Runaway Princess Bride novel · Chapter 11 of 24

Chapter 11: The Jet

Eli had never seen an airplane up close, and he stood on the tarmac with his mouth open.

"Is it ours?" he asked.

"It's Tristan's," I said.

"Is he rich?"

"He's a prince."

Eli looked at Tristan for a long, critical moment.

"You don't look like a prince," he said. "You look like a guy who fixes boats."

Tristan crouched down to his level, very serious.

"I fix boats on weekends," he said. "It's a royal tradition."

"Really?"

"No."

Eli grinned, the gap in his front teeth showing.

It was the first real smile I had seen on his face in two days.

The jet was small and white, with leather seats the color of cream.

A flight attendant in a navy suit took Eli's backpack, looked at it carefully.

Put it on the seat beside him instead of in the compartment.

"Dinosaurs fly first class," she said, and she gave him a little bag of cookies.

I wanted to cry.

Nobody had ever taken my brother's things seriously.

Half an hour later the pilot announced a delay while the airfield cleared our fuel and the paperwork.

"Twenty minutes," the aide said apologetically, and went to argue with a man in a yellow vest.

The attendant put on a cartoon about talking trucks.

Eli curled up in a seat with a blanket and fell asleep before the first song.

The attendant carried him to the rear compartment, at the far end of the plane, and shut the door behind her.

I turned around.

Tristan was standing at the back of the cabin, beside a narrow door.

He tilted his head at it.

"There's a bedroom," he said.

"On a plane?"

"On this plane."

"With my little brother on board."

"Asleep at the other end of the plane, behind a closed door," he said. "With a chaperone who is very serious about cookies."

I laughed, and the sound turned breathless halfway through.

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