Molly put a thumb up at him, and in the next moment the bottom of the plane clunked fully open. It gaped wide, showing nothing but chilling blackness. At the same time, the air outside sucked like a massive, noisy, death-wishing vacuum cleaner so that everyone began slipping toward the dark void.
“One! Two! Three! JUMP!” Molly cried, and as though in a dream, and as if simply jumping into an inky pool, everyone leaped at once.
Twenty-two
Molly’s body hit the air. Freezing cold, it smacked her face. For a moment, Molly wasn’t sure whether she was dead or alive. She felt tiny, as though she were the size of a speck of dust tumbling in a gale-force wind. She was falling and spinning—flipping like a coin that had been tossed by some crazed devil.
“Heads you lose, tails you die!” These words screamed through her head as though the icy wind was shouting at her. “Heads you die, tails you die!” Molly felt that Miss Hunroe was the fiend who had tossed her.
And then Molly remembered to breathe. With a deep breath into her oxygen mask, she tried to take control. But it was so cold and she was so dizzy that she could hardly think. She realized with horror that she could no longer feel Lily linked through her left arm, but that Micky, with his arm through her harness, was still attached. For a brief second, Molly opened her eyes to see whether Lily was still holding Micky’s arm. Micky’s face, grimacing with fear, flashed in the moonlight, but there was no Lily beside him. And it was too difficult to make out anything else. So Molly didn’t know where Lily was at all. Nor did she know whether Petula was still breathing or not. The sharp air stung Molly’s eyes so much that she had to shut them again.
Molly and Micky were alone, careering down through the icy air together. The out-of-control spin that they were in was horrible. Molly fought through her brain’s utter confusion. With a huge effort, she pushed herself through the torrent of rushing air to swing her left arm toward Micky. Her helmet crashed into his. Terrified, they clung together and continued to fall.
The crescent moon shone down on them. The two twins held on to each other as they had done eleven and a half years before—before they’d been born. They dropped as one like a spinning black ball, down, down, down through the subzero night sky. The moonlight reflected off them, spotlighting them as they plummeted. It was bitter cold, and their bodies were numb. Molly’s face burned, her eyes hurt, and her stomach had swollen from the high air pressure. And she felt sick from the turning and falling.
Then she remembered watching a program about skydivers, and she remembered what to do.
“WE’VE GOT TO STRAIGHTEN OUT!” she shouted to Micky.
“WHAAAAT?” he yelled back with his eyes shut.
“STRAIGHTEN OOOOUUUUT! STAAAAR SHAPES!”
“STAR SHAPES?”
“YESS!”
To show what she meant, Molly pushed away from him and pushed out her legs. This leveled them a little, but still they flipped.
“DO IT!” Molly screamed.
As Micky straightened his legs, he stretched his arms out, too. He and Molly were joined where their hands held each other’s harnesses. Their legs flailed behind them like the forked tails of strange high-altitude birds.
“BETTER!” Micky hollered. And it was. Without the mad spin, they could think properly. Both braved the sharp air and opened their eyes. Molly looked once again for Lily, and now for Malcolm, but they were nowhere to be seen. She wished she could check on Petula. Micky glanced at his altimeter.
“Forty-five thousand feet!” he cried.
Both knew what this meant. Both looked down. Like a terrible beast that was waking up to the twins’ imminent arrival, the clouds below them roared and flashed. Lightning showed Molly and Micky what was to come—a diabolical, dark mass of air, full of electrical storm. And in the next moment, they were in it.
At once hail hit them. Freezing cold, hard, icy lumps the size of walnuts smashed in their faces and pummeled their bodies. But neither Molly nor Micky let go of each other to shield their faces. Seconds felt like minutes, but still they clung bravely together.
Eventually the hail turned to icy rain. Now Molly and Micky felt like flies inside a massive cold shower. Then, with a sudden rip and a tug that felt as though a giant was poking them, their parachutes began to open.
Both Molly and Micky opened their eyes.
“GOOD LUCK!” Molly shouted.
“KEEP YOUR EYE ON THE COORDINATES!” Micky shouted back. And then, heeding Malcolm’s warning, with a push the twins separated.
Molly’s parachute unfurled, and Molly felt the weight of her body supported by the canopy above. And as soon as she was able, Molly put her cold, half-numb hand inside her bag to check Petula’s oxygen mask. It was still fixed to her. This was a comfort, but not enough to make Molly feel better. She was now alone with Petula in the unrelenting rain. She wondered if the parachute had opened too early. Maybe it would have been better to drop like a stone as fast as possible through the tumultuous storm. Instead they were going to have to parachute slowly down through it.
Molly did up Petula’s bag safely and began to observe the horrific weather below. Thunder rolled around her deafeningly, and lightning coursed through the heavy air. Molly caught a glimpse of Micky hanging like a barnacle from the bottom of his jellyfish-shaped parachute. She thought she saw another parachute behind him, too, but wasn’t sure whether she was simply imagining it. Whipping her face, the wind now gripped Molly’s parachute with a vengeance. Its gusts were so violent, it could rip the silk of the canopy apart. Molly looked down as another blast of thunder and lightning thrashed the sky. Beneath her dangling legs was a dreadful swirl of black tunneling cloud, like some hellish plughole. It was, Molly realized, some sort of tornado. Molly hugged Petula close. “I’M SORRY, PETULA!” she yelled. Molly wished she could climb into the bag and snuggle up with Petula. But she couldn’t, so she did the next best thing. She silently asked her pet, What are you thinking?
Like a magical screen, a thought bubble popped up over the nylon bag. In it were images, not of the storm, but of fields and flowers and blue skies and of places that Petula loved. There were the llama-filled meadows of Briersville Park and pictures of Micky and Rocky. They were all looking happy. And then Molly saw images of herself laughing and throwing sticks for Petula to fetch.
Though the slapping rain hurt Molly’s eyes, she kept them open. This was exactly what to be thinking about now, Molly realized. For these moments in the air might be the very last moments of their lives. Molly’s eyes filled with tears as she saw the people in her life who she loved. Her tears were washed off her cheeks by the howling wind. She thought of Rocky and wondered whether she would ever see him again. She remembered how she’d been dreading lessons and wishing for some adventure last time she’d been with him. How she would love to be doing math homework now!
Then her mind turned to all the people she hadn’t seen for a long time. Not Rocky and Ojas, Lucy, Primo, and Forest, but people from her past, the other orphanage children who were now in Los Angeles. She thought about Mrs. Trinklebury, the kind old lady who had, years before, found Molly in a box on a doorstep and saved her. She wished a giant Moon’s Marshmallow box would suddenly appear and scoop her and Petula out of the sky. Molly shut her eyes and held Petula close to her. And she wished. As her parachute was buffeted and she was swung violently underneath it like a human pendulum, she wished. She wished and wished with all her heart that everything would be all right.