Leni stepped up into the plane, ducking her head, bending in half. Once inside, she took a seat in the middle row and snapped her seat belt in place. Ms. Rhodes sat down beside her. Matthew lumbered past them, head down, not making eye contact.

“Tom says he’s not talking much,” Ms. Rhodes said to Leni, leaning close.

“I don’t know what he needs,” Leni said, turning back, watching Matthew take a seat and strap his seat belt tight.

“A friend,” Ms. Rhodes said, but it was a stupid answer. The kind of thing adults said. Obvious. But what was that friend supposed to say?

The pilot climbed aboard and strapped himself in and put on a headset, then started the engine. Leni heard Marthe and Agnes giggling in their seats behind her.

The float plane engine hummed, the metal all around her rattled. Waves slapped the floats.

The pilot was saying something about seat cushions and what to do in case of an unscheduled water landing.

“Wait. That means a crash. He’s talking about what to do if we crash,” she said, feeling the start of panic.

“We’ll be fine,” Ms. Rhodes said. “You can’t be Alaskan and be afraid of small planes. This is how we get around.”

Leni knew it was true. With so little of the state accessible by roads, boats and planes were important up here. In the winter, the vastness of Alaska was connected by frozen rivers and lakes. In the summer all of that fast-moving water separated and isolated them. Bush planes helped them get around. Still, she hadn’t been in an airplane before and it felt remarkably unsteady and unreliable. She clutched the armrests and held on. She tried to sweep fear out of her mind as the plane rambled past the breakwater, clattered hard, and began lifting into the sky. The plane swayed sickeningly, leveled out. Leni didn’t open her eyes. If she did, she knew she’d see things that scared her: bolts that could pop out, windows that could crack, mountains they could crash into. She thought about that plane that had crashed in the Andes a few years ago. The survivors had become cannibals.

Her fingers ached. That was how tightly she was holding on.

“Open your eyes,” Ms. Rhodes said. “Trust me.”

She opened her eyes, pushed the vibrating curls out of her face.