears slipped down her cheeks as Anna threw her arms around Kristi’s mother. “I can’t believe Mamí and Papí are letting me go! Thank you, thank you!”
“Oh, you are certainly welcome, Sweetie,” Rachel said as she patted the back of Anna’s head. “Mr. Cameron and I are just thankful that our children have such good friends as you and Robyn and Pete. Now, dry those tears! I think we should celebrate with some apple pie á la mode! What do you think?”
The sky grew dark and the yard lights came on while the Cameron family and their friends lingered at the table long into the evening. The last crumbs of apple pie were gone before they rose from the table and continued their happy plans and discussion in the kitchen.
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CHAPTER THREE
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Sky-High Mystery Girl
The girls could hardly believe they were finally at the airport, waiting to board their flight to Hawaii. After a whirlwind week of shopping, packing and making final arrangements, the Cameron family and their friends were only minutes away from taking off into the wild blue yonder!
Anna’s parents embraced her, and her little brothers and sisters crowded around hugging her legs and saying, “Bye, Anna! Bye! We’re going to miss you!” Mrs. Velasquez quietly wiped a tear from her eye as she gave her eldest daughter another hug. “You’ll be careful, Anna, sí? And obey Mr. and Mrs. Cameron?”
“Of course she will, Mrs. Velasquez,” Rachel Cameron said with a smile. “Now don’t you worry about a thing. We’ll take very good care of Anna. We’ll call as soon as we get to the hotel tonight. Would that be okay?”
The baby, Miguel, held out his little arms to Anna. This time it was her turn to wipe away a tear. “Bye-bye, you little angel. Chao, Mamí y Papí Nos vemos!” She turned to the little ones gathered around her. “I’ll bring you back each a surprise, sí?” She kissed the baby and handed him back to her mother, and then picked up her carry-on bag as their flight was called over the loudspeaker.
Robyn was saying goodbye to her parents, also. Mr. and Mrs. DeLong laughed as they tried to catch her long enough to give her a hug and a kiss. Robyn was jumping about in excitement and chattering about hula lessons, surfboards and volcanoes. “Well, I can see we won’t be missed,” Mr. DeLong said with a chuckle to Rachel. “She hasn’t stopped talking for a week now! Take good care of our little girl!”
Pete Bennett’s parents had not been able to come to the airport. They had said their farewells that morning as they headed off to work. Pete was fine with that. He was sixteen, old enough to leave his folks for a while and not feel homesick. He and Dan looked out the windows of the terminal at the jumbo jet that had pulled up to their gate. He quietly questioned Dan, who was an aviation enthusiast like his dad, about several features of the plane that would carry them across the Pacific.
Just then Steve Cameron came striding through the door leading from the boarding ramp. He looked very distinguished in his captain’s uniform, and several heads turned to look at him as he passed by. He had requested this flight to Hawaii. “The most precious cargo in the world—my family—is going to be on board. No one will fly that plane more carefully than I would,” he had explained to his wife the night before. At his request, and since there was space available, the rest of the family and their friends would be sitting in first class all the way.
“Everyone ready?” he asked with a smile as he approached their group. “They’re going to let you all board early so you can get your bags stowed away and get settled before everyone else starts boarding.” He shook hands all around with the other parents, reassuring them that their children would be fine and that they would take special care of them. Before they knew it, the final goodbyes had been said and they were headed down the boarding ramp.
Kristi, Anna and Robyn were excited to find that they had three seats all together in the middle of the first class section. Dan and Pete were across a narrow aisle to their left, and Mrs. Cameron and Skeeter were together across the aisle to their right. They had just settled into their seats when Captain Cameron came back from the cockpit to see how they were doing.
“I know you’d probably like to take a peek inside the cockpit,” he said to the girls. “If you want to, we need to do it now, before they start boarding the other passengers and we get too busy going though our last minute preparations for the flight. Once we leave the gate we can’t let anyone into the cockpit.”
The girls jumped to their feet. “Thanks, Dad!” Kristi beamed. Steve told Dan, Pete and Skeeter to be ready when the girls got back to take their own quick tour. He led the way to the cockpit and stepped back so they could enter ahead of him.
The girls were amazed at the array of instruments everywhere they looked. They gazed through the small windshield and were astonished to see how far off the ground they actually were. Captain Cameron explained to them that they really didn’t need the windshield that much—they flew mostly by their instruments. He introduced them to his co-pilot and the navigator, and asked the head flight attendant to take good care of “his girls” on the long flight to Hawaii.
A few passengers were beginning to trickle onto the plane so the girls headed back to their seats. Kristi suddenly stopped in her tracks. Robyn and Anna, who were following in the narrow aisle, ran into her back. “Ouch!” Robyn exclaimed. “What’s the matter, Kristi? Why did you stop like that?” Kristi didn’t answer.
A girl, about their age, sat three rows behind Dan’s seat. She looked Hawaiian, very pretty—and very scared. She was watching the entrance to the plane, trying to slouch down into her seat and hiding her face behind a magazine. Kristi had seen her eyes for just a moment, though, and saw the terror in them. She looked pale, and the pages of the magazine trembled in her shaking hands. What startled Kristi, however, was the fact that somehow she just knew that she had seen that girl before. She didn’t know where or when, but there was something about the girl that looked very familiar.
Robyn grabbed her arm and gave it a little shake. “What, Kristi? What’s going on?”
“Shh—I’ll tell you later.” Kristi went on to her seat and the other two girls followed. They waved as the boys got up and eagerly pushed their way toward the cockpit in front. As soon as they were gone Kristi leaned over to Anna and Robyn and whispered, “Did you see that Hawaiian girl in the seat a few rows behind Dan? Really pretty, with long dark hair and pretty eyes? She had on a white sundress, I think.”
“No, I didn’t notice, Kristi,” Anna said.
“I wondered who you were staring at, but I didn’t really get a look at her, either,” Robyn said. “Who is she?”
“I don’t know, but there was something a little weird going on, I think. She looked totally scared out of her wits. And somehow I just feel like I’ve seen her before.” Kristi looked troubled. She glanced over at her mother, wondering if she should say something to her.
“Well, maybe she just doesn’t like to fly. And you probably saw her somewhere in the terminal before we boarded the plane,” Robyn reasoned. “There were a lot of people sitting around us in the waiting area.”
“No-o-o,” Kristi said slowly. “That’s not it. I don’t know—I just have a feeling…” Just then they heard a change in the jet engines and the ‘Fasten Your Seatbelt” signs came on. The flight attendants closed and locked the door and began their preflight instructions as the plane slowly backed away from the gate and began its long taxi to the runway. “I know,” Kristi said to her friends. “After we get in the air, why don’t you both try to get a peek at her and see if you recognize her.”
Dan, Pete and Skeeter came back to their seats just then and the girls grew quiet as they waited for takeoff. The deafening whine of the engines made it difficult to talk anyway. As many times as she had flown, Kristi still disliked takeoff most of all. Knowing that her own father was at the controls, though, gave her a sense of peace and she tried to relax in her seat.
Ten minutes later the seatbelt signs went off. Kristi leaned once more towards her friends. “Okay—now, Robyn. Don’t let her see you looking at her, though. Pretend you’re looking for someone.”
Robyn stood and casually looked around the cabin. One of the flight attendants looked over at her. She finally frowned and sat down again. “I didn’t see anyone like the girl you described, Kristi. Did you say she was three rows behind Dan?”
“Yes! She’s sitting by the aisle. Alright, Anna, you take a look now. You’ll recognize her. Remember—really pretty, Hawaiian, white sundress, about our age…”
Anna poked her head up above the seatbacks and looked quickly around. She plopped back into her seat and said, “Sorry, Kristi—I didn’t see her, either. There’s no one sitting in that seat.”
“What?” Kristi exclaimed. “That can’t be! I know I didn’t dream her up! I’ll look for myself.” She got up and slowly began walking down the aisle of the plane, looking from side to side. The seat she had seen the girl in was empty, as Anna had said, and she did not see her in any other seat as she made her way to the back of the plane. Each of the bathrooms on board was empty, except for one, and Kristi waited long enough to see an old man come out of that one. Several people looked curiously at her as she walked past them.
She finally gave up and headed back to her seat in first class, still searching for the mystery girl. Kristi felt a little shiver run down her back. She was sure she had seen her before. And she was just as sure the girl had been terrified. Where had she gone? And how could someone simply disappear from a jumbo jet at 35,000 feet in the air?
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CHAPTER FOUR
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Someone in the Shadows
Kristi stretched as they waited for their baggage at the carousel. It had been a long flight and they had arrived in Hawaii just as the sun was setting. They were all tired, but as they looked out the windows of the terminal and saw palm trees silhouetted against a peachy-orange and golden sky their weariness faded away and the girls began to dance with excitement once again.
“Aloha! Aloha!” Lovely Hawaiian girls greeted them as they placed pretty floral leis around their necks. Bright splashes of color, from the abundant tropical flowers and plants that filled the terminal to the flashy tropical shirts that almost every tourist sported, seemed to renew their energy. Everywhere they looked there were smiles—smiles from eager tourists just arriving and looking forward to a great vacation, and smiles from those on their way home, all relaxed and happy from having already experienced a great vacation.
Captain Cameron joined them at the baggage carousel as they waited for their luggage. “Great flight, Dad!” Dan said as he turned to greet his father. “That was probably the smoothest flight we’ve had yet!” He looked so much like his father that it often made Rachel Cameron smile. Now that he was almost as tall as his dad, the rese
mblance was even closer.
Steve kissed his wife and squeezed Skeeter’s shoulder. “Hey, everyone! Did you enjoy your flight?”
The girls all began chattering at once and even Pete joined in with enthusiasm. Rachel laughed, “I thought these girls were going to talk all the way across the Pacific Ocean but they finally did fall asleep about an hour before we landed! And the guys ate their way across the ocean. It’s a good thing I brought that bag of goodies! I think they even enjoyed the airline food!”
Steve laughed. “Well, I can understand that! I was young once myself and had a hollow leg just like these young fellows! Robyn, Anna—how’d you like your first long airplane ride?”
“Oh, Mr. Cameron! Flying in first class was so cool! Those seats are really comfortable compared to regular airplane seats. And the food actually was good, for once!” Robyn gushed. “We were so happy that we all got to sit together, too. I’d never been in a jumbo jet before.”
Anna smiled shyly at Kristi’s dad. “I was a little scared at first. Actually this was my first time to fly! But it was so smooth that I got over being afraid pretty quickly. We played games and watched the movie, too, which helped.”
Steve turned to his daughter. “How about you, Kristi?” he asked. “Did you have a good time? Kristi? Kristi?”
“Huh? Sorry, Dad—I wasn’t listening,” Kristi admitted. The truth was she had been scanning the crowd, looking once more for the mysterious Hawaiian girl in the white dress. All through the long flight Kristi had searched for her among the passengers on their plane. She had walked the aisles of the plane two more times and coaxed Robyn and Anna into looking for her, too. Kristi knew she had to be there somewhere. She could not have left through the door of the plane before it was closed without walking right past them and Kristi was sure she had not done that. She racked her brain trying to remember where she had seen the girl before.
The Secret of Fire Island (Kristi Cameron Book 1) Page 2