Chapter 1: On Holiday
Certainly, travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living.
~ Miriam Beard
To a child standing on Pentonville Road gazing up at the sky, British Airways flight 602 would look like a tiny model airplane one could buy in a miniatures shop or a toy store. To a pigeon fluttering over Trafalgar Square, the plane would resemble a very intimidating, loud feather-less avian cousin. To the air traffic controllers at Heathrow Airport, the flight arriving at 9:05 AM was one of dozens of flights they would observe touching down onto the airfield on July 29, 2003.
Fifteen year old Elspeth Taylor had no significant observations regarding the aircraft, since she had been sitting in her hard seat for the seven hour flight from John F. Kennedy International to Heathrow International. Elle felt numb, her back and limbs ached most terrible and even though she long to stand up and stretch, she knew that she might have difficulty following through. For one, her food tray with her half-eaten poor excuse for a breakfast was still in front of her; secondly, her seatbelt was fastened as per the stewardess's instructions; and lastly, her rear end was so sour and numb that she couldn't even feel it resting against the seat. Elle leaned her head back and groaned aloud, When will this hell end?
Wilhelmina "Mena" Taylor, seated to the right of her daughter, smiled wryly at her daughter's pained acquiescence. Nothing had ever deterred her strong-willed daughter from getting her way and making others realize the flaw in their thinking before. It amused the slender, dark-haired woman that an uncomfortable, sleepless night in Economy class had tamed Elspeth.
"We're nearly there, precious." Mena whispered to Elspeth. "Hang in there for thirty minutes longer, Ellie."
Elspeth wrinkled her nose but remained silent.
Mena met her husband's wary face. "It should take just over a half an hour to reach Heathrow. . ."
"Hmph," Frank Taylor snorted. "You're counting neither the fifteen or so minutes we'll be forced to wait on board until the open the tunnel that'll lead us to the terminal, nor the ten plus minutes we'll be waiting for our luggage to appear." Frank reached across his wife and squeezed his daughter's hand reassured, "Don't worry, Elle, you'll not solo in your loathing of traveling by air."
Mena rolled her eyes at them both, "Allow me to remind you both, that you guys were very keen on going to London when I booked this trip six months ago. . ."
"Half a year is a very long time," Elle said doggedly. "Things change, feelings change."
"Well, fine then missy!" snapped her mother. "You and your father can stay in the place while I go sightseeing. I won't mind the lack of company."
"Ooh, a heated pool!" gushed Elle with as much glee she was able to muster. "And there's the gym . . ."
"Hold on," said her father pointedly. "We're not staying at a hotel. The proper, American term is a Bed-and-Breakfast."
Elle grunted in disapproval, "Why the heck are we staying in a B&B for ten days, Mom?"
"So we can fully be immersed in British culture; so my very ungrateful, uncultured spouse and daughter can understand and appreciate the subtleties of English living that my mother forced down my throat decades ago when I was growing up. It won't be that bad, you two. Clearly you'll underestimating my prowess in making vacations fun and beneficial for the whole family's well-being, . ."
Elle and her father shared a look of apprehension. Just before Mena could retort, the co-pilot made an announcement:
"This is your co-captain McClellan speaking. We are hoverin' at a height of 1000 meters above the British countryside and we have begun our descent. We'll be landing in Heathrow in under twenty minutes."
Sure enough, Elle felt her ears pop. She yawned deeply to adjust better to the radical change in air pressure within the cabin. Suddenly she felt very tired. She longed for a bed to recline upon, she longed to changed into her pajamas after taking a cleansing bath. Sadly this wouldn't occur for several hours. Knowing her mother, Elle figured that her mother would try and squeeze in some sightseeing after lunch and before dinner. Vacations with her family certainly couldn't be defined as being "a period of time devoted to rest." Those periods had always been full of activity, stress, drama, and mayhem. Surely this trip to London would be no different from family vacations to Puerto Rico, Canada, Florida, and Chicago.
The nose of the plane dipped slightly. The stewards rushed down the aisles, making sure passengers were strapped into the oh-so-luxurious seats, that belongings were out-of-sight, and that rubbish was collected. Elle clutched the arm rests tightly. She wasn't scared of flying, but life-off and descent made her edgy. She deemed those moments to be the most perilous for the aircraft and it's passengers. The plane could explode, crash, veer of course, or risk loosing a key external part crucial for maintaining a safe liftoff, flight, and landing.
The was a rush as the plane flew lower and lower. People were excitedly pointing at a distant view urban London from their windows. Even Frank gestured at the motorway and the faint tall buildings with interest. He whispered something to his wife, making her chuckle, but Elle ignored her parents. She braced herself in the chair as the roaring of the plane's motors grew louding, Then the aircraft straightened out, touched solid earth, and gradually slowed down as it crawled to an unoccupied British Airways terminal.
The passengers applauded; Elle was among them. She exhaled, thankful for a safe flight with no mishaps. It was only then that she rose to her feet gingerly and stretch, feeling and hearing her joints and muscles crack. As she assisted her parents remove bagged from the overhead compartments, Elle realized how perspired she was. The plane was quickly becoming stuffy; the outdoors would surely feel like a sauna.
Sure enough, when Economy class was able to exit the plane, the passengers got a taste of the boiling hot London summer as they dragged sleepy children, luggage, and removed outerwear down the tarmac tunnel before arriving in the cool luggage receiving area. Heathrow International was gorgeous; it was very modern looking. Elle figured that if the rest of London could be just as beautiful as Heathrow was, then the next ten days would pass swimmingly despite the heat and coping with jetlag.
Then the worst possible thing happened.
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"It's been twenty minutes," Elle bit her lip. "You and Dad have gotten your luggage. Everyone else on the flight has gotten their stuff. The belt is empty. Something is not right!"
Mena squeezed her daughter's hand reassured, "Your father gone over to speak with that gentleman over there." Mrs. Taylor nodded at a rather rotund gentleman in a blue British airways uniform who was speaking into a sophisticated walkie-talkie device while Frank Taylor strained to hear the exchange.
"Why is he shrugging?" Elle snarled. Then when her father walked over to them and their trolley full of luggage, minus one purple suitcase, she asked: "Did you ask him to check his computer? Where the heck is my bag?"
Her father explained, "He radioed the men who work on the tarmac, loading and unloading luggage. They're double-checking the cargo pit of our plane to see if your suitcase got jostled during the flight and got stuck somewhere. The gentleman, a Mr. Farthing, claims that suitcases getting stuck and avoiding post-landing collection happens every so often. He wants us to wait to airport security. He'll hear from the other fellows in twenty minutes or so." Frank turned to his wife, "What time is our check in?"
Mena checked her watch, "It's 9:55 am. Our check-in is at 10:30 am. I'll call the landlady in another five minutes and tell her that we are being delayed."
After twenty-five minutes, Mr. Farthing lumbered up to the family seated tensely by the airport bobby desk. His voice sounded very asthmatic, but then again, he did look as if he had ran to security from the baggage area. "I just spoke with the two blokes who were in charge of pickin' up after yer flight. They checked the entire cargo hold personally and they were unable to find any bag that matched your description," He nodded sympathetically at Elle who looked horrified. "Ifin you want, my colleague Potts over here," He gestured at a smiling bespectacled middle-aged woman seated behind the desk. "Could call personal from your airport, JFK."
"We'd greatly be obliged, thank you." Mr. Taylor said. "Please, could it be possible for you to notify personal here to keep an eye out for a purple roller-suitcase with pink ribbons on the retractable handles? Maybe it got stuck on another flight bound for London?"
Farthing dabbed at his sweaty brow with a handkerchief, "That's a distinct possibility. I'll get to that, Mister and Missus Taylor. Another arriving flight from NYC to London-Heathrow comes in at 11:15 am. We'll call Gatwick personal too. Keep the faith, young lady."
They stayed at the airport security desk for another hour. Officer Potts was very sympathetic and kind, but unfortunately her courtesy and devotion to helping solve problems wasn't shared by other personal from Heathrow, New York, or Gatwick. After getting on the phone with various people who wanted a description of the bag, the baggage reference number of Elle's bag, and whether she had anything valuable inside her luggage for the tenth time, Elle was ready to explode. Why her bag? Why did the stupid shits at JKF and London have to ruin a vacation to a city she so desperately wanted to enjoy fully?
Officer Potts handed Elle a pen and a copy of British Airways' Purloined Baggage Form. Elle was so frustrated that when it came time for her to mention the value of her belongings inside her suitcase, she over-exaggerated the value of her clothing. She knew of course, that BA wouldn't refund her for the full values of the bag and its contents so, in her frustration, she felt that she was entitled to get as much compensation as she could from them. After Elle had filled out the form and returned it to Potts, the officer wrote down her contact info and handed it to Mrs. Taylor with a sincere apology and a promise to call if she heard anything.
Mr. Taylor spent the taxi-ride on the phone with personnel from New York. A poor phone connection, airport bureaucracy, an empty belly, and jetlag made Mr. Taylor very agitated. Mrs. Taylor was flipping through a copy of The Complete Idiot's Guide to London in hope of finding an affordable café to have an early lunch and an affordable shop to buy Elle some extra blouses and underwear in case the luggage was delayed in being located and returned.
Elle glumly pressed her face against the rear window. Despite her fury, fear, jetlag, and intense hunger she couldn't help but notice clusters of oddly dressed people standing together, their voices loud and excited (she was able to hear them chatter happily whenever the cab stopped at a corner where a large group of them were conjugated). They were a mixed demographic of people: men, women, children, young, old, black, Indian, Caucasian. But despite those obvious differences, the one thing they had in common was a communal elation in . . . something.
That something must have been pretty legit, Elle reckoned, because from the deep pockets of a long housecoat, a woman was passed out glass bottles full of an amber-colored liquid. Her friends took great gulps of the drink upon toasting themselves and any other pedestrian who passed within ten feet of them. This was the same at almost every corner, in almost every district. In fact when Elle rolled down the window to get some fresh air, the latest group of people consisting mostly of men in their twenties, cat-called and shouted, "Even you should be celebratin' on a day like today, pretty one. Co'mere and we'll show you our London!" They guffawed heartily and winked at her.
Elle pulled herself back into the car, and ducked out of view of those men. It wasn't that she was shy around the opposite sex, far from it. If she had been in a different mood, she would have cursed like a sailor at them. She wasn't sure what she had been expecting from the family vacation to London, but lost luggage, lascivious men on street corners, and people loitering and drinking in crowded intersections certainly didn't come to mind before a couple of hours ago. The only thing that Elle figured was that if the first three hours gave any hint of how the next ten days would be like in London, then Elle would be in for a trip of her life.
Very soon, she would only learn how right that last observation was.
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Author's Note: I do not own British Airways nor do I own The Complete Idiot's book series. I am only using them in this one instance. I only own Elle, her parents, the house elf, the named airport personal, and of course that elusive purple suitcase.
I would like to thank Sarapha for her lovely review of this tale. I'm flattered, you're making me tickled pink. J But I hope you'll stay tuned for Elle's continuing saga. Please keep on reading and reviewing, folks!
Here is the full summary of my story:
Order of the Phoenix Alternate Universe. Summer 2003 is the 5th anniversary of the 2nd fall of Lord Voldemort. A young Muggle woman visiting London is completely ignorant of all things magical when she gets transported back in time to 1995 when the Order of the Phoenix is battling a non-responsive government plus the Dark side. During her perilous journey to get home, Elle Taylor discovers varying degrees of good, evil, corruption, cruelty, love. Plus, Elle doesn't just discovers the magical world but makes personal discoveries about herself and how truly complicated her own past is. But one question remain: if it was so easy for her to travel back in time, why isn't it so simple for her to go back to the future?
Take care,
L.