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that the police,
airport-rent-a-cops, FBI, Secret Service, CIA or some black op commandos that were too top-secret for a name might come after me. Once I was on the plane, I’d scanned every row for my
mum’s blonde bob and my dad’s crazy hairdo. I’d even asked for a glass of water in the back galley and tried to infiltrate the first class-toilets to get a second and third look
at all the passengers.
    I wouldn’t let myself believe that this meant forever. I’d meet them in Vegas or see them at the bunker-thingy. I’d held it together for as long as I could. I didn’t cry
until the wheels on Flight 868 to Las Vegas left solid ground. I curled towards the porthole and watched Washington, DC transform into a grid of twinkle lights. I cried for what I was leaving
behind and for what might lie ahead. My life had become a jigsaw puzzle dumped from an imageless box. I didn’t know how I was ever going to be able to put it back together again. Tears
dripped down my chin. I wasn’t strong or smart enough for this bizarre treasure hunt my parents had concocted.
    I felt a tap on my shoulder.
    ‘You mind if I sit here?’ The voice was young and female.
    ‘Whatever.’ I scooted closer to the window.
    ‘The guy next to me had eye-watering BO,’ she said, and dropped into the seat beside me. ‘You OK?’
    I sniffed and then I did that thing, which I hadn’t done since I was little, where your face seems possessed; you gasp in tiny breaths and your lower lip quivers.
    ‘Yeah, fine,’ I said, in a pseudo-normal voice.
    ‘Let me know if you’d like to talk to a total stranger about whatever is bugging you.’
    I sniffed back a ginormous wad of snot. ‘Thanks.’
    Inside I turned as black as the world outside my window. I cried until my body felt gooey. Somewhere over the Midwest, sleep hijacked my brain.
    After what could have been minutes or hours, I felt another tap on my shoulder. ‘Something to drink?’
    It took a moment for me to register where I was. My reality felt more like a dream.
    It was a simple question, but I had no answer. I shook my head.
    ‘Come on. You’ve got to have something. It’s a long flight,’ my seatmate said. ‘Two Diet Cokes,’ she told the flight attendant.
    I tried to pull myself from the darkness that was threatening to overwhelm me. I shifted in my seat so my tray table could be lowered. I lifted my shirt collar to my forehead and wiped my face
on the backside of the smiley logo on my T-shirt. I loosened a few dreadlocks by each temple and wrapped them around my spindly mass of hair, knotting them so air cooled my neck.
    The flight attendant placed a plastic cup of ice and a can of Diet Coke in front of me. I poured some Diet Coke into the cup and watched the fizz bubble up. I took a sip and felt a smidge of
relief at this normal behaviour.
    Two snack-sized bags were thrust into my field of vision. ‘I always bring my own snacks. Cheesy or salty?’ my seatmate said and rattled the contents. ‘Or we could share.’
She ripped open both and set them on my tray table.
    How could I be so hungry, yet feel as if I couldn’t eat a thing? The last morsel of food to cross my lips was a bag of Cheetos at lunch.
    ‘I usually like the sour cream and onion but that makes my breath reek,’ the girl said. ‘The last thing you need is someone polluting your air space. Am I right?’
    I looked at her for the first time. She was bald, which for some strange reason made me avert my gaze. I tried not to stare but I had seen zero bald-headed girls in real life. I wanted to reach
out and touch her smooth scalp.
    ‘Want one?’ She pulled an orange squiggle from the bag marked Cheesoodles. The word made me think of my and Lola’s Ripples. Would I ever see Lola again? Tears threatened.
    ‘It’s not cheese and it’s not a noodle, yet it’s called a Cheesoodle,’ the girl said with a laugh. ‘Who comes up with this?’ A solitary tear leaked from
the corner of my eye. She must