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A low rumble rolled across the sky.
Rosie and I both stopped in our tracks and looked up. A small aircraft zoomed over the Beast, turned, and came back.
I stepped away from the crater’s edge, craning my neck to get a better look.
I waved, hoping the pilot could see me. But he didn’t come near enough. Instead, he started zigzagging like a crazy person. I thought maybe he was borracho until he circled back perfectly for another run. This time he came in tighter. Just when I thought the pilot was going to pull up, he pointed the plane’s nose toward the center of the crater. The wings were so close to me I could practically see the screws holding them together. The plane’s thrust shook the ground, sending me stumbling, but I caught myself.
Then something started glowing inside the cockpit. An eerie yellowish-blue light. Except what I saw had to have been some kind of a hallucination or optical illusion, because there was no pilot—there was a thing. An alien head thing with red bulging eyes, no nose, and a mouth filled with long sharp fangs. Yeah, that’s right. An alien demon dude was flying the plane right into the Beast’s mouth! Everything happened in sickeningly slow motion. I heard a crash, and a fiery explosion rocked the world, big enough to make even the planets shake.
I did a drop roll as flames burst from the top of the volcano. Rosie yelped.
“Rosie!”
And before I knew it I was tumbling down, down, down away from the Beast, away from my dog, and away from life as I knew it.
2
When I opened my eyes, the sky was a sea of black and the world was muffled, like I had cotton balls stuffed in my ears.
I rolled over with a groan and saw that I’d tumbled about twenty yards down from the rim. My head was pounding and, after a quick inventory, I found two scraped wrists and a bleeding elbow. Then I remembered: Rosie! Where was she?
I got to my feet, frantically scanning the dark. “Rosie! Come on, girl.” I was about to climb back up to the top, when I thought I heard her cry near the base. “Rosie!” Quickly, I hobbled to the bottom of the trail, feeling woozy and light-headed.
When I got there, I squatted to catch my breath. That’s when Mom showed up. She fell to her knees in front of me and death-gripped my shoulders. Her eyes were flooded with tears and she was spitting out all kinds of Spanish—mostly “Gracias a Dios”—which she always did when she was freaked.
“I heard the explosion!” she cried. “I went to check on you and you weren’t in your bed and”—she gripped me tighter—“I told you not to come out here. Especially at night. What were you thinking?”
“I’m okay,” I said, slipping onto my butt. I looked up at the Beast, blacker than a desert beetle. How long had I been knocked out? “Have you seen Rosie?” I asked hopefully.
But Mom didn’t answer. She was too busy thanking the saints and squeezing me.
My heart started to jackhammer against my chest in a terrible panic. “Mom!” I shrugged her off me. “Where is she?”
A second later, Rosie was there with my cane tucked in her mouth. I took it from her and she began licking my face and pawing me like she was making sure I was really alive. I pulled my dog to me, hugging her broad chest, burying my face in her neck so Mom wouldn’t see the tears forming. “I love you, you stupid, stupid dog,” I whispered so only Rosie could hear.
It didn’t take long for the ambulance, cops, fire trucks, and camera crews to show up. Was everyone here just for me? Then I remembered the creepy guy who had crashed. He definitely needed more help than I did. Within a few minutes the paramedics checked me out, bandaged my cuts, and told Mom I had a bump on the head and should get a CT scan. That sounded expensive.
“I’m fine,” I said, standing to prove it.
I could read the paramedic’s doubtful elevator eyes taking me in and stopping on my cane.
“I’ve got a straw leg,” I told him, leaning against my cane, thinking that sounded better than freak leg.
Mom shook her head.
“What’s wrong with your leg?” the paramedic asked.
“His right leg just hasn’t caught up with the left one yet,” she said.
The truth was, nobody knew. Not a single doctor had been able to tell us “definitively” why my leg hadn’t grown properly, which meant I could probably be on one of those medical mystery shows if I wanted to. I’d for sure rather be a mystery than a definition.
I was glad Mom didn’t say anything about my right foot. It was two sizes smaller than my left one, which was why Mom always had to buy two stupid pairs of shoes every time I wore out a pair.
The cops were next. After I told Officer Smart (real name, no lie) what happened, she said, “So the plane just crashed into the crater.”
I nodded, keeping a tight grip on Rosie, who was dancing in place and whining as she stared at the volcano. “We’re safe now, girl,” I told her in a low voice.
Smart continued with the questions. “Did the plane look like it was in trouble? Did it make any weird sounds? Was there any smoke?”
