It was my first experience with what is euphemistically called a "water landing" by flight crews, and it was a scary one. It was easily as bumpy as turbulence; but it was over much sooner. We all breathed a sigh of relief when that part ended.
Of course, that wasn't the end of the problem, as the captain informed us: "Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin deplaning. You will all have the chance to get onto a raft, and the crew will be the last off the plane. Once we're all on dry land, we'll see if we can figure out what happened. Please proceed in a calm and orderly manner."
Apparently, to the people in first class, calm and orderly meant pushing everybody out of their way, and they practically trampled anyone they felt was moving too slowly for their liking. But the crew got them all out, and they made sure nobody turned any of the rafts into a one-person craft.
When it was our turn, Mrs. Raye helped the flight attendants get us all out, and she helped us stay calm at this point. We all took our carry-ons out of the overhead compartments, and we waited our turn to get to a raft. Kal and I got to share a raft, which was certainly a big help for me. We were getting pretty serious, and our plan was for us to make love on my 18th birthday. For now, though, we focused on getting ashore.
The last raft to get to shore was for the flight crew, and we all applauded the captain for getting us off of the plane alive. "Thanks," he said. "Does anyone know where we are?"
We all looked at each other, dumbfounded. "We thought you might know," Mrs. Raye said.
He shook his head. "This place is too tropical for the North Atlantic, which is where we were, before... "
"Before the turbulence," I found myself saying.
"That was more than turbulence, miss: I saw a blinding flash; and, when my vision cleared, we were over this land mass. I don't know what happened, but it's nothing I've ever come across before."
"Look at that!"
We all looked.
And our jaws all dropped.
"That... can't be... " Mrs. Raye said.
"Sure looks like it to me," the captain replied.
"Pteranodon," Hector said. "A lot of them."
We were looking at creatures that were supposed to have died out hundreds of millions of years ago. And here they were.
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