Written by Christine Morgan and David Henderson Original Illustrations by David Henderson Adapted to Web by Christine Morgan
Something happened in the world. A
lot of the parents died and people stopped traveling as much as they used to.
The airports were shut down and changed into places for orphans to go to live
and be taken care of. Sad or very sick people went there too, and so did the
people who couldn't live in their homes anymore.
Doctors and
went to the airports to take care
of the kids, sick, sad, or homeless people. The doctors had a lot of help from
the others in the world. Everyone had enough to eat and clothes, but still many
of those who lived in the airport were bored or lonely most of the time.
There was a
girl who lived at an airport that decided not to be so sad anymore. She was an
orphan because of the world, but had been one from before everything changed.
She thought that if the people who needed to live at airports could be more
like a family, then there would not be too much sadness, boredom or loneliness
there. So she walked around the airport she was at trying to help people smile.
Her name was Rachel.
It was hard
work to help people smile, but she kept walking around because she knew it was
what she wanted to do and because she wanted to see the whole airport. She thought it was smart to learn as
much about the airport as she could, and that the knowledge would help her to
help others better.
Soon, she
found a boy she had known before everything changed. His name was Kyle. He was
sitting alone, scrunched up and sad. But he had not been an orphan before
everything changed; he had a big family with both parents and three brothers.
Rachel asked him why he was so sad and sitting at the airport.
Kyle said
that his parents were in surgery and that soon he would be an orphan. His
brothers all lived far away and he could not get to them, so he would be alone
and might never leave the airport again. Rachel said it would be okay because
they knew each other already, so there could be less loneliness and sadness for
them.
They went
to the surgery room and waited for the doctors to come out. The doctors were
very sad for Kyle, but the doctors and the kids said prayers for Kyle and his
parents together. Then they all decided to try to help the others who lived at
the airport to smile more.
The doctors
were very busy with sick people, so Kyle and Rachel decided to stick together
as they walked around trying to help others to smile. It was still very hard
work and discouraging; many people at that airport seemed to want to stay sad
or angry or sick. But some of the other orphans decided to join Kyle and
Rachel's "new family" to make life better for everyone.
There was
Mark and Jeff and Ania and Mary at first. Patty and Carl and little Mary Jo
with their brothers and sisters named Sam and Abe, Tomas, Joshua, Jillie and
Sue. No one knew when Terry joined them, but she also brought big brother Ken
and the neighbor boy Robert. So there were 18 orphans who wanted to stay
together and help out. The doctors at the airport set up a place for them all,
with rooms near each other.
Soon they
were all happier than they had been before, and though some of the orphans did
not want to be there and many people at the airport stayed unhappy, sick or
angry, it wasn't long before their group was able to make a good difference.
Big brother Ken had organized the 18 so that they could reach every part of the
airport in one day, helping the people who wanted help and even making things
better for the people who didn't want help most of the time.
Rachel and
Kyle worked together because they were a good team. They were learning some odd
things about the airport and stories about the land the airport was on from
before it was an airport. The stories they heard and the things that they were
learning about the airport made sense to them even though they were about
magical things. The land the airport was on had once been the home of magical
beings called fairies who had left keys for a door into the more magical land
they had gone to from where the airport was made, just in case someone could
figure out how to use them to open a door into the fairy realm.
Kyle and
Rachel found an old gold colored key one day that had no reason to be in the
airport. And when they looked through the hole used to keep it on a string or
key ring, they saw the airport and everyone in it differently. They saw extra
lines around people and walls; when they paid attention carefully they noticed
that these lines told them when a person was not telling the truth or was
trying to trick them in some way.
All this
time, the world had continued to change. People from the outside had stopped
helping the ones who were sick or sad or homeless as much. Sometimes people
would visit the airport just to be mean to the people who lived there.
Rachel and
Kyle used the key to keep safe. They told the other orphans about the key, but
no one else saw anything different when they looked through the key ring hole
on the key. But the lines were
there, and when the others teased them, it only helped Kyle and Rachel become
better friends.
Another
day, when they were walking in a less often used part of the airport, Rachel
dropped the key. When Kyle went to pick up the key he noticed that the pattern
on the walls matched the way the key looked where it was meant to open a lock.
By using the key ring hole, they found one special piece of the wall that the
key pressed into perfectly, as though it had been made by pressing the key into
it to get the pattern onto it. And when they touched this piece of wall, a
small square tile of it fell into their hands, so they took that with them.
The tile
stuck neatly together with the key. If they wanted to, they could put the key
on a string and wear it like a necklace without the tile falling off of
it. And now when they looked
through the hole in the key they also saw flickering, moving lights around
everything and everyone. Once they had done some experiments, they noticed that
all of the lights wanted to go toward the same direction. Sometimes the lights
were slower to go that way, and that told them when a person or thing was more
interested in their own ideas and plans than in being helpful or kind to
others.
But still
no one else could see anything different when they looked through the hole.
Kyle and Rachel didn't let that bother them. Their good friendship and teamwork
got the attention of the other orphans who stopped teasing them and began
encouraging them to look for more magical things. Some of the orphans had
listened to Rachel and Kyle tell of the door into the fairy realm, so the
orphans who wanted to leave the airport but would not be safe doing that begged
Kyle and Rachel to search the whole airport for more clues to open the magical
door.
So they
searched very carefully for any more keys or places that their key might fit,
but found nothing. It was by using the key hole with the wall tile that they
noticed that every light they saw through it went to one place which was a spot
in the sky over the airport. They thought that this must be the where the door
had been, but they didn't know how anyone could use it that high in the sky.
They wondered if people were supposed to climb the lights to get to the door,
but no one else could see them.
Patty and
Terry helped Rachel and Kyle to find more clues even though they could not see
the things Kyle and Rachel saw through the key. They were very smart, but
getting more sad about the world. The sad and angry people in the airport were
becoming meaner and more selfish, only the ones they had been able to help right
away seemed to care about others anymore.
The others
helped figure out that since sometimes the lights stopped beside words they
found around the airport, those words must be part of a clue. The words were on
signs, books, and just about everywhere. Big brother Ken, who wrote very well,
and Jillie, who had paper and crayons, helped them to collect these words. They
saved as many as they could find but did not know what order they should go in.
Ania sorted
through the words they had collected one day and made them into a poem. She
brought her work to Kyle and Rachel, and it seemed right to read them out loud.
Rachel read
the words out loud while Kyle was holding the key with the tile stuck on it.
They were standing near a window, so they got to see the sky light up over
where all the lights had been going. Ania got scared and ran away to where the
other orphans were. A big circle of light was made in the sky around where the
lights were and soon Kyle and Rachel could see into the land where the fairies had
gone.
The door
slowly came down to the ground near the airport and the wind and weather
outside got a little crazy. The wind was blowing in the direction of the door
to the fairy realm, and there was fog and some rain that made it difficult to
see anything other than the airport. Rachel and Kyle took the key and the tile
away from the window to find their friends.
Everyone in
the airport who was truthful and not selfish was wandering around. If they had
been asleep, then something had woken them up and they wanted to find out what
it was. They were all walking toward the outside of the airport where the door
to the fairy realm had landed on the ground.
The people
who were selfish and who did not tell the truth or were tricky and mean did not
know what was going on. Some of
them did not even wake up. They became angry and afraid because all of the nice
people were going somewhere but they did not want to trust the nice people
enough to go with them.
Soon the
wind had gotten into the airport and began to help push the nice people toward
the door into the fairy realm, though it did not push the mean people. Kyle and Rachel saw some of their
friends outside, going through the door, and how happy they were that the fairy
realm wanted them in it. Rachel and Kyle saw fairies welcoming the sad and sick
people and helping them. They saw that there were a lot of children there for
the other orphans to play with and learn from and nice homes for everyone to
live in with the fairies.
Kyle and
Rachel and Terry were the only ones left in the airport. Terry had come back
for them to be sure that they got to go too. She was telling them to hurry up
and the wind seemed to agree because it got very strong.
They
reached a broken window to the outside, when Kyle stopped Rachel while Terry
went outside, being gently blown into the door to the fairy realm. Rachel and Kyle held onto some bars
that were around the window to talk. The wind had gotten so strong that it
lifted their feet off the ground!
Kyle was
saying that he was worried and sad over his three brothers. Only the people at this airport were
being allowed to go into the fairy realm, and he would miss his brothers very
much if he went without them. Rachel was so sad for him that she began to cry
and noticed that Kyle was also crying.
They
decided to stay because they could still help people to smile, and besides,
they still had the key and the tile. Maybe there were other doors that would
let other nice people into the fairy realm, too. And the door went back up into the sky where it closed on
that airport.
