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Chapter or Story
Disclaimer: The Characters Miss Parker, Sydney, Jarod, Broots and The Center are all property of MTM, TNT and NBC Productions and are used without permission. No money has been involved here and no infringement is intended. 11/20/2002
A Voice Heard in Ramah (Part 6 - Flight) By Phenyx
Jarod steered the car off the road and onto the drive leading to a small private airstrip. He skillfully parked the vehicle in an open spot near the hangar. Parker unfastened her seatbelt and stretched. They had been driving for only half an hour, but Parker had spent most of that time twisted in her seat as she talked quietly with the boys riding in the back.
Parker was disappointed that the drive had taken place in the middle of the night. The boys had pressed their little noses against the windows to see the world rush by but the darkness had prevented them from seeing much.
Despite a limited view, the trio had asked a steady stream of questions. They had been hesitant at first. Initially only one of the boys had been brave enough to speak up. He had asked questions about the seatbelts first. After he had figured out how to work the latch, he demonstrated his new skill to the other two boys. This had been followed by much clicking and clacking as the three had fastened and unfastened their seats belts for several minutes.
Parker could see an amused grin on Jarod's face in the light from the dashboard.
She raised her eyebrows at him. "You think this is funny?" Parker had asked.
"Don't you?" Jarod had glanced quickly in her direction.
Parker shrugged. "That clicking is getting annoying." She said in a low whisper.
Jarod chuckled. "I suggest you learn to increase your tolerance levels pretty quickly, Miss Parker. There are a lot of similarly fascinating and noisy things for them to discover in the next few days."
Parker had smiled. "It's going to be fun isn't it?"
"To an extent." Jarod answered as the smile slid from his face. "But some of it will be very frightening for them." He warned with a glance in the rearview mirror at his passengers.
Jarod opened his door and the overhead light came on, making the boys blink at the sudden adjustment to their eyes. Parker got out of the car and moved to the back door where she helped the boys hop to the ground.
Jarod rummaged through the duffel bag lying on the floor and pulled out a syringe.
"Is that necessary?" Parker asked as she watched Jarod lean over the unconscious little girl still buckled in her seat.
Jarod perched on the edge of the seat beside the child and brushed the tangled hair away from her face with a sigh.
"I don't like it anymore than you do, Parker." He said morosely. "But without it she'll wake up in about twenty minutes. Do you want to try controlling her while we're in the air? There is no way to prevent her from being afraid when she regains consciousness. I, for one, would rather not be 35,000 feet up when she starts screaming."
Parker knew that Jarod was right. There was no time to give the little girl the tenderness she needed. They had to get the children as far from Delaware as they could before sunrise.
Jarod waited for Parker's permission to further sedate the girl. Parker nodded reluctantly. Jarod quickly checked the child's vital signs. Once he was satisfied, Jarod took the little girl's arm in one hand and the syringe in the other. He pulled the cap off of the needle with his teeth and expertly slid the point into her vein.
"What is wrong with her?" one of the boys, the seatbelt expert, asked curiously.
"She isn't well." Jarod answered simply as he administered the drug. "She will need all of us to help her if she is going to get better." He looked at the boy with a serious look in his eyes. "Do you think you can do that? Can you help her?"
Equally serious, the boy answered. "We'll help."
Jarod unbuckled the sleeping girl and pulled her into his arms. Tossing the duffel bag over his shoulder, he kicked the car door closed and jerked his head toward Parker to indicate that she should follow him.
The group walked several yards across a paved tarmac and around the corner of the hangar to where a private jet was parked. Parker thought the plane looked familiar. She guessed that The Centre was probably missing one of there fleet.
"An airplane." One of the little boys gasped.
"A private jet." Jarod nodded. "Pretty cool, eh?"
The boy began bouncing up and down excitedly. "Do we get to ride in it?"
"We sure do." Jarod grinned in amusement at the child's eagerness.
AS Jarod opened the door and ushered the group into the plane, he asked the other two boys, "Do you like the airplane too?"
The quieter boy looked around nervously while the other child shrugged, "It's okay, I guess."
Jarod gently placed the sleeping little girl in one of the leather seats while Miss Parker directed the boys into the other chairs.
"I'll get ready for take off while you fasten everyone in." Jarod told Parker.
Jarod entered the cockpit, sat in the pilot's chair and began preflight procedures.
The one little boy, so excited by the airplane, fidgeted and craned his neck to see into the cockpit. Jarod had left the door propped open. Instrument panels and lights could be seen by the young passengers.
With everyone buckled in and ready to go, Parker settled against the leather back of her chair to wait out their flight. In the well-lit cabin, she took the opportunity to study her children more closely.
All three brown haired boys were dressed alike in typical Centre inmate fashion. They wore shapeless cotton shirts and pants in a neutral color somewhere between gray and green. Each had matching black canvass shoes that seemed to all be the same size.
One of the boys was taller, but not by much. He was the more confident of the three children and had been the seatbelt expert while they were in the car. He had high round cheeks and an angled chin. Parker tried to decide whether he looked more like her or like Jarod. But his features were actually an equal combination of both of his parent's.
He had straight dark brown hair like Parker's. Chocolate-brown eyes watched her with clinical curiosity. He realized that Parker was studying him and with a tilt of his head, his eyes narrowed suspiciously.
Parker nearly laughed out loud. She had seen that look before. How many times had Jarod shot that same questioning glance at her over the years?
The plane taxied down the runway. As the jet left the ground, the second little boy squeaked delightedly, "We're flying!"
This child's hair was a half shade lighter than his brother's and he had wavy curls around his ears. His eyes were the same smooth brown color as the first boy. However, this boy's eyes glowed with unrestrained joy. He alternated between looking out the window and studying the cockpit with a huge smile on his face.
The third child wasn't as thrilled with the ride. He looked around nervously, as though afraid that the plane would prove faulty somehow. This boy's features, though resembling the others in shape, were much lighter in color. His hair was a sandy-brown, almost blonde. His eyes were light brown with golden flecks of color. Several freckles dotted his nose and cheeks.
Once the plane reached cruising altitude and leveled off, the third boy seemed to relax a little. After a while he yawned and his eyes began to drift closed.
"She's cold." The first boy said suddenly, interrupting Parker's scrutiny. He gestured to the bundle sleeping in the chair beside Parker.
"How do know that?" Parker asked as she unfastened her belt and stood up.
The boy shrugged. "I don't know." He thought for a moment then answered. "She looks like she is cold."
Parker nodded as she pulled a blanket from an overhead compartment and tucked it around the little girl.
Parker crouched beside the still form and studied her daughter's face. A matted mess of hair hung across the child's features. The long tresses were mostly russet brown in color with natural copper highlights mixed in. Not simply brown, but not quite red either, the girl's hair would be lovely when properly cared for.
With a gentle sweep of her fingertips, Parker brushed the hair aside to look at the child more closely. Her eyes were closed but incredibly long lashes lay upon soft cheeks. The left side of the girl's face was mottled purple and yellow with an old bruise that made Parker's heart turn wretchedly in her chest.
Just beneath the girl's right eye was a small crescent-shaped scar. Strangely enough, the scar was in exactly the same place on her face as the little mole on Jarod's.
Parker stood and retrieved another blanket. As she wrapped the first boy in the covering she asked him, "Does she look any warmer?"
Dark eyes considered the little girl intently for a moment before the boy answered. "She is fine now."
Parker smiled as she tucked blankets around the other boys. The lighter- haired boy had already drifted to sleep. Within minutes, the first child had drifted off as well.
The second boy, still energized with excitement, strained to see out the window beside Parker.
Parker leaned toward him and said softly, "The view out my window is no different than yours."
He chewed at his lower lip for a moment and then glanced out his own portal. A moment later, he was trying to peek out Parker's side of the plane again.
"Come here, I'll prove it." Parker said with a chuckle.
The little boy quickly unbuckled his seat belt and scrambled on to Parker's lap to see out her window.
"See?" Parker asked. "A lot of black nothing. It's too dark to see the clouds."
The child smiled at her in confusion. "The what?" he asked innocently. "What are clouds?"
Parker felt like she'd just been kicked in the stomach. The boy pointed frantically at the wing of the plane and exclaimed, "I saw the flap move!" he giggled. "Are we going up or going down?"
The youngster's enthusiasm was contagious. Parker forced her uneasiness aside and smiled again as she responded, "I'm not sure, kiddo."
Parker was suddenly struck by a lovely idea. Standing up, she swung the child into her seat and said, "You wait right there for a minute."
She went to the cockpit and stood in the doorway until Jarod noticed her presence.
Moving aside one earpiece on his headphones so that he could hear both the radio and Miss Parker, Jarod asked her, "How are they doing?"
Parker shrugged. "Three out of four are sleeping soundly."
Jarod turned and looked at her questioningly. "Three?"
"It would seem," Parker began. "That we have an airplane enthusiast among us."
Jarod grinned.
"He's so intrigued by the entire thing. And he's asking questions that I can't answer." Parker continued. "If you don't mind the company." she hedged.
The pretender's grin grew even wider. "Of course I don't mind. Bring him on up."
Parker went back to where the little boy sat, still intently watching the flap outside the window.
"Would you like to see the cockpit?" Parker asked the boy knowingly.
The boy's dark eyes grew big as he asked in an awestruck voice, "Is that allowed?"
Parker nodded seriously. "As long as you don't touch anything and follow instructions very carefully."
She took the boy's hand and guided him into the cockpit area.
The little boy looked around, enthralled by the lights, buttons and gauges that surrounded him.
Jarod turned toward the boy and said, "Pretty cool, isn't it?"
The child blinked at him for a minute.
Jarod shrugged his shoulders and added, "That's what I thought, the first time I was in a jet. This is so cool."
"Cool?" The boy echoed. Parker and Jarod exchanged a look of understanding over the boy's dark head. They both knew that Jarod's term was unfamiliar to the child.
"What do you think, Parker? Can this young fellow handle the copilot's chair for a while?" Jarod asked boisterously.
"Oh, yes Sir." The child said quickly as he scrambled into the seat beside Jarod's.
Parker smiled to herself as she went back to her own seat with the other children. From her vantage point, she could see straight into the cockpit. Parker watched Jarod as he talked to the excited little boy.
"You'll need to buckle up, Ace." Jarod said.
He started to reach over to fasten the child in but the boy yelped, "I can do it."
Parker tried to doze while she affectionately watched the two interact. Jarod spent the next several hours patiently answering a multitude of questions. The little boy quickly learned the names of several of the gauges as well as some of the basics of aerodynamics. The child hung on Jarod's every word as the man explained what functions controlled which systems.
As they neared their destination, Jarod turned the radio on in the cockpit so that the boy could hear the sounds that had been coming through Jarod's headset.
"Do you want to stay here while we land?" Jarod asked the little boy. "Or would you rather go back to your seat where you can look out the window more easily?"
The child blinked at him in confusion.
Jarod smiled sadly. With a flash of insight, Parker realized that Jarod had just offered the boy a choice. The freedom to choose what he wanted to do was a foreign concept to the child and Jarod knew it.
He repeated, "You can stay here. Or, you can go back to your seat. It's up to you."
Parker could see the boy look back toward her, then look forward at the instrument panel. The little face creased with a frown as he struggled with his options.
He looked at Jarod longingly and said, "I want to stay here with you."
Jarod nodded reassuringly. A moment later, he was talking on the radio, requesting clearance to land.
"Do you want to help me out here, Ace?" Jarod asked the little boy.
"Help you fly the plane?" He gasped.
"Sure," Jarod chuckled. "Watch this gauge right here. Do remember what it's called?"
"Altimeter." The boy said proudly.
"Good. You watch that and call out our altitude every 5000 feet while we descend." Jarod instructed. "Can you handle that?"
The boy took his duty very seriously and obediently did exactly what Jarod had asked.
Several minutes later, the plane came to a stop at the end of a runway, not far from a small parking lot.
The little boy came bounding from the cockpit and into the cabin with Jarod closely following him.
"Did you see me?" the boy asked his brothers. The two boys had woken while the plane was landing and now stared at their brother dumbfounded. "I helped fly the plane. Didn't I?" The enthusiastic little boy pleaded with Jarod for confirmation of his tale.
"You sure did, Ace." Jarod smiled down at the child. "And you were a fine copilot."
"Will you teach me to fly by myself?" the bouncing boy asked eagerly.
Jarod crouched down and said, "As soon as you are tall enough to sit in the chair and still have your feet reach the floor, I will teach you. I promise."
The boy hopped up and down like he had springs in his shoes. "This is so cool!" the child exclaimed.
Parker and Jarod gathered the children and the few belongings they'd brought with them. They left the plane and crossed the pavement to a nearby SUV identical to the one they had abandoned in Delaware.
As the two adults loaded everyone into the car and buckled seatbelts, Jarod's little copilot prattled on incessantly about his escapade in the cockpit. The boy excitedly demonstrated with huge arm waving gestures as he talked.
As Parker fastened her own belt, she glanced in to the back and looked at the other two boys. The taller, dark haired boy was frowning with concern in his eyes. The third boy curled timidly in his seat. His golden brown eyes were wide with fear.
Parker shot Jarod a worried look. "I should have given the other boys a chance to sit in the cockpit with you." She was distressed to think that she had been unfair to the two little boys because they had been asleep. "I should have woken them up for a little while."
Jarod turned and studied the three boys for a moment. He shook his head and said, "No Parker. You did the right thing." He turned back to the front of the car and started the engine.
"But they are so upset to have missed it. God only knows when they'll get the chance to be inside a plane again." Parker said softly.
As Jarod guided the vehicle out of the lot he said, "It's not the plane the has them upset, Parker." He explained. "This is the first time any one of them has ever done anything on his own. They didn't share the experience so now the other two have to imagine what our flying ace is trying to describe."
Parker stared at Jarod for a moment in wonder. When she looked at the three boys again, she could see that Jarod was right. The one boy was trying to convey his excitement to the others. But one brother was obviously worried about such outrageous behavior while the other was just plain scared.
"It will be okay." Jarod tried to reassure her. "Let him have his moment. The others will find moments of their own, in time."
Parker turned to stare at Jarod's profile. "You are so go at this parenting thing." She said with awe.
Jarod scoffed. "It has nothing to do with parenting. It's just that I remember what it was like to see the world for the first time." He shrugged. "I understand what they are feeling, that's all."
"They're lucky to have you here to help them. It must have been very hard for you." Parker whispered softly. "Facing all this alone the way you did."
Jarod shrugged nonchalantly. "It was frightening at times." He shot Parker a strange look. "Do you want to know a secret?" He went on. "Once, very early on, going back to The Centre did cross my mind."
Parker's rolled her eyes in disbelief. "No way."
He chuckled. "Seriously, Parker." Jarod admitted. "I was around 35-years- old, cold, hungry and in desperate need of a bathroom. I was in the train station in Dover. I had never seen a dime in my life. All I had was a twenty dollar bill."
Parker started to laugh. The restroom facilities in the Dover train station were all pay toilets. They were the kind where the stall door only opened when you inserted a dime in the slot.
"I admit, I was pretty desperate for a few minutes. For a brief few seconds, I did actually consider calling Sydney to come and get me." Jarod confided.
Trying hard to stifle her snickering, Parker asked. "What did you do?"
"A very nice elderly gentleman came out of one of the stalls. As he went out, I grabbed the door before it could close behind him." Jarod explained while Parker giggled even harder. "To this day whenever I'm in one of those pay toilets, I leave extra dimes beside the sink." He added solemnly.
Parker couldn't take it. She bent over and laughed until tears ran down her cheeks.
"Then I went to a newsstand to break the twenty." Jarod continued. "I bought a newspaper and I discovered PEZ. Never considered going back again. That's my secret motivation for staying out of The Centre you know." Jarod whispered conspiratorially.
"What's that?" Parker choked around her giggles.
"Sugar." Jarod answered seriously. "The world offers so many varieties of sugar and packages them all so wonderfully, how could I ever want to go back to a place that won't even give me flavored koolaid?"
Parker's peals of laughter echoed in the car. She couldn't help herself. The laughter was cathartic, releasing the tension that had built up over the last few days. Jarod smiled triumphantly while she tried to gain a little control.
"There's a first for you." Jarod said warmly. "I have never heard you laugh like that, Parker."
Parker held a hand to the stitch that was forming in her side. "I'm sorry." She gasped as her chortling began to subside.
"Don't be sorry." Jarod urged. "It's a fantastic sound. You should laugh more often."
With a sigh, Parker looked in the back seat to find the children all fast asleep. Resting her head on one hand she gazed at their cherubic little faces. "I'm going to try, Jarod. I am going to try."
A Voice Heard in Ramah (Part 6 - Flight) By Phenyx
Jarod steered the car off the road and onto the drive leading to a small private airstrip. He skillfully parked the vehicle in an open spot near the hangar. Parker unfastened her seatbelt and stretched. They had been driving for only half an hour, but Parker had spent most of that time twisted in her seat as she talked quietly with the boys riding in the back.
Parker was disappointed that the drive had taken place in the middle of the night. The boys had pressed their little noses against the windows to see the world rush by but the darkness had prevented them from seeing much.
Despite a limited view, the trio had asked a steady stream of questions. They had been hesitant at first. Initially only one of the boys had been brave enough to speak up. He had asked questions about the seatbelts first. After he had figured out how to work the latch, he demonstrated his new skill to the other two boys. This had been followed by much clicking and clacking as the three had fastened and unfastened their seats belts for several minutes.
Parker could see an amused grin on Jarod's face in the light from the dashboard.
She raised her eyebrows at him. "You think this is funny?" Parker had asked.
"Don't you?" Jarod had glanced quickly in her direction.
Parker shrugged. "That clicking is getting annoying." She said in a low whisper.
Jarod chuckled. "I suggest you learn to increase your tolerance levels pretty quickly, Miss Parker. There are a lot of similarly fascinating and noisy things for them to discover in the next few days."
Parker had smiled. "It's going to be fun isn't it?"
"To an extent." Jarod answered as the smile slid from his face. "But some of it will be very frightening for them." He warned with a glance in the rearview mirror at his passengers.
Jarod opened his door and the overhead light came on, making the boys blink at the sudden adjustment to their eyes. Parker got out of the car and moved to the back door where she helped the boys hop to the ground.
Jarod rummaged through the duffel bag lying on the floor and pulled out a syringe.
"Is that necessary?" Parker asked as she watched Jarod lean over the unconscious little girl still buckled in her seat.
Jarod perched on the edge of the seat beside the child and brushed the tangled hair away from her face with a sigh.
"I don't like it anymore than you do, Parker." He said morosely. "But without it she'll wake up in about twenty minutes. Do you want to try controlling her while we're in the air? There is no way to prevent her from being afraid when she regains consciousness. I, for one, would rather not be 35,000 feet up when she starts screaming."
Parker knew that Jarod was right. There was no time to give the little girl the tenderness she needed. They had to get the children as far from Delaware as they could before sunrise.
Jarod waited for Parker's permission to further sedate the girl. Parker nodded reluctantly. Jarod quickly checked the child's vital signs. Once he was satisfied, Jarod took the little girl's arm in one hand and the syringe in the other. He pulled the cap off of the needle with his teeth and expertly slid the point into her vein.
"What is wrong with her?" one of the boys, the seatbelt expert, asked curiously.
"She isn't well." Jarod answered simply as he administered the drug. "She will need all of us to help her if she is going to get better." He looked at the boy with a serious look in his eyes. "Do you think you can do that? Can you help her?"
Equally serious, the boy answered. "We'll help."
Jarod unbuckled the sleeping girl and pulled her into his arms. Tossing the duffel bag over his shoulder, he kicked the car door closed and jerked his head toward Parker to indicate that she should follow him.
The group walked several yards across a paved tarmac and around the corner of the hangar to where a private jet was parked. Parker thought the plane looked familiar. She guessed that The Centre was probably missing one of there fleet.
"An airplane." One of the little boys gasped.
"A private jet." Jarod nodded. "Pretty cool, eh?"
The boy began bouncing up and down excitedly. "Do we get to ride in it?"
"We sure do." Jarod grinned in amusement at the child's eagerness.
AS Jarod opened the door and ushered the group into the plane, he asked the other two boys, "Do you like the airplane too?"
The quieter boy looked around nervously while the other child shrugged, "It's okay, I guess."
Jarod gently placed the sleeping little girl in one of the leather seats while Miss Parker directed the boys into the other chairs.
"I'll get ready for take off while you fasten everyone in." Jarod told Parker.
Jarod entered the cockpit, sat in the pilot's chair and began preflight procedures.
The one little boy, so excited by the airplane, fidgeted and craned his neck to see into the cockpit. Jarod had left the door propped open. Instrument panels and lights could be seen by the young passengers.
With everyone buckled in and ready to go, Parker settled against the leather back of her chair to wait out their flight. In the well-lit cabin, she took the opportunity to study her children more closely.
All three brown haired boys were dressed alike in typical Centre inmate fashion. They wore shapeless cotton shirts and pants in a neutral color somewhere between gray and green. Each had matching black canvass shoes that seemed to all be the same size.
One of the boys was taller, but not by much. He was the more confident of the three children and had been the seatbelt expert while they were in the car. He had high round cheeks and an angled chin. Parker tried to decide whether he looked more like her or like Jarod. But his features were actually an equal combination of both of his parent's.
He had straight dark brown hair like Parker's. Chocolate-brown eyes watched her with clinical curiosity. He realized that Parker was studying him and with a tilt of his head, his eyes narrowed suspiciously.
Parker nearly laughed out loud. She had seen that look before. How many times had Jarod shot that same questioning glance at her over the years?
The plane taxied down the runway. As the jet left the ground, the second little boy squeaked delightedly, "We're flying!"
This child's hair was a half shade lighter than his brother's and he had wavy curls around his ears. His eyes were the same smooth brown color as the first boy. However, this boy's eyes glowed with unrestrained joy. He alternated between looking out the window and studying the cockpit with a huge smile on his face.
The third child wasn't as thrilled with the ride. He looked around nervously, as though afraid that the plane would prove faulty somehow. This boy's features, though resembling the others in shape, were much lighter in color. His hair was a sandy-brown, almost blonde. His eyes were light brown with golden flecks of color. Several freckles dotted his nose and cheeks.
Once the plane reached cruising altitude and leveled off, the third boy seemed to relax a little. After a while he yawned and his eyes began to drift closed.
"She's cold." The first boy said suddenly, interrupting Parker's scrutiny. He gestured to the bundle sleeping in the chair beside Parker.
"How do know that?" Parker asked as she unfastened her belt and stood up.
The boy shrugged. "I don't know." He thought for a moment then answered. "She looks like she is cold."
Parker nodded as she pulled a blanket from an overhead compartment and tucked it around the little girl.
Parker crouched beside the still form and studied her daughter's face. A matted mess of hair hung across the child's features. The long tresses were mostly russet brown in color with natural copper highlights mixed in. Not simply brown, but not quite red either, the girl's hair would be lovely when properly cared for.
With a gentle sweep of her fingertips, Parker brushed the hair aside to look at the child more closely. Her eyes were closed but incredibly long lashes lay upon soft cheeks. The left side of the girl's face was mottled purple and yellow with an old bruise that made Parker's heart turn wretchedly in her chest.
Just beneath the girl's right eye was a small crescent-shaped scar. Strangely enough, the scar was in exactly the same place on her face as the little mole on Jarod's.
Parker stood and retrieved another blanket. As she wrapped the first boy in the covering she asked him, "Does she look any warmer?"
Dark eyes considered the little girl intently for a moment before the boy answered. "She is fine now."
Parker smiled as she tucked blankets around the other boys. The lighter- haired boy had already drifted to sleep. Within minutes, the first child had drifted off as well.
The second boy, still energized with excitement, strained to see out the window beside Parker.
Parker leaned toward him and said softly, "The view out my window is no different than yours."
He chewed at his lower lip for a moment and then glanced out his own portal. A moment later, he was trying to peek out Parker's side of the plane again.
"Come here, I'll prove it." Parker said with a chuckle.
The little boy quickly unbuckled his seat belt and scrambled on to Parker's lap to see out her window.
"See?" Parker asked. "A lot of black nothing. It's too dark to see the clouds."
The child smiled at her in confusion. "The what?" he asked innocently. "What are clouds?"
Parker felt like she'd just been kicked in the stomach. The boy pointed frantically at the wing of the plane and exclaimed, "I saw the flap move!" he giggled. "Are we going up or going down?"
The youngster's enthusiasm was contagious. Parker forced her uneasiness aside and smiled again as she responded, "I'm not sure, kiddo."
Parker was suddenly struck by a lovely idea. Standing up, she swung the child into her seat and said, "You wait right there for a minute."
She went to the cockpit and stood in the doorway until Jarod noticed her presence.
Moving aside one earpiece on his headphones so that he could hear both the radio and Miss Parker, Jarod asked her, "How are they doing?"
Parker shrugged. "Three out of four are sleeping soundly."
Jarod turned and looked at her questioningly. "Three?"
"It would seem," Parker began. "That we have an airplane enthusiast among us."
Jarod grinned.
"He's so intrigued by the entire thing. And he's asking questions that I can't answer." Parker continued. "If you don't mind the company." she hedged.
The pretender's grin grew even wider. "Of course I don't mind. Bring him on up."
Parker went back to where the little boy sat, still intently watching the flap outside the window.
"Would you like to see the cockpit?" Parker asked the boy knowingly.
The boy's dark eyes grew big as he asked in an awestruck voice, "Is that allowed?"
Parker nodded seriously. "As long as you don't touch anything and follow instructions very carefully."
She took the boy's hand and guided him into the cockpit area.
The little boy looked around, enthralled by the lights, buttons and gauges that surrounded him.
Jarod turned toward the boy and said, "Pretty cool, isn't it?"
The child blinked at him for a minute.
Jarod shrugged his shoulders and added, "That's what I thought, the first time I was in a jet. This is so cool."
"Cool?" The boy echoed. Parker and Jarod exchanged a look of understanding over the boy's dark head. They both knew that Jarod's term was unfamiliar to the child.
"What do you think, Parker? Can this young fellow handle the copilot's chair for a while?" Jarod asked boisterously.
"Oh, yes Sir." The child said quickly as he scrambled into the seat beside Jarod's.
Parker smiled to herself as she went back to her own seat with the other children. From her vantage point, she could see straight into the cockpit. Parker watched Jarod as he talked to the excited little boy.
"You'll need to buckle up, Ace." Jarod said.
He started to reach over to fasten the child in but the boy yelped, "I can do it."
Parker tried to doze while she affectionately watched the two interact. Jarod spent the next several hours patiently answering a multitude of questions. The little boy quickly learned the names of several of the gauges as well as some of the basics of aerodynamics. The child hung on Jarod's every word as the man explained what functions controlled which systems.
As they neared their destination, Jarod turned the radio on in the cockpit so that the boy could hear the sounds that had been coming through Jarod's headset.
"Do you want to stay here while we land?" Jarod asked the little boy. "Or would you rather go back to your seat where you can look out the window more easily?"
The child blinked at him in confusion.
Jarod smiled sadly. With a flash of insight, Parker realized that Jarod had just offered the boy a choice. The freedom to choose what he wanted to do was a foreign concept to the child and Jarod knew it.
He repeated, "You can stay here. Or, you can go back to your seat. It's up to you."
Parker could see the boy look back toward her, then look forward at the instrument panel. The little face creased with a frown as he struggled with his options.
He looked at Jarod longingly and said, "I want to stay here with you."
Jarod nodded reassuringly. A moment later, he was talking on the radio, requesting clearance to land.
"Do you want to help me out here, Ace?" Jarod asked the little boy.
"Help you fly the plane?" He gasped.
"Sure," Jarod chuckled. "Watch this gauge right here. Do remember what it's called?"
"Altimeter." The boy said proudly.
"Good. You watch that and call out our altitude every 5000 feet while we descend." Jarod instructed. "Can you handle that?"
The boy took his duty very seriously and obediently did exactly what Jarod had asked.
Several minutes later, the plane came to a stop at the end of a runway, not far from a small parking lot.
The little boy came bounding from the cockpit and into the cabin with Jarod closely following him.
"Did you see me?" the boy asked his brothers. The two boys had woken while the plane was landing and now stared at their brother dumbfounded. "I helped fly the plane. Didn't I?" The enthusiastic little boy pleaded with Jarod for confirmation of his tale.
"You sure did, Ace." Jarod smiled down at the child. "And you were a fine copilot."
"Will you teach me to fly by myself?" the bouncing boy asked eagerly.
Jarod crouched down and said, "As soon as you are tall enough to sit in the chair and still have your feet reach the floor, I will teach you. I promise."
The boy hopped up and down like he had springs in his shoes. "This is so cool!" the child exclaimed.
Parker and Jarod gathered the children and the few belongings they'd brought with them. They left the plane and crossed the pavement to a nearby SUV identical to the one they had abandoned in Delaware.
As the two adults loaded everyone into the car and buckled seatbelts, Jarod's little copilot prattled on incessantly about his escapade in the cockpit. The boy excitedly demonstrated with huge arm waving gestures as he talked.
As Parker fastened her own belt, she glanced in to the back and looked at the other two boys. The taller, dark haired boy was frowning with concern in his eyes. The third boy curled timidly in his seat. His golden brown eyes were wide with fear.
Parker shot Jarod a worried look. "I should have given the other boys a chance to sit in the cockpit with you." She was distressed to think that she had been unfair to the two little boys because they had been asleep. "I should have woken them up for a little while."
Jarod turned and studied the three boys for a moment. He shook his head and said, "No Parker. You did the right thing." He turned back to the front of the car and started the engine.
"But they are so upset to have missed it. God only knows when they'll get the chance to be inside a plane again." Parker said softly.
As Jarod guided the vehicle out of the lot he said, "It's not the plane the has them upset, Parker." He explained. "This is the first time any one of them has ever done anything on his own. They didn't share the experience so now the other two have to imagine what our flying ace is trying to describe."
Parker stared at Jarod for a moment in wonder. When she looked at the three boys again, she could see that Jarod was right. The one boy was trying to convey his excitement to the others. But one brother was obviously worried about such outrageous behavior while the other was just plain scared.
"It will be okay." Jarod tried to reassure her. "Let him have his moment. The others will find moments of their own, in time."
Parker turned to stare at Jarod's profile. "You are so go at this parenting thing." She said with awe.
Jarod scoffed. "It has nothing to do with parenting. It's just that I remember what it was like to see the world for the first time." He shrugged. "I understand what they are feeling, that's all."
"They're lucky to have you here to help them. It must have been very hard for you." Parker whispered softly. "Facing all this alone the way you did."
Jarod shrugged nonchalantly. "It was frightening at times." He shot Parker a strange look. "Do you want to know a secret?" He went on. "Once, very early on, going back to The Centre did cross my mind."
Parker's rolled her eyes in disbelief. "No way."
He chuckled. "Seriously, Parker." Jarod admitted. "I was around 35-years- old, cold, hungry and in desperate need of a bathroom. I was in the train station in Dover. I had never seen a dime in my life. All I had was a twenty dollar bill."
Parker started to laugh. The restroom facilities in the Dover train station were all pay toilets. They were the kind where the stall door only opened when you inserted a dime in the slot.
"I admit, I was pretty desperate for a few minutes. For a brief few seconds, I did actually consider calling Sydney to come and get me." Jarod confided.
Trying hard to stifle her snickering, Parker asked. "What did you do?"
"A very nice elderly gentleman came out of one of the stalls. As he went out, I grabbed the door before it could close behind him." Jarod explained while Parker giggled even harder. "To this day whenever I'm in one of those pay toilets, I leave extra dimes beside the sink." He added solemnly.
Parker couldn't take it. She bent over and laughed until tears ran down her cheeks.
"Then I went to a newsstand to break the twenty." Jarod continued. "I bought a newspaper and I discovered PEZ. Never considered going back again. That's my secret motivation for staying out of The Centre you know." Jarod whispered conspiratorially.
"What's that?" Parker choked around her giggles.
"Sugar." Jarod answered seriously. "The world offers so many varieties of sugar and packages them all so wonderfully, how could I ever want to go back to a place that won't even give me flavored koolaid?"
Parker's peals of laughter echoed in the car. She couldn't help herself. The laughter was cathartic, releasing the tension that had built up over the last few days. Jarod smiled triumphantly while she tried to gain a little control.
"There's a first for you." Jarod said warmly. "I have never heard you laugh like that, Parker."
Parker held a hand to the stitch that was forming in her side. "I'm sorry." She gasped as her chortling began to subside.
"Don't be sorry." Jarod urged. "It's a fantastic sound. You should laugh more often."
With a sigh, Parker looked in the back seat to find the children all fast asleep. Resting her head on one hand she gazed at their cherubic little faces. "I'm going to try, Jarod. I am going to try."
