An Extra-Ordinary Beginning

  Chapter 7 – Turbulence

  As they began their descent, Ursula reflected on the journey. Flying as a passenger was not as exciting as she had hoped. Admittedly the events from earlier had somewhat soured and sweetened, the experience. However, even without these, Ursula had come to the conclusion that flying was not all it was cracked up to be.

  The man at check-in had been polite but suspicious. After Andrea had given him Ursula’s temporary passport, he had looked closely at her and rubbed his hairless chin repeatedly. The photo was unclear, and he did not fully trust the leather clad woman in the ‘The Sisters of Mercy’ T-shirt.

  When he finally made up his mind that he would allow them to travel, he checked them all into row twelve and dismissed them with a gruff, “Have a good flight.”

  The business lounge had been very fancy but, apart from free packaged food and drink, it was still only a dressed-up waiting room and Ursula found it quite boring. Men and women in dark suits sat around reading documents, writing reports or instructing someone else on their mobile phones. When they weren’t doing anything they looked down their noses at Ursula, in her dirty vest top.

  Paris’ Charles de Gaulle Airport was large but was jam-packed with people bustling to-and-fro trying to get from one place to another. They were all being herded like mooing cattle, with worried expressions on their faces and passports in their hands.

  Until Ursula boarded the plane and found her place, she had seen nothing but the backs of the people in front of her and the newspapers they were carrying. When she finally sat down she was able to have a look around. The plane’s interior was light cream with blue seats which looked like leather, but were not. Gradually these seats filled until there were no more spaces left on the plane. In fact, the only place where Ursula had seen similar amounts of people bunched together was on the Champs-Elysées.

  The thought of the Champs-Elysées brought back memories of being chased by the police and Ursula’s heart quickened. She took deep breaths to calm herself and tried to focus on the fact that she was escaping them.

  Being a passenger on an aeroplane was, Ursula decided, dull and monotonous. She was stuck in a long, metal tube without any freedom, which she found very hard to deal with. Normally she loved being above the ground. She could jump, spring, do somersaults and gaze at the world below. But in the aeroplane she was strapped down in her seat unable to move anywhere and surrounded by chattering people who looked down on her. At least they were all quiet now, she thought to herself.

  The plane was silent. If it hadn’t been for the engines, one could have heard a pin drop. Nobody spoke, nobody whispered, and nobody even moved. Every single person was trying to make themselves look invisible while the three stewardesses patrolled the aisle like prison guards. Ursula felt it was probably her fault. She hadn’t meant to cause such a fuss but... enough was enough and she had been forced to act. She wished her grandparents were with her but consoled herself with the thought that at least she had made one friend in the commotion. In an attempt to distract herself further, she looked out of the plate-sized window.

  They were circling above Prague, waiting. As they had arrived late they had missed their landing window and were waiting for ‘the tower,' as the Captain called it, to allow their descent. At least it gave Ursula a chance to continue gazing through the scratched perspex, at the Czech city below.

  From high up in the sky, Prague looked picturesque, like an old model village. A river cut the city in two and flowed under ancient, old and new bridges. Green copper roofs were dotted amongst terracotta ones, and there were spires and towers everywhere. The biggest of them didn’t seem to belong - it looked more like a space rocket than a tower. Ursula thought she would climb it at some point. Surrounding the old centre, like a gigantic grey wall, were ugly apartment blocks. They reminded her of home, and she sighed sadly as she thought of her grandparents.

  “Are those les banlieues of Prague?” she asked Andrea, who was sat rigidly beside her.

  “No,” replied Andrea flatly in a business-like tone, “they are called panelaks. They are apartment blocks similar to those in les banlieues.”

  Andrea could never forget this flight from Paris, and ran through the events again in case she received any unwanted calls from the press. The two children, Eric and Ursula, as well as the adults on the plane, had surprised her so much that she would have to review all her studies on psychology.

  From the moment, Ursula and Eric had met in the Range Rover there were problems. There had been no welcome from Eric; the only introduction had come from Ursula, who really made an effort.

  Eric had been unhappy that Ursula had been sitting in his seat. Andrea had been unaware that Eric ‘had a seat’, but Ursula moved. He had then been upset that his seat belt was dirty. He took great pains to clean it with tissues, and then wiped away imaginary stains from his beige jeans and invisible smears from his light summer jacket.

  During the journey, Eric had ignored Ursula and spoken only to Andrea. He had not uttered a word to Ursula but had referred to her on three separate occasions.

  On the busy motorway, on the way to the airport, they drove past an open sewage works. The putrid smells from the open vats had seeped into the car before Andrea could close the windows. Eric leant forward as far as his seat belt would allow him and pretended to whisper, but his voice was loud.

  “Andrea, that smell really is intolerable, please could you instruct the PPP as to how a bath works and inform her that we expect a higher state of cleanliness in the future.”

  Ursula heard every word but stayed silent.

  When they pulled off the motorway, a small hill-sized rubbish tip could be seen high above a row of bushes. At its entrance was a long forgotten caravan. The plastic door hung from its hinges; windows had been bashed in, and the roof had peeled away from the walls like a tin of beans. Eric pointed towards it.

  “Andrea, please ask the PPP if this is where she comes on holiday?”

  Ursula looked the other way.

  As Andrea parked the Range Rover into the Meyer’s private car park space, Eric tapped her on the shoulder.

  “You had better explain to the PPP that flight is statistically the safest way to travel. I wouldn’t bother explaining the physics of it to her if I were you as I am sure she’ll be lost after the word thrust.”

  These comments continued at check-in, in the business lounge and into the aeroplane. Andrea was surprised at how unrelenting Eric had been with his remarks. However, she had been even more surprised at Ursula’s lack of response. That was until they were above Germany.

  The other passengers on the plane were chirpy. Tourists were chatting happily to their neighbours; lovers were kissing, business people were working on their laptops and the stewardesses had just begun to serve food. Andrea was sat between the children with Eric by the aisle and Ursula in the window seat.

  A tall, blonde stewardess placed a pre-packaged lunch on Eric’s and Andrea’s fold-down tables. As she leant across them to give Ursula her lunch, Eric nudged her. It wasn’t a big nudge, but enough for the stewardess to drop the package. The food landed upside down on Ursula’s table and spilt out of the pack like a splat of vomit. Carrots, sliced potato, stringy meat and a pepper sauce covered the table in a sloppy mess. Eric apologized innocently to the stewardess and Ursula did not move. Accepting Eric’s apology, the stewardess took a green cloth from the trolley. She leant across Eric and Andrea again, to clear up the mess, but Eric took her arm.

  “Don’t worry, it is still a better meal than mummy and daddy...,” He stopped and for a moment looked genuinely apologetic for what he had said. “I meant to say. It is still a better meal than her grandparents have ever served her.”

  To her right Andrea felt Ursula flinch. To her left she watched Eric relax, let go of the stewardess and continue eating. Andrea knew instantly that Eric had hacked into her computer again as there were no other re
cords on Ursula’s family. Before Andrea could decide what to do, events moved so quickly that she barely had time to log them.

  While the last scraps of slop were being cleared away from Ursula’s table she undid her seat belt silently. The stewardess moved away, and Ursula pounced up onto the top of her chair like a cat.

  “I say,” blurted out the man behind, spraying food all over himself.

  Ursula bounced away from him to the chair behind Eric. She landed with a foot on each of the arm rests and her bottom in the face of a prim and proper lady who froze.

  “Mon dieu!” cried another man, and he was joined by a chorus of fellow passengers who were vocal in their astonishment.

  Ursula grabbed Eric’s hair, yanked his head back with one hand and swiped the stewardess’ dirty cloth with the other. Before the stewardess realized, the cloth had gone, and it had been smeared all over Eric’s face. Carrot dangled from his eyelashes; potato mashed against his teeth; the meat was rammed up his nose and his skin took on a peppery glow.

  Hopping down from the chair Ursula apologized to the woman behind, who was still frozen, and looked down the plane towards the tail. A sea of shocked faces stared back at her. They did not look welcoming, so she spun around, slipped past the trolley, ducked under the stewardess’ legs and walked towards the front of the plane. A secure looking door opened, and another stewardess came out. Assuming it was a toilet, Ursula dived in and shut the door behind her. It wasn’t a toilet. It was the cockpit.

  Just after the door closed the plane hit an air pocket, and then another, and then another. It rose and fell like a rickety roller coaster.

  Somebody near the front of the plane shouted, “Terrorist!”

  Somebody else screamed, “We’re being hijacked!”

  Then there was uproar. Nobody seemed to notice that the plane was now flying normally again.

  Andrea looked around herself; she found this whole situation baffling. Meanwhile, Eric cleared food from his face and ignored the commotion around him. After all, this whole situation was hardly his fault, he thought to himself.

  On the flight deck, a kind-eyed Captain, with smiling wrinkles and a bushy, salt and pepper moustache, turned to face his unexpected guest. Ursula stood transfixed, like a rabbit caught in car headlights.

  “Hello,” he greeted in a deep, kind voice, “I am Captain Hudson. May I ask if you have ever been on a flight deck before?”

  “No,” Ursula replied, “I thought it was the toilet.”

  Captain Hudson and his first officer laughed.

  “Do you need the toilet?” he asked warmly.

  “No.”

  Captain Hudson grinned like Ursula’s Granddad and said slowly with a glint in his eye, “Then this is a very curious situation we find ourselves in.”

  Unable to stop herself Ursula told the Captain everything that had happened to her during the day, from leaving her grandparents to arriving on the flight deck. Captain Hudson listened sympathetically, his ears pricking up when he heard the name ‘Meyer.’

  “Curious,” he said, lost in thought. “After all these years.”

  Ursula did not understand his reaction but was prevented from asking about it by the first officer, an orange-haired lady who spoke urgently, “Captain we have a problem.”

  She held out a slender finger and pointed at a monitor showing the inside of the plane and the panicking passengers. Ursula glimpsed at it before returning to gaze at the Captain.

  “Oh dear,” said Captain Hudson calmly and, without rushing, picked up the microphone. “This is your Captain speaking,” he said slowly in French and looked at the monitor.

  People were still screaming and jumping up and down in their chairs like monkeys in a zoo. No one heard his announcement even when he increased the volume.

  “Oh dear,” he repeated.

  Unbuckling his seat belt, he stood up. Ursula remained transfixed and admired his uniform. It was a deep blue, with brass buttons and yellow stripes on the shoulders. Underneath the jacket he wore a crisp, white shirt and an Air France tie.

  One day, she hoped, I will be able to wear something like this.

  Reaching out, the Captain took his peaked hat from behind the door and, instead of putting it on his own head, placed it gently on Ursula’s.

  “You’re the Captain now,” he told Ursula, shuffled her towards his Captain’s seat and sat her down.

  In front of her was an instrument panel covered in soft switches, six digital displays, flashing lights, levers, throttle and two sticks which Ursula thought looked like ones used to play computer games.

  Above the panel, three windows joined together to give a one hundred and eighty degree view of the outside world. Ursula thought it was probably the best view she had ever seen. Kilometres and kilometres of vast, empty blue were laid out in front of her. Little, cotton wool clouds were dotted upon it and, in the distance, was a white line that another aeroplane had drawn across the sky. Ursula sat and marvelled. She now knew what she wanted to do when she was older.

  “You had better instruct our new Captain what some of these buttons do,” he told the First Officer and winked. He placed a lumpy finger on a yellow button and whispered in Ursula’s ear, “Whatever you do don’t touch this one.”

  “Is it the ejector seat?” asked Ursula innocently.

  “No, it’s the loop-the-loop button. Very messy, you’ll have food and drink everywhere. First Officer Auteil, please inform Prague we will be slightly late,” he instructed and left the flight deck.

  The scene in the main body of the plane was one that he had not witnessed in thirty-two years of flying. Apart from the petite lady in leather and the boy with an obvious chip on his shoulder, it was hysterical.

  Somebody spotted him and shouted, “It’s the Captain. The terrorist is in charge of the plane!”

  Oh dear, thought Captain Hudson, if they are going to act like children then I had better treat them as such.

  He picked up the cabin telephone, switched it to the speakers, put an index finger to his lips and shh-ed. On his third attempt, he had silence. Slowly and calmly he explained what had happened, told everyone off for acting stupidly and afterwards knelt down beside Eric.

  For a few seconds, he just stared at Eric as if he knew him. His eyes glazed over, and he was lost in private thoughts. Eric coughed, falsely like his father, and a returning memory brought Captain Hudson back to the present.

  Placing a strong hand on Eric’s shoulder, he introduced himself. He explained that he had just become Ursula’s guardian angel and that Eric should think very carefully about what he says and does to her in the future. While he was doing this, he winked knowingly at Andrea, who secretly nodded. Eric did not know what to say. He was not used to being told off and was left doing an impression of a goldfish.

  Captain Hudson returned to the cockpit and, interrupting the flying lesson, gave Ursula his phone number, in case of emergencies, and asked her nicely to return to her seat. Eric said nothing as Ursula stepped over him to her chair. He was deep in thought, reflecting on the day’s events. As the plane began its descent, he was still reflecting. Walking through passport control and customs, he was still reflecting. And when they got into a silver Range Rover, identical to the one in Paris, he was still reflecting.

  It had been one of the worst days ever but also one of the most intriguing. Before leaving the Parisian apartment, he had been forced to say goodbye to his parents. As they could not be bothered to spend eight months with him, he didn’t see why he had to be bothered to spend eight seconds saying goodbye to them.

  Eight months! Eight months!

  The thought kept circling around his head like a needle on a record. It was almost the same length of time as a woman is pregnant or the football season or a school year. In spite of the anger he had felt, he had almost cried as he walked out of the apartment and got into the Range Rover. He tried not to look at his parents, as Andrea drove away,
but he found himself craning his neck to stare back until they were completely out of sight. His last view was of them standing beside each other on the marble entrance in front of the concierge. His mother dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief, his father pulling her close and them both waving, almost desperately, at him. He tried to fix this picture in his brain. For eight months, he would not see them and already it seemed like forever.

  From the Meyer’s apartment, they went directly to meet with the PPP. When they arrived in Saint-Denis Eric decided it was best to wait near the Range Rover in case of car-jacking. He also had no desire to enter the building to meet the street urchin. A police car was parked nearby, and he decided to hang around it for protection. While he waited he talked in French with the two officers. During a break in the conversation, he looked up and saw something fascinating. He tried to show the policemen, but they were too interested in their newspapers and croissant to pay any attention.

  The PPP had fallen from the roof to the floor below that and the one below that and so on until she reached the ground. He knew of only one gymnast in the world who could do something similar, and he was in the Chinese Olympic team.

  From the moment he met her; Eric was deliberately mean to the PPP but despite all his best sarcastic comments he had failed to make her react. That was until he had mentioned her parents on the plane. This was a useful weapon which he would not forget in a hurry. At school, he could wind up most children with a few chosen words but the PPP was obviously made of sterner stuff. However, he had found a chink in her armour which he would use again when needed. It had even been worth the food make-up and the lecture from the Captain to discover it.

  There was something else about her that fascinated him. The PPP’s speed and agility when she covered his face in food was remarkable. She had been as fast as him on a gym mat, as balanced as him on the beam and as strong as him on the hoops. He could think of only two or three gymnasts who came close to his talent, but the PPP looked annoyingly like an equal. Maybe she did solve the puzzle as well and maybe she was as skilful mentally as she was physically. These were all things to think about and investigate further while she was around.

  Slowly, and worryingly, an unwelcome feeling of admiration grew inside his head. He did not want it there, but it would not go away.

  Just because I admire what she did, he thought, doesn’t mean I have to like her.

  She had replaced his parents. If Andrea had not found her, maybe his parents would not have left him so eagerly. Bitter thoughts towards the PPP pushed the admiring ones to the back of his head. If it were not for the PPP, his parents would be there. They would not have gone. So, if he could get rid of her then they would have to come back. Eric had found his mission, and he made it his goal to achieve it.

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