“Not us engineers.” Molly smiled at Javi. “Next question …”

“Last question,” Javi pleaded.

Molly looked like she was about to argue, but then a ping went through the cabin, and a voice announced that the doors were closing.

Javi swallowed. Last night, he had imagined himself jumping up and running off the plane when this moment came. But thanks to Molly’s distractions, he was managing to sit here quietly.

“Fire away,” he said.

“This is my favorite one.” Molly clutched the trivia book close, guarding the answer. “What do flight attendants call it when the oxygen masks drop down?”

Javi frowned. “There’s a name for that?”

“It’s secret flight attendant slang. Let me give you a hint: The oxygen sensor gets tripped, right? And suddenly all those rubber masks fall out of the ceiling. Everyone’s freaking out, screaming like animals. So what do flight attendants call it?”

“Um, a really bad day at work?”

“Nope.” Molly gave him a pleased smile. “They call it a ‘rubber jungle.’ Get it? Because everyone goes primal, and there’s all those masks hanging down like vines! And usually it’s just an accident, because of a broken sensor.”

Javi tried to smile back at her, but now he was thinking about those hundreds of masks up in the ceiling, each tightly wound in its little compartment, like snakes ready to spring out and start a panic.

Just one more thing that could go wrong.

ENDPAPERS

Photos ©: 2–3: Larry Rostant for Scholastic; 4 fire: CG Textures; 6–7: Shadow House composite: Shane Rebenschied for Scholastic, Shadow House: Dariush M/Shutterstock, Shadow House fog: Maxim van Asseldonk/Shutterstock, Shadow House clouds: Aon_Skynotlimit/Shutterstock, foreground grass and trees: Maxim van Asseldonk/Shutterstock.

INTERIOR

Photos ©: 24: boy: Keirsten Geise for Scholastic, bird cage: Daft_Lion_Studio/iStockphoto, ukulele: Keith Publicover/Shutterstock, dollhouse: Larry Rostant for Scholastic, room: Library of Congress; 70–71: pool: Mariusz Niedzwiedzki/Shutterstock, wheelchair: CatbirdHill/Shutterstock, cart: CG Textures, right shoes: Rainer Fuhrmann/Shutterstock, foreground shoes: Taborsky/Shutterstock, doll head: AAR Studio/Shutterstock, doll body: Perfect Lazybones/Shutterstock, cloak: Hemera Technologies/Getty Images, cloak stand: JirkaBursik/Shutterstock, broken frame: dimitris_k/Shutterstock, bassinet: iladm/Shutterstock, background doll: unclepepin/Shutterstock, midground doll: Prachaya Roekdeethaweesab/Shutterstock, cat mask: CSA Plastock/Getty Images, books: Paul Orr/Shutterstock; 127: refrigerator interior: Kampol Taepanich/Shutterstock, camera: Kalakutskiy Mikhail/Shutterstock, tunnel: Vladislav S/Shutterstock, refrigerator door: Everett Collection/Shutterstock, bananas: Maks Narodenko/Shutterstock; 184: book and hands: Namart Pieamsuwan/Shutterstock, frame: Chatchawan/Shutterstock, mantle and candle: Zick Svift/Shutterstock, photograph and clock: CG Textures, sketches: Charice Silverman for Scholastic, girl: robangel69/Fotolia, wallpaper: Larysa Kryvoviaz/Shutterstock; 202–203: dollhouse: Larry Rostant for Scholastic, Shane Rebenschied for Scholastic.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR