Ava's Story

“I get the window seat,” Maeve said quickly, sitting down before Tariq could protest.

“Maeve—” He trailed off and sat next to her, glancing around him. Planes always made him nervous.

“Ew! I hate these little pillow things!” she said suddenly. Maeve began to take the scratchy sleeve off the small airplane pillow in her seat.

“Don’t do that. It’s not sanitary. Look—” Tariq pointed at little specks of something decorating the fabric inside the sleeve. “That’s from the last user of that pillow.”
“Gross. Never mind.” She began stuffing it back into the sleeve, rubbing her hands on Tariq’s armrest.

“Stop it,” he snapped, elbowing her had away. She sighed and slumped backwards in her seat.

“Is this plane taking off any time soon?” Maeve muttered. She dug into her pocket and retrieved two slightly squishy pieces of gum and handed one to Tariq.

“What’s this for?”
“You put in your mouth and chew. It’s called gum,” she said slowly, in her Tariq-you-are-an-IDIOT voice.

“No, really. Are you just being nice to me and giving me gum?”

“Of course not! Duh, Tariq. Why do you think I would do something like that?”

He waited.

“It’s for takeoff. If you chew gum, your ears don’t pop at the change of altitude.”

“Oh.” Reaching into the pocket on the seat-back in front of him, he pulled out a pair of black earphones wrapped in plastic. They were decorated with a little green shamrock insignia.

At that moment, a message from the pilot sounded throughout the plane. They were taking off.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“Tariq,” Maeve said quietly. He didn’t answer, his eyes glued on the little screen in front of him. He was watching a western movie—True Dirt. Or something like that.

“Tariq!”

He removed his headphones.

“What?”

“Dinner’s about to come. You can get chicken or beef.”
“Ugh. Airplane food. I guess I’ll get beef.” He absentmindedly knocked his plastic cup of water off the tray in front of him with his elbow. It fell on Maeve’s backpack, creating a dark stain.

“Crap! Be careful!” she snapped, bending over to pick up the cup. She tossed it at him.

“Hey!” Tariq began to put his earphones back on.

“What are you watching, anyway?”

“True Grit. It’s good, you should watch it too.”

Maeve had spent the last hour watching Gulliver’s Travels, even though she only sometimes liked Jack Black.

“Look. There’s the dinner cart thing.” She pointed at one of the flight attendants, who was pushing what looked like a rectangular silver box on wheels one aisle over.

“And there’s the dinner.” Tariq nodded at a small tan tray, covered with assorted foil covered little containers.

“That’s it?!”

“Uh-huh…”

“Really?” Maeve looked greatly disappointed. “I didn’t know it would be…like that.”

“When was the last time you were even on a plane?”

She thought. “Um…seven years.”

“Well, that explains it, I guess.”