Fearless Read Online Free PDF Page A

Bubble stiffened his back.
    “We’re going to be landing soon,” Lisa said.
    “At an airport?” the man in front of her asked.
    As if he heard, the captain came on: “We’re cleared for landing at…” She couldn’t hear the airport’s name. “Flight attendants, prepare for emergency landing.”
    Right away Lisa began to yell at them. Carla could see two other flight attendants forward of Lisa do the same as her, shouting with their arms full of shoes—red, black, brown, white, yellow—like a bathtub full of Bubble’s toy boats. Lisa shouted: “Bend over, put your head in your lap. Stay down until the plane comes to a complete stop and then find the nearest emergency exit.”
    The plane took another dive down. Recklessly down. Carla yanked the squirming Bubble against her and winced at the proximity of the earth: “Too close!” she pleaded to the porthole.
    They swooped up from the land. But that was sickening also. Her stomach levitated up from her pelvis to her throat, while the rest of her was pinned down, paralyzed.
    “Cut it out!” Carla said, addressing her advice to the captain. She couldn’t help feeling that he was behaving like a macho teenager, intentionally doing crazy stunts in his souped-up car to scare the girls in the backseat.
    Lisa was almost flipped by the plane’s action. Her knees gave out. She stayed on her feet by grabbing the headrests. The shoes spilled all over, under and around the nearby rows.
    “Come on, baby,” Carla said and pulled at Bubble, trying to get him off her and into the empty seat. His hands and sneakers clung to her clothes like pasta drying on the edges of the boiling pot. There was no one available to help. Lisa and the passengers nearby were preoccupied by picking up the scattered shoes. People made their motions in a quick and jerky manner, nervous that the plane was about to take them for another dip on the roller coaster.
    “Come on, Bubble!” She pried one of his gluey hands off. But when Carla reached for the other hand, he stuck it to her again. “I don’t have time for games!” she yelled into his chubby determined face.
    “No,” he said calmly.
    She shoved him into the seat rudely.
    “Ow!” he complained and kicked at her with his tiny sneakers.
    She grabbed the heavy buckle of the seat belt and pressed it into his puffy belly, pinning him down while she hunted for its mate. What good is this! she yelled silently to herself so as not to scare her son. It’s no infant seat. He’ll get cut in half . She found the other end and locked him in.
    Bubble kicked out his legs, scrunched his shoulders, and let himself slide down, wriggling so that his legs and his stomach slithered off the edge of the seat and the belt came up to his chest and neck.
    “No!” Carla cried in despair. She pushed at his dangling feet to move him up. It was as hopeless as attempting to put toothpaste back into the tube. His rubbery two-year-old body squashed together for an instant, oozing back down the instant she stopped.
    Another swoop…down…
    Carla twisted her neck to glance out the window. A highway—looking very hard and firm—rushed at her…
    The plane swooped up and the gray pavement was gone. Carla flopped back and lost Bubble altogether. He slid until hooked by the armpits. There was frantic activity in the plane. The flight attendants were shouting, pointing. The shoes they had gathered were gone. Where?
    Hurry! she scolded herself. She didn’t have much time. God knows what disaster would happen next. Problems jumped at her out of nowhere, the way they do in nightmares, and there seemed to be a diabolic presence thwarting any progress. She was back at the beginning: the seat belts were endangering Bubble, not protecting him.
    Carla decided to try another method. She pulled Bubble up by the arms.
    “No!” he shouted. His cheeks were bloated with stubbornness; his tiny lips disappeared into a pout of refusal.
    She slammed Bubble against the seat,