Ollie has never, ever, been on an airplane before. Sure, she’s seen them buzz above Playa Mariposa, the seaside village in Mexico where she lives. And when she was younger, maybe three or four, she’d see them gliding way up in the sky and imagine they were noisy, silver birds. She wondered where they slept at night. Did they make nests in trees like other birds? Did they lay eggs?

Ollie has always had a great imagination. And of course, she’s also very smart and has learned all about airplanes and other science stuff from her mom, who home-schools her. Ollie’s mom owns a restaurant called the Hola Beach Grill and the two of them live above it on
the second floor.

Miss Rosa, the Hola Beach Grill’s cook, has taught Ollie all about cooking. She often gets to go with Miss Rosa to the market on Saturdays to buy fresh vegetables, fruit and fish. (Did you know that Ollie once held a whole octopus in her hands?)

Ollie’s father was a fisherman. Every morning, he’d go down to the beach, push his boat off from shore, and head out into the ocean to fish. But one day a fierce storm came up and he was never seen again. Ollie loved him very much and she sometimes feels like there’s a hole in her heart from the loss.

As brave as she is, this’ll be Ollie’s first real airplane ride. (To tell the truth, she’s a bit nervous.) She’s going to visit her cousins, Lukas and Piper, who live way up north on a ranch in the desert. It’ll be a long flight, and she’s brought a couple of books to keep her mind off the take-off and other scary stuff.

Ollie hasn’t seen Lukas or Piper—her closest friends call her “P” like in pea—since they came to Playa Mariposa for a visit a couple years ago. It was fun for Ollie to take charge and show them all the cool things around her ocean village, like colorful sea glass they found on the beach, big green turtles that floated out on the water
and twisty pieces of driftwood they pretended were mythical creatures.

Ollie loves adventures and hopes that she and her cousins can go on new ones in the desert. She’s read up on what the desert is all about. She knows it’ll be sunny and hot during the day and much cooler at night. There’ll be lots of sand, but not like her ocean beach sand. In fact, there will be no ocean at all.

Ollie’s Uncle Corky, who runs the village marina, is giving her a ride to the little airport nearby. Ollie and her uncle are super close; he’s been almost like a father to her since her dad went missing.

Corky’s old red truck chugs down the highway out of town through other little villages and long stretches of jungle road. Ollie looks out the window and sees seagulls and other birds circling high up in the air. She can’t believe that in a short while she’ll look down on them from the airplane window!

“Almost there, Ollie,” says Uncle Corky. “You’re lucky to be able to take this trip on the airplane all by yourself. I mean … there’ll be other passengers of course.”

“And a pilot to fly the plane, I hope,” Ollie jokes. She’s doing her best to show her uncle how brave she is. Little does she know just how brave she’ll need to be.