Courage is the price that life exacts for granting peace Amelia Earhart 1897 1937
Chapter One The cabin of the small floatplane was hot yet Kaylee shivered Her head pounded Her stomach loop de looped as if she were on a Ferris wheel If her mom didn't land the plane now Kaylee was going to throw up If anything this time was worse than the last You're looking a bit green Kaylee her mother said into her headset mike Kaylee pushed her own mike to the side and nodded weakly her long black hair damp and sticking to her cheek and neck It had never been like this when Dad was around
Okay I get the picture Mom said and turned the nose of the floatplane back toward the tiny bottlenecked bay they called home Kaylee pressed her forehead to the window gazing past the main body of the lake below toward the thick boreal forest beyond an army of jack pine and poplar tamarack and birch warriors with green wool tunics tattered and worn from battle each leaning on the next for sup port The wild wild woods went on past forever and she and her mom lived smack in the middle of the whole tangled mess of them Kaylee breathed deeply in through her nose out through her mouth Within minutes they were back over the narrow channel that joined Booker Bay to the larger lake A year ago Kaylee had loved flying never got sick from it and she desper ately wished that time back Ever since she could remember when the leaves began to 2
turn she and her parents would fly their small float plane south to St. Lucia a hot fertile island on the eastern edge of the Caribbean sea Dad would make it an adventure taking a different route each time stopping along the way in the United States in places they had never been St. Lucia was home for Dad though it wasn't where he was born the Donally family had immigrated there from Ireland when he was eight Papa Donally worked for the Air and Sea Ports Authority and would often visit St. Lucia's two airports Dad went with him whenever he wasn't in school watching through chain link fencing as planes landed and took off hanging out in briefing rooms where pilots filed their flight plans No one was surprised when he grew up to be a pilot He was flying a charter for a tourist company when he met Mom She had been sent to Florida by the provincial govern 3
