Sea by Heidi Kling Read Free Book Online

that I ate so soon after puking, but when I spotted the Golden Arches at the Taipei airport, I was suddenly starving. I almost hugged the Chinese boy taking my order when Big Doctor Tom, my new personal hero, ordered my meal in Mandarin.
    After dipping them in my vanilla milk shake, licking the salty fries was the best moment I’d had since listening to Spider’s story on the sand. I ate until I was stuffed and when it was time, I boarded this plane without complaint.
    I had a fresh blue blanket, a fresh white pillow, and an Ashton Kutcher movie dubbed in Indonesian playing on the wide screen a few aisles away. I sat back and savored. Not because I liked him, I didn’t really, but because outside of Team Hope nobody on the plane was even slightly familiar to me and it made Ashton feel like home.
     
    Yogyakarta, Indonesia
     
    De-boarding the plane at the Yogyakarta airport, my eyes darted this way and that, taking in the flood of different faces.
    The airport was sort of like the ones in Hawaii: all open and bathed in moist hot air like a sauna with too many people piled inside. My new shirt was already sticky with sweat. Women draped in colorful robes and head coverings walked by, carrying bundles of packages or full baskets of food. Some men were wearing turbans, and some women’s faces were covered with veils, with only their dark eyes peering out. Most of the veiled women walked straight ahead without looking around.
    “Man, it’s hot.” I paused, shifting my backpack from one shoulder to the other. “Don’t they have air-conditioning here either?” I asked Dad. Dumb question. If they had it, why wouldn’t they turn it on?
    He didn’t humor me with a response because he was reading a sign posted above us that froze me to my spot in line.
    Azab untuk penyelundupan narkoba adalah Kematian
    THE PENALTY FOR DRUG SMUGGLING IS DEATH.
    Oh, great.
    Finally something written in English and that was it? Death. A scene from that scary movie where the girls end up in a Thai prison because some jerk at a beach resort planted drugs in one of their bags played in my mind. I patted my pockets and prayed that the customs officer didn’t find anything on me. Where did I put that extra Tylenol PM? Was that considered an illegal drug here?
    Sweat poured from places I didn’t even know had sweat glands.
    Then Dad pulled out some American money and paid the armed Indonesian officer. “What are you paying him for?” I whispered through clenched teeth. Was he paying him off to let us in? A bribe?
    “Visiting visas,” Dad said.
    I gulped with relief as the officer waved me through after I handed him my passport. Spending the rest of my life in an Indonesian prison? Not part of my plan.
    “Our host should be waiting for us outside. The hard part is over,” Dad said, resting a palm on my head and ruffling my hair like he had when I was a kid. The relief in his smile matched mine. We made it over the ocean in one piece.
    The closer we got to baggage claim, the more the open-air terminal filled with spices. Whiffs of cinnamon and cloves wafted through the heat. Locals were selling wraps weaved in all colors of the rainbow. Flowing skirts and elegantly carved wall hangings were displayed in small wooden booths. Masks, marionettes and large orange spiky fruits I’d never seen before were for sale by eager shop owners who called out to us, “Lady, lady!” holding up their wares.
    “Can we buy stuff?” I asked Dad as a gap-toothed man dressed in a deep purple tunic pedaled by right through the center of the airport driving a meat-on-a-stick cart. My eyes darted from him to another booth. “Hey, are those puppets made out of paper?”
    “They’re shadow puppets,” Tom said, sweat trickling down his hairline. “Pretty cool, huh?”
    Vera scooted between me and Dad. “We’ll have plenty of time to shop later,” she said, as if I were asking her. “We have to get our bags.”
    We did and then, near the airport’s exit, a