Ted & Me by Dan Gutman Read Free Book Online Page A

3,200 feet. 2,000 feet.
    Suddenly, it occurred to me that I didn’t have to sit there and let fate determine what was going to happen to me. I had a pack of new baseball cards with me! I could go back to my own time whenever I wanted. Holding on to the handle with one hand, I used the other one to fish around in my pockets. But I couldn’t find it.
    Looking out the canopy window in front, I could see what looked to be a landing strip in the distance. There were rows and rows of other planes on theground. The only other plane in the air was the one that was escorting us down.
    The pilot of that plane signaled for Ted to lower his wheels. But when Ted pushed a button on the dashboard to do that, there was an explosion that shook the whole plane.
    â€œ!@#$%!” Ted muttered.
    â€œWhat happened?” I yelled.
    â€œOne of the !@#$%! wheel doors blew off!” he yelled back to me. “When we reduced our speed, it must have made the fuel pool up in the wheel wells.”
    There was a whooshing sound behind me; and when I turned around, all I could see were flames.
    â€œWe’re on fire!” I yelled. “We’ve got to eject!”
    â€œToo late for that,” Ted shouted back. “We’re gonna have to crash-land this bucket of bolts, Junior.”
    â€œI’m gonna die!” I screamed. “Of all the ways you could die! I never thought—”
    â€œWill you shut up?” Ted yelled. “I’m trying to concentrate! We’ve got about 11,000 feet of runway to slide on.”
    â€œIs that long enough?” I asked.
    â€œWe’re about to find out.”
    He looked calm, totally calm and focused. I grabbed the handles tighter. Even if I could find my baseball cards now, it might be too late to use one. We were coming in low, just barely clearing a fence that surrounded the base.
    â€œHere goes nothin’!” Ted hollered as we were about to touch ground.
    If the speedometer was working properly, we hit the runway at 225 miles per hour. It felt nothing like the few other times I had been on a plane. With no wheels, we hit the ground belly first, with a bump that bounced me a foot off the floor. I was still holding the handles on the sides. There was the awful sound of metal scraping against pavement. Everything was shaking. My teeth were vibrating in my mouth. I was afraid they were going to fall out.
    Ted mashed his foot on the brake and was pulling on the stick, but it wasn’t doing anything. We just had to let physics run its course—deceleration, momentum, and all those laws Newton figured out centuries ago.
    Pieces of the plane were flying off as we scraped along the runway. I could see flames, sparks, smoke, and debris out the back, because that part of the plane wasn’t there anymore. In the distance, I heard the siren from fire trucks speeding toward the runway.
    â€œStop, you dirty !@#$%!” Ted was shouting. “When is this dirty son of a !@#$%! gonna stop? If there’s a Christ, this is the time old Teddy Ballgame needs you!”
    It felt like we were sliding along the ground forever . I was hoping and praying that we wouldn’t run out of runway.
    In front of us, I could see rice paddies and a Korean village. What a stupid place for there to be a village! Women and children were running for theirlives to get out of the way.
    We slid off the runway, a little to the left. By that time, we had slowed down quite a bit, and the dirt and grass slowed us down even more. But we were still moving when Ted pulled an emergency lever to pop the cockpit canopy open. It flew off behind us. I felt the rush of air on my face.
    â€œGet out, Junior!” Ted shouted. “There still might be enough fuel left in this junker to blow!”
    The plane—or what was left of it, anyway—finally came to a stop just past the end of the runway. Ted somersaulted out of the hatch and rolled off to the right, out of sight.
    Acrid smoke