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Back Jungle Up Save as PDF
Chapters (63)
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  63. Author’s Note

Then he nodded at the flight attendant and said, “Now let’s get this plane in the air. We have a lost city to find.”

6

6

elite charter flight 541
august 13, 10:12 a.m.

Andy leaned back in the soft leather chair and took a deep breath. He let the calming instrumental music from his earbuds wash over him and exhaled through his nose.

“You’re going to be just fine,” he mouthed silently, not wanting any of the other members of the expedition team to hear him.

There were twelve seats—six rows of two—on the fancy jet. Jonathan Roth was in the first row, and his production assistant, Libby, sat directly behind him. The newest arrival, Thomas something-or-other, was in the third row. Andy, himself, was in the fourth row; the two-person camera crew (Darnell and Sean, was it?) in the fifth; and Farah Karim in the back row.

“Flying is safe,” Andy whispered. His heart thumped against his chest with every word.

He opened his eyes and pulled a blue prescription bottle from his pocket. For all the pills Andy had taken, he’d never tried a Valium. He should have experimented with the pills beforehand. He didn’t want to make a fool of himself. What if he was allergic? Or what if it turned him into a slurring drunk? What then?

His current predicament was so ridiculous he couldn’t help but let out a small laugh. Did he really have anxiety about taking antianxiety medication?

That was a new one for his therapist.

Andy decided against the pills, sliding them into the pocket of his backpack, then opened a separate compartment and removed a small wooden box. Andy set the box on the shiny table in front of him and, after glancing nonchalantly over each shoulder, flipped it open. He pulled out a white-and-gray-streaked rabbit’s foot and gripped it tightly.

The rabbit’s foot had been a gift from Brady, a neighborhood kid Andy used to babysit while growing up in Rapid City, South Dakota. The town—the state’s second largest, after Sioux Falls—was located right next to the Black Hills National Forest. Andy wasn’t much of a hunter himself, but Brady was always running around the forest with his BB gun killing this and that.

One night when Andy was watching Brady—which was mostly the two of them playing video games—the then seven-year-old presented him with the “genuine” rabbit’s foot. The following week, Andy flew for the first time in his life—to check out a college in Southern California—the rabbit’s foot clutched tightly in his hand, much as it was now.