Much to their dismay Samira had fussed over her boys’ luggage. Shaka realised he’d forgotten to pack socks; Samira promised to buy him some and send them along with Mika the next day. Later, outside customs, Samira had hugged and kissed her boys goodbye. They were well-travelled kids so she wasn’t worried—she would have them all back within a month.
To her surprise, young Miguel had suddenly turned as he stood in line for the passport control rushing back into his mother’s arms. He would miss her, he said, and he was also afraid that something could happen to the plane. The disappearance of MH370 three months earlier had been all over the news and it had left even the most level-headed and experienced traveller slightly unnerved. A plane with almost 250 people on board just vanishing into thin air was as unsettling as it got.
Telling him that everything was going to be alright, Samira had hugged her youngest child one more time. In an effort to reassure them both, Shaka told his mother not to worry, promising her he would take very good care of her baby.
Samira remembered looking on as her two boys walked away. Miguel turned back to his mother with big brown sad eyes. Moments later her boys vanished from view, disappearing behind the customs booth. Samira was heading for the shopping centre to buy Shaka’s socks. The plane would have taken off by now and her boys would probably be watching the inflight movies or playing videogames.
Nick Norris of Perth had three grandchildren under his arm, or maybe the children had their granddad under theirs. With Nick it was sometimes hard to tell. His own children had found his wise and slightly ‘neglectful’ parenting style during their early years had instilled a sense of independence among the four of them as adults.
Sixty-eight-year-old Nick loved sailing, and he liked a beer. Always with a story on the tip of his tongue, he adored his grandkids and was taking three of them home to Perth so they would be back in time for the first day of the new school term. Twelve-year-old Mo, ten-year-old Evie and eight-year-old Otis Maslin had left their parents behind in Amsterdam so Anthony and Marite (Rin) could enjoy an extra three days of holiday. After the three generations of the family had toured Europe for several weeks, Grandpa Nick was taking on the task of getting Mo back to line up for the Scarborough Sea Eagles next Sunday morning.
Mo and his sister Evie were star pupils at school, but for little Otis the great outdoors was where he loved to be. Otis had a fascination for creatures great and small, and he could be the life of the party when he was on a roll.
Anthony Maslin and Rin Norris knew their kids were in capable hands with Nick, Rin’s father. He was a leading educator who had had a distinguished career teaching French. He was now a consultant and director of the company Collaborative Systemic Change, and he was by far the wisest man they knew. He’d been a headmaster, a lieutenant colonel in the army reserve, and he’d done his bit to change his part of the world. Throughout his career, he had been a strong advocate for language education and worked closely with individual teachers to plan and strategically strengthen the position of languages within their schools. Listening to Nick’s well-crafted stories of his family life, army experiences and sailing was sometimes like being piloted through new waters.
Waiting at the gate, Nick had been on the phone talking to another of his daughters, Natalia. Chatting for a while, he finally hung up when the ground crew had taken their positions behind the counters. The last thing Natalia had told her father was that she loved him.
They had been Newcastle United supporters for as long as they could remember, and it was the game that brought them together. For diehard fans like 28-year-old Liam Sweeney and 63-year-old John Alder, their age difference was trivial. What made them mates was their love for the club, nicknamed the Magpies, and for the players—cheering them on and crying real tears over the club’s losses. That was what had welded their friendship, making it strong and profound. They belonged to the Toony Army (‘toon’ playing on the Geordie pronunciation of the word ‘town’) and were proud of it.
Liam and John had arrived in Amsterdam on different flights from England that morning. They’d explained to the lovely woman at the Schiphol transfer desk that they were mates and would very much like to be seated next to one another on their connecting flight to Kuala Lumpur, which was their stopover on their way to their final destination of New Zealand.
The Magpies were on a preseason tour in New Zealand, and John and Liam had saved enough money to watch them play football on the other side of the world. Just a few days ago the two of them had been present at Newcastle’s first preseason friendly against Oldham, and now they were finally on their way to another hemisphere for a game of football.
Neighbours and some friends at home had been somewhat surprised that they were willing to follow their team so far, but for Liam and John, travelling to the other side of the world to watch the club play was just what you did if you were a true-blue Geordie. And they were not the only ones heading Down Under. The two were part of a big group of friends, with some of their mates travelling to New Zealand on later flights. Not many could afford such a trip though.
Within the Newcastle United club grounds, Liam was known as the ‘big friendly giant’. A large guy with a soft streak, his love for his club went so far that he even turned down the possibility of a management position at the supermarket where he worked for fear that the new responsibilities might interfere with attending games. He only held the job at the supermarket anyway because it earned him enough to pay for all the Magpie matches at home and beyond; it wasn’t as if he aspired to a make a career there.
His mate, John Alder, felt the exact same love and loyalty towards the club. Alder was from Gateshead and his mates at Newcastle nicknamed him ‘The Undertaker’ because of his habit of always wearing a black suit and a white shirt to each game. He prided himself on having never missed a Newcastle United match since 1973—well, actually only one, when his mother died—and he travelled to every away match. He was willing to go far and wide to watch his beloved Magpies play: to America, Thailand and now New Zealand. The club was his life and he was a permanent fixture at every match; he was also the owner of the biggest collection of Magpie memorabilia on the face of the earth.
The woman at the transfer desk had smiled at their excited and lengthy explanation of their love for their club. The two had thanked her effusively when she handed them their boarding passes. Now as the plane settled into cruising mode they sat back comfortably on their adjacent seats. They could not have been more pleased.
British-born Rob Ayley was on his way home to New Zealand. He had been only two and a half years old when his parents left Guildford in southern England for New Zealand. They moved to Wellington for an adventure and never returned.
Although he talked like a Kiwi, Rob was incredibly proud of his British heritage and travelled on a British passport; he nurtured a lifelong obsession with Britain. During a trip back there with his parents at age four, he had painted a picture of the Queen’s horse and carriage and insisted on sending it to her. His parents were doubtful, but eventually agreed to send it in an envelope together with a letter addressed simply to ‘The Queen, Buckingham Palace’. They were stunned when a response arrived several weeks later.