She wiggled her fingers in the air over her head then leaned closer. “Darrell, kind of a mystery, no? Bottom line, you and me will have to stick together to stay sane.”
Becca laughed. “Deal.”
Dr. Kaplan came in to retrieve his notebook. When he saw the girls, he breathed out a kind of sad laugh. “Sorry, not the best reason to go to Europe. You should stuff what you need into a carry-on. We need to travel light. Two days max, and we’re home.”
“Already done, Uncle Roald,” Lily said with a smile.
For Becca it was easy. Three tops, extra jeans, sweater, assorted junk, comb, small bag, book. While everyone ran around gathering last-minute things and setting timers and locking and relocking doors, she watched Wade carefully pack the decoded email and the star chart in the leather folder and slip it into his backpack as calmly as if he were a kind of planet and they were all moons orbiting him.
Beep!
Lily gasped. “Taxi! Here we go!”
The first flight they’d been able to book from Austin-Bergstrom International was United Airways Flight 766, leaving at 12:15 p.m. After a layover in Washington, D.C., to change planes, they were due to arrive in Berlin just before eleven o’clock the next morning, meaning they’d have to rush to be at the Alter St.-Matthäus cemetery on time.
The airport was a madhouse. Becca knew it would be and steeled herself against the noise as best she could. Anywhere crowded made her feel a little crazy and a little edgy. So many people, so many eyes. From the moment they entered the terminal, she didn’t think, she didn’t listen, she just followed Lily through ticketing and security.
“I’ve done this a few times,” Lily whispered to her as they hustled along. “You see all kinds of people in airports. The best advice I can give? Don’t make eye contact.”
“I normally don’t,” Becca said. “Anywhere.”
Lily laughed. “I noticed. It’s fine. I’ll tell you when it’s okay to look up. We’ll be at the gate soon. You can relax. Gawk at Wade or something.”
“Gawk?”
“Kidding!” Lily laughed halfway down the next hallway.
Wade? Was it obvious? NO EYE CONTACT!
Minutes later they arrived at the gate. Keeping her head low, Becca sat next to Lily, immediately opened her backpack, and slipped out her book. It was a big one, guaranteed to take days. Reading, if it was possible at all, was the best for turning off the noise.
She opened to page 190. Chapter XXXII.
Already we are boldly launched upon the deep; but soon we shall be lost in its unshored, harborless immensities.
Odd line to be reading just now, she thought.
“A little light reading?” said Darrell, from the seat next to her in the waiting area. “Is that a history of the universe or something?”
“No …”
Wade tilted his head to read the title. “Moby-Dick, by Herman Melville. That’s a guy’s quest to find a giant whale, isn’t it? But then he finds the whale, the ship sinks, and everybody dies?”
“Not everybody,” said Becca. “This is my second time through.”
“Actually,” said Darrell, “my mom once worked with a manuscript by Herman Melville. Dickens too. Well, everybody. After Bolivia, she’s flying to New York to talk to Terence Somebody about donating his stuff to the university library. She’s the chief archivist in the rare books department.”
Becca flicked a glance up at him and smiled. “I know. Your mom is so cool.”
Darrell beamed. “I made her my mom, you know. She was just a regular person before I came along.”
Wade squinted at him. “You have such a weird take on stuff.”
The first boarding call was announced and Dr. Kaplan sat up. “I’m calling Sara again, just to touch base and tell her what we’re up to.”
It was clear that Wade’s father was worried about doing such a huge thing without his wife’s input. That was kind of nice. They seemed really close, and Becca figured they must talk about everything. But not this time. The call went to voice mail again. He talked for a bit, asked her at least to text, and closed the phone.
“Mrs. Kaplan will get the message before we get to Washington,” she said, “and you can talk to her during the layover.”
“Oh, go ahead and call her Sara,” Darrell said. “Everybody but me does.”
“Thanks,” Dr. Kaplan said, smiling just like a dad, she thought. “Do call her Sara. And me Uncle Roald, or just plain Roald. I’ll tell you, I will feel better when she knows exactly what we’re doing.”
Which is … going to Europe! she screamed inside.
“Passengers for Flight Seven Sixty-Six to Washington, D.C., and those continuing on to Berlin, we are now boarding group three.”
Twenty minutes later, as the plane was taxiing into position for takeoff, Wade and Darrell leaned all over each other—and Lily—to get the best view of the city while they took off. It was the last thing Becca wanted to look at. She didn’t mind riding in cars. She kind of liked buses. Trains she really loved. Giant birds made of heavy steel that somehow defied gravity? Not so much.
The engines whined impossibly loudly, and the jet started rolling fast. She gripped the seat handles.
“That’s my arm, you know,” said Lily.
“Sorry—”
“You get used to it. Settle in. Next stop, Washington!”
Her stomach was feeling somewhere between weightless and sinking as the jet rose. After a few minutes she realized that the noise was there to stay, making talking uncomfortable for anybody but Darrell, who seemed to be keeping Wade from paying attention to anyone else. Fine. Even Lily, who loved to chat, finally gave up and just typed her blog post.
The engines droned for the longest two hours in history before she managed to doze off.
“Finally!” Dr. Kaplan said when the jet touched down at Washington’s Reagan airport, where they had to switch planes. As soon as he turned on his phone it buzzed with a missed call. He listened for a minute, pressed a button, spoke several words, then ended the call.
“Because of storms in Atlanta, Sara nearly missed her connection to Bolivia and had to run,” he said. “She’s already in the air again and will probably be off the grid until the end of the week at the earliest. So it’s just us. Let’s use the restrooms, eat, then get some newspapers for the flight. See if we discover any more disasters. Maybe find a link.”
Their layover was shortened when the Atlanta storm system threatened D.C. They hurried back to the gate from the food court, stopping quickly at a news kiosk on the way.
Because her grandparents lived in Austin and babysat often over the years, Becca had learned several foreign languages early. Her French wasn’t great—her German and Spanish were better—but she could read it more or less without a dictionary, so when she saw a copy of Le Monde, she bought it. Not that she knew exactly—or even vaguely—what they were looking for. Tragedies? The whole world was tragic some days. And here she was going digging for more.
“Final boarding call for Flight Three-Fifty-Four to Berlin.”
“We’re off!” Dr. Kaplan ushered