Touch the Sky (Young Underground #8)

by Robert Elmer

  “Too fast, Peter!” Matthias warned him.

  “Where are the brakes?” Peter asked.

  “Flaps,” said Matthias. “To my left. Crank out the flaps.”

  Elise pointed at a small crank on the left side, under the window.

  “That’s it!” Peter reached across, grabbed the crank, and turned it. The back edges of the wings pointed down toward the water. Almost instantly, the plane slowed and dropped more quickly.

  Elise looked out the window. “We’re almost—”

  The jolt of the plane hitting the water jerked them nearly out of their seats, and Peter tried desperately to keep the steering stick steady.

  “Slower!” screamed Elise as they skipped up off the water. They hit hard again, then again. Peter lost track of which way was up. Another jolt, another skip, and somehow they were still upright. Peter opened his eyes to see the dock directly in front of them, coming up fast, just before they felt another jolt and heard a sickening crash.

  18

  Out of the Waters

  “Are you all right?” Peter looked back at his sister. Or rather, down. The way the plane had come to rest, she was sitting below him, and the airplane was tilted at a crazy angle, almost like a rocket on a launching pad.

  Peter wiggled his shoulders to make sure everything was working. As far as he could tell, they had skipped up on the shore and somehow wedged to a stop next to the dock. The tail of the plane was buried in the beach, and the nose was pointed into the air. At least the engine had quit, and for a moment, everything was still.

  “Help!” Peter yelled, shoving open the pilot‑side door. “We need some help! Kurt, are you out there?”

  No one answered.

  Peter and Elise tried to keep Matthias from falling over, and Peter looked out again to see if anyone was coming. A few yards away, Marianne was looking out from behind a bush with wide eyes.

  “Marianne!” yelled Peter. “We need some help getting Matthias out of the plane. He’s hurt bad!”

  Marianne jumped out of her hiding place and hurried over to the plane, but the astonished expression remained on her face.

  “Peter? How did you get in there?”

  “I don’t have time to explain. Matthias—”

  “But we saw you fall off the plane,” she interrupted. “Henrik went out to get you in our rowboat.”

  Peter glanced at the boat far out in the middle of the water, and his heart nearly stopped. Broken Nose was out there!

  “You can’t help Henrik right now, Peter,” Elise said. “We have to get Matthias to a doctor. We can’t let him lie here and bleed to death.”

  Matthias groaned, and Peter knew Elise was right. Matthias needed help right away. Maybe Mr. Broken Nose would swim to shore on his own before Henrik reached him. It was a long way to swim, especially for someone who had just been pushed out of an airplane, but there was a chance.

  “Okay,” he nodded. “Let’s roll him out of the plane, Elise. Watch out for his glasses. Marianne and I will get him from the outside. Where’s Kurt? And Hector? I thought he was hurt, too.”

  Marianne shook her head. “Hector’s okay. The gun just scared him. They ran to get help as soon as you took off in the plane.”

  The airplane groaned and shivered as they struggled to pull Matthias out of his seat. Elise paused.

  “Are we okay?” she asked the other two.

  Peter looked at the way the plane was balanced against a piling, the way the tail had dragged into the mud.

  “Looks pretty tipsy,” he told her. “If it falls back down, just hold on.”

  “Got his legs,” Marianne said.

  “It’s shifting!” warned Elise. “We’re falling back!”

  The plane didn’t fall as quickly as Peter had feared but slid back upright, like an elevator reaching the ground floor. The wing support Marianne was holding twisted loose, though, while Elise hopped out of the plane and helped them set Matthias down on the beach.

  “Okay,” Elise said. “Now we have to get him to a doctor.”

  Marianne bent over to listen to his breathing. “I wish Kurt had known when he ran off to get help. He could have called Dr. Knudsen.”

  “I think he’s in shock or something,” said Elise. “We can’t wait for the doctor to come to us.”

  “Then we have to get him out of here ourselves.” Peter looked around at the beach for ideas, when a huge animal shot out of the woods and bounded toward them.

  “Hector!” shouted Marianne. The dog barked joyfully and nearly bowled them over.

  “Down!” cried Marianne, but Hector only buried them in sloppy kisses. When he discovered Matthias, he dragged his huge pink tongue right across the man’s face.

  “Hector, stop!” Marianne did her best to pull her dog away while Hector barked one of his chest‑thumping barks.

  Matthias seemed to jerk, and he looked up at them in surprise. “Either you’re angels,” he croaked, “or Peter Andersen somehow landed my plane safely.”

  Matthias grimaced and looked at his shoulder, then touched a hand to the bandage. “I think I am not in heaven,” he said.

  Peter nodded. “We sort of crash‑landed into the dock.”

  “Not bad for a beginner,” said Matthias with a weak smile. “But here, help me up, and maybe I can walk.”

  “You need to stay down, Matthias,” warned Elise, but the man only shook his head.

  “Where is that fellow with the crooked nose? Last thing I remember, he was falling out the passenger door of my plane.”

  Peter pointed out toward the middle of the bay. “Marianne said they all thought it was me who fell out of the plane. Henrik went out in a rowboat to get me.”

  Matthias gave Peter a puzzled look. “You’re telling me Henrik is out there alone?”

  “Uh...” Peter didn’t know what to say. “It took us a few minutes to get you out of the plane, and we wanted to make sure you were all right. We thought you were in shock or something. You need a doctor.”

  Matthias looked at his shoulder and winced. “I am not in shock, and I am not the problem right now. The problem is your friend out there in a rowboat with Abu Ladin.”

  “Abu who?” Elise sounded confused. She, too, looked out at the water with a worried expression.

  “Abu Ladin,” replied Matthias. “The fellow who tried to take our plane. He’s a Syrian agent.”

  Peter whistled, but he knew there wasn’t time for explanations. “Are you really okay, Matthias?”

  “I didn’t exactly say that, young man, but I’m not going to die, if that’s what you were thinking. The bleeding is slowing down.”

  “Is there another boat I could take to chase him?” Peter asked.

  “Our neighbor has one a little way down the beach,” Marianne pointed. “But Dad should be here any minute.”

  “Okay,” replied Peter. “Elise, tell Uncle Harald they have to drive around to the other side of the bay. That must be where that Abu guy is going. I’m going to take the other boat.”

  “I didn’t mean for you to go out there, Peter,” objected Matthias, but Peter was already running.

  “Tell Dad where I went, Elise,” Peter yelled back. He glanced around to see his sister look uncertainly at their cousin and Matthias, then back at him.

  “Wait up, Peter!” she yelled. “I’m not going to let you go out there by yourself.”

  Peter wasn’t quite sure what to look for, but as he and Elise ran down the beach they checked behind piles of driftwood. It suddenly occurred to Peter what his sister was doing.

  “Elise, you’re not allowed to run!”

  Elise stopped in her tracks. “Too late. I just found the boat, I think.”

  When Peter reached where she was standing, they saw what looked like an open fishing boat, big enough for three or four people, pulled up on the edge of the beach beyond the high tide line of seaweed. The boat seemed to be covered more with fish scales than with paint, and it smelled like a cod that had been sitting out
too long in the sun. Quickly, they dragged it out into the water.

  “Outboard motor,” Peter noted.

  “Looks too old to work.”

  “It’ll work.” Peter sounded more sure than he felt. “Has to.”

  Peter waded into the water up to his waist and flopped into the bottom of the boat.

  “I’ll get us going with the oars,” said Elise.

  “No!” he told her. “You’ve already done enough.”

  “Look, you just get the motor going. I’ll get us away from the shore. Henrik’s out there, remember?”

  Peter only paused for a moment before they traded places in the ancient fishing boat. There was no time to argue. After Elise dropped the oars in place, she began rowing toward the middle of the bay. At the same time, Peter quickly wound the starter rope around the cereal‑bowl‑sized flywheel on the top of the motor, adjusted the controls, and pulled.

  “Keep trying,” Elise urged him, and he rewound the rope.

  “Come on,” Peter urged the motor. “Start!”

  “Does it have any gas, Peter?”

  Peter unscrewed the top of the small black cylinder on the back of the engine, peered inside, and groaned.

  “Not much.”

  “But there is some.” Elise gave another pull on the oars.

  They were making good time, but they were still far from Henrik’s boat. Peter gave another tug, then another, and another. Still the rusty, old engine refused to start. By about the tenth try, Peter’s arm was starting to feel yanked out of its socket.

  “Maybe it’s not going to start,” Elise said quietly. “You want to take a turn at the oars?”

  “We’re never going to catch up with him rowing,” Peter shot back. He wiped his brow and tried once more. This time, a sputter.

  “There it goes!” he cried. Two more yanks and the motor roared to life, sending the boat surging forward. Peter nearly flew over the back end, but Elise caught him by his swimsuit.

  “Hold on!” Peter said, falling back into the boat. He grabbed the steering handle, sat down, and scanned the water ahead.

  “I knew it would work,” he panted. “I just knew it.”

  Elise pulled her oars back in, stowed them under her seat, and crawled to the front of the boat to serve as lookout.

  “Straight ahead!” she called back, but Peter could see the little boat ahead in the distance, too. “He’s almost reached the other side of the bay.”

  Peter squinted. “Yeah, but does it look like Henrik?”

  Elise said nothing for several minutes as they drew nearer, then shook her head. “That’s not him rowing.”

  “That’s what I was afraid of. Watch the water for Henrik.”

  A few minutes later, they reached the halfway point across the big bay, but no Henrik. On the far side, the man in the rowboat had almost reached shore.

  “He’s going to get away, just like that,” Peter groaned.

  “Well, what were we going to do? Ram the boat? What if he still has his gun?”

  “I thought of that.”

  “We’d better think about finding Henrik instead.” Elise scanned the water once more. “Try off there to the left.”

  Peter turned, but still he could see no sign of their friend. “He’s obviously not in the rowboat. I sure hope we don’t have to look for him the way we had to look for you back at the lake.”

  “Don’t say that, Peter.”

  “But I don’t see him, Elise. Don’t you think...”

  “Up there!” She pointed straight ahead, beyond where they had at first thought Henrik might be. But there it was—a hand was waving at them from the water.

  “Henrik!” Peter cut the motor when they were almost on top of their friend, and they drifted up next to him. He was grinning and waving.

  “I thought you’d never get here,” Henrik told them as Elise helped pull him over the side. He sat in the bottom of the boat for a minute, breathing hard.

  “Boy, am I glad...” began Peter. “I was starting to think we might not find you.”

  Henrik shook his head like a dog, took a deep breath, and leaned his head back. “I go out to save you, and you end up saving me.”

  “But didn’t you know it wasn’t me?” Peter asked.

  “Not until I was right up next to him. He was low in the water, and when I reached down to grab him, and he just pulled me in. As if he was waiting. Then he punched me right here, crawled up into my boat, and rowed away.”

  Henrik pointed to his eye, which was swollen and bruised.

  “You couldn’t stop him?” wondered Peter.

  “Stop him? Once he got into the boat, he started swinging the oars at me, and he almost hit me right on the head. Mr. Broken Nose is one mean guy.”

  “Matthias said his real name is Abu Ladin,” Elise reported. “And he was going to sink the immigrant ship somehow. Probably one of those suicide missions.”

  They looked toward the beach on the far side of the bay.

  “There, see him?” asked Henrik. He pointed at the boat, and they could see Abu Ladin drift toward the beach, jump out into the shallows, and wade ashore. No one else was in sight.

  “He’s going to get away,” Elise said.

  “No he’s not.” Peter turned back to the engine, rewound the starter rope, and gave it a mighty tug. This time it started on the first try, and they shot ahead toward the shallower water. The tide was finally starting to turn, showing the edges of mud flats and shallow areas along the shore.

  “What are you doing?” Elise asked. “We can’t go chasing after him.”

  “Well, we can’t just let him go.”

  “But what would we do if we caught him?”

  Peter wasn’t exactly sure how to answer his sister. All he knew was that he was going to get closer.

  “This must be what a moth feels like flying into a flame,” Henrik muttered.

  “He’s running off into the woods,” Elise reported a few minutes later from the front of the boat. They were within a stone’s throw of the shore, and the man disappeared as they watched.

  “We could follow his footprints,” Henrik suggested as they drifted into the Ringsteds’ old rowboat with a little bump.

  Elise held on to the back end of the rowboat, then pointed at the woods. “I don’t think we need to do that. Look who’s coming back!”

  Abu Ladin sprinted out of the woods straight toward them, and the look on his face was enough to turn Peter’s blood cold. A second later, another shape exploded from the bushes, and instantly they understood why the man was running.

  “Hector!” said Peter and Elise at the same time.

  “Let’s pull the boat back into deeper water,” Henrik yelled. “Hold on to it, Elise!”

  Elise looked over her shoulder for an instant. The running man would be upon them in less time than it took to explain. Peter didn’t even have time to tell the others that there was no reverse on the old outboard motor. He tried to turn them to the side, but the propeller scooped into the muddy bottom of the bay.

  “Reverse!” cried Elise. She pulled back as the man jumped into the water and reached for their boat.

  “What do we do, Peter?” asked Henrik. It was too late to push out and escape, and Peter had no intention of wrestling Abu Ladin.

  Instead of grabbing their boat, though, the man pitched over into the shallow water face first, with Hector riding on his back. Peter wasn’t quite sure if the dog was serious, but the growl sounded like the real thing.

  “Hector!” shouted their Uncle Harald as he ran across the beach toward them. Uncle Morten was right beside him, a coil of rope in his hands.

  A moment later, they were all thrashing around in the shallow water. Abu Ladin was squirming like an angry alligator, Hector was keeping close watch over his catch, and Uncle Morten and Uncle Harald were yelling out instructions to each other. Peter, Elise, and Henrik could only watch helplessly from their boat, rocking just inches from the contest.

  Then, as s
uddenly as it had started, it was all over. Uncle Harald and Uncle Morten pulled Abu Ladin from the water and up onto the beach. Hector followed, trotting alongside and nipping at the sputtering man’s heels. Abu Ladin kicked his feet but couldn’t get away from the enormous dog.

  19

  To the Pilot

  “One more toast!” announced Grandfather Andersen, raising his glass of orange soda. He stood next to the makeshift table they had set up in the Ringsteds’ backyard, and his red cheeks glowed. “To Denmark’s best pilot!”

  Peter blushed and shook his head but smiled as the others applauded. Matthias clapped with his one good hand against his leg, his right arm in a sling.

  “Speech!” Henrik cheered, but Peter only waved his friend off with a smile. After their picnic dinner, his two uncles had already given speeches, and Pastor Kai had said something to the dinner group, also. It was almost like a wedding, all the speeches.

  Of course, that was the way Danish people liked it. Lots of speeches. Grandfather had stood up and told everyone how proud he was of his grandchildren. Uncle Morten and the twins’ father had said a few words, too.

  Peter even heard Henrik telling his mother that morning about how he had decided to follow the Messiah, and that he wanted to be baptized. But instead of getting upset, as Peter had expected, she only looked at her son and sighed. Uncle Morten, it turned out, had already told her what had happened. “I don’t quite understand it,” Mrs. Melchior had told her son, “but I suppose you’re old enough to make those kinds of decisions.”

  That had been the last thing Peter had expected her to say. But then, nothing else had turned out the way he had expected, either.

  Peter smiled when he looked around at the little sea of faces at the dinner party: Henrik and his mother; Matthias; Elise and their parents; their cousins Kurt and Marianne; Uncle Harald and Aunt Hanne; Uncle Morten and Lisbeth; Pastor Kai and Mrs. Steffensen with their little boy, Jakob, plus Johanna. And then, of course, there was Hector. Their dinner party had been delayed a day because of all the excitement, and now it was time to celebrate.

  “A‑hem.” Matthias cleared his throat and tapped the side of his glass with a spoon, and everyone quieted down. A couple of sheep in the fields behind the barn called out, and one of them sounded almost like a baby crying.