My Family Saved Their Adopted Daughter First, Then I Died Before Their Eyes novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Gondola Seven
Nell dies under the Ferris wheel while her family tends the little girl she saved, wakes in the back seat of the same car on the same morning, and steps out of the line to hit the emergency stop before the axle snaps, until the paramedic who held her hand as she died runs up and says her name.
The Ferris wheel's axle snapped at 2:41 on Labor Day, and my family ran to Birdie.
I was in gondola seven with her when the steel came down.
Birdie is six. I got my body over hers before the roof folded in.
The paramedics cut us out and laid me on the asphalt.
They carried Birdie to my parents.
She had a scrape on her forehead. I couldn't feel my legs.
"Mom," I said. "Mom, I can't breathe."
My mother had Birdie's face in both hands. My father was shouting for a blanket, and my brother was crying.
"Birdie first," my mother said, without turning around. "Nell's tough. She can wait."
Nobody looked at me.
A paramedic knelt beside me instead. I knew his face. I hadn't seen it in six years.
"Eli," I said.
"Stay with me, Nell." He took my hand. The little finger on his left hand bent in at the tip.
He kept saying my name. I watched my mother's back until I couldn't see anything.
The next thing I heard was a weather report on my father's car radio.
"Seventy-eight and clear at Bellwether Park."
I was in the back seat of his SUV, buckled in, with two good legs.
Birdie was asleep against my arm, her mouth open. Her left hand lay curled in my palm, the little finger bent in at the tip.
"Nell, you're green," my mother said from the front. "Don't you dare be sick, your father just had this detailed."
The clock on the dash said 11:52.
My phone said Monday, September 1.
I had less than three hours.
I tried to get us out of that park all morning.
I told my father I felt sick, and he bought me a ginger ale. I told my mother Birdie had a fever, and she felt Birdie's forehead and laughed.
At 2:19 my mother marched us to the Ferris wheel.
"One ride on the big wheel, for the photo," she said. "Nell, you take Birdie. She's scared of heights, and you're the calm one. I'll film from the ground."
"Mom, I don't think it's safe."
"Honey, it was inspected in the spring. There's a sticker at the gate."
"You're being dramatic," my father said, and checked his watch.
Birdie slipped her hand into mine. "Nellie, it's loud."
She was right.
Up at the hub, the wheel made a dry grinding noise, and rust dust drifted down onto the operator's booth.
Gondola seven swung into the loading gate, empty and waiting for us.
I looked at my mother, who was smiling at her phone.
I looked at my father, who was already counting out wristbands.
I looked at Birdie, who had a smudge of cotton candy on her chin and no scrape on her forehead yet.
So I stepped out of the line.
"Nell," my mother said. "Nell, get back here."
I walked up to the operator, a bored kid with a lanyard.
"Stop the wheel. The axle is cracked."
"Ma'am, the line's behind the rope."
"Stop it now, or I will."
He laughed.
My mother's heels clicked up behind me. "I'm so sorry, she's had a long week."
I put my palm on the red button on his control panel and hit it as hard as I could.
The wheel shuddered and ground to a stop, and the last riders stumbled out at the gate.
An alarm went off. The kid grabbed my arm and a guard grabbed the other one.
"Everybody off!" I screamed, and my voice cracked. "Get away from the wheel! Please, get back!"
People turned. A few pulled out their phones.
A woman in the line grabbed her two boys and ran.
Then the whole line was running.
The guards dragged me against the fence. My father was shouting that I'd lose my job. My mother had her hand over her mouth and her eyes on the crowd.
Birdie stood alone by the rope, and I broke free long enough to scoop her up.
At 2:41 the main axle snapped.
The wheel leaned and fell inward on itself, and gondola seven folded flat.
There was nobody in it. There was nobody under it.
The crowd screamed, and then a hundred phones were pointed at me.
Birdie's face was in my neck. I held her and shook.
Boots pounded across the pavement. A man in a paramedic's blue shirt shoved through the crowd and stopped in front of me.
"Nell?" he said.
It was Eli Hadley.
The last time I'd heard him say my name, I was bleeding on the asphalt.
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