"Bye Tasha!" my sister yelled as I stepped onto the Hawker 4000.
"Bye Tia!" I yelled back. I took my seat next to my best friend Sophie McWell.
My other best friend, Erin Snider, sat on my other side. Nine kids, including me were going on Norfolk Island for an amazing adventure. We had spent our ninth grade summer saving money so that we could go on the field trip. Now, it was September of our 11th grade year and we were on our way. We would spend two weeks there and then fly back home.
I was the leader of the Overseas Field Trip Club and this was our first field trip. I didn't want to be leader, but in order for us to go on the trip, we had to have a leader. So, we voted and everyone chose me. I was not happy about that, but I took the job anyway.
Jessi Morganson is my second-in-command and is basically my vice-president and advisor. She was my first I friend I had when I moved from to Florida from Texas. Erin is my second friend that I have. I met her in Gym back in middle school. We had became good friends ever since.
We took off from Los Angeles and I sat back in the seat like the old pro I am. I've flown overseas before and was totally fine with it. Erin, Jessi, and Luke, however had never been in a gone overseas before. Kim Stanford had never even been on a plane before. We soon left the United States and were over the Pacific Ocean. We all cheered and danced around. The pilot told us to shut up and sit down.
The pilot's name was Jim Michaels. He reminded me of a grizzly bear that got up two months early and that had been poked. I didn't like this guy and we were stuck with him for about twenty-nine hours. He would take us all the way to a boat dock, where we would take a boat. I was not looking forward to that (I got seasick.) After watching all the episodes of Flight 29 Down, I wasn't sure if the pilot was that good of a pilot (I'm not going to go into what happened, watch the episodes.)
Anyway, back to the plane. My group consisted of me, Jessi, Erin, Luke, Kim Morello, Matthew Snider (Erin's brother), Mike Smith, and Sara Kristen. We were all in 11th grade and were all 16. Our plan for when we got to the island was this: get off the plane and onto a boat (again, I'm not happy about this), get off the boat when we got to our island. Then, Mr. Morrison, our science teacher, would take us to our hotel. We would unpack and then we would go on a four day trip into the jungle.
We had been in the air for about fourteen hours when I heard one of the engines go out. I know what you're thinking: How can someone hear an engine go out in a plane full of noisy people? I can because I have really good hearing.
The pilot started yelling as another engine went out and we heard a crash, like the sound of breaking glass. Everyone got quiet and Jessi opened the door to the cockpit. We gasped at what was there. There was a hole the size of the pilot in the cockpit's front window and the pilot wasn't there.