Getting Air
Page 11
It turned out that after our plane crashed, a laptop computer owned by the hijackers was found in the trunk of their rental car which was parked at the airport. It contained documents that showed they were planning to crash the plane into the dome of the United States Capitol, which is nearly three hundred feet above the base of the building. Congress was in session at the time, and, if the hijackers had succeeded, they could have wiped out the United States government!
We also found out that as our plane was coming down, we were traveling almost the length of three football fields every second. If we had been in the air for a few more minutes, we would have smashed into a small town. Who knows how many people would have died?
We weren’t just six survivors. We were six heroes in the war on terror.
The day after we were rescued, the video that Officer Cavanaugh shot of us skating was played over and over again on CNN, MSNBC, Good Morning America, the Today show, and just about every news program in the world. I guess three guys dressed up like old ladies and skating a halfpipe made out of a downed plane must have captured the interest of the media. Everybody wanted to know all about the Woodpushers.
What happened after that was better than any fantasy I could have dreamed up. Our picture was on the front page of every newspaper in America. We went on The Tonight Show. We were invited to the White House. We were honored guests at the X Games. They had a parade for us in New York City. Kids were all over us asking for autographs, like we were real celebrities.
Before the plane crash, all I’d ever wanted was for some skateboard company to sponsor the Woodpushers so we’d get some free T-shirts and boards and stuff. Now, companies were falling all over themselves trying to give us money. Henry got sponsored by some company that paid him a fortune to put his name on helmets and pads that looked like they were made out of tree bark. David signed a deal to endorse an energy drink for extreme athletes.
The girls were heroes too. Arcadia got hired to be the spokesperson for United Airlines. She also received about a million marriage proposals after guys saw her on TV. Julia got a full scholarship to any college in the United States. And she’s not even in high school yet! Companies that make laxatives, wheelchairs, denture cream, and other products for senior citizens were tripping all over each other trying to sign up Mrs. Herschel. She was on a reality TV show with Snoop Dogg too.
And me, well, let’s just say I did pretty well for myself. My dad and I patented his titanium skateboard design and we formed a company together called Woodpushers, Inc. I was the star in the Woodpushers TV commercials we shot. Soon kids all over America were buying so many Woodpushers boards that we were having trouble keeping up with the demand. It was sort of like when baseball bats used to be made of wood and then they switched to metal. I’m not allowed to say how much money we’ve made, but we had to hire a team of accountant guys in suits because there was so much money pouring in that we didn’t know what to do with it.
Oh, yeah, one more cool thing happened. This editor from Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers called me up and asked if I wanted to write a book about the Woodpushers. So I did.
In fact, you just read it.