EPISODE SIX

THE SHIP IS GONE

After leaving the restaurant, the travelers went back to the beach. They intended to go seashell hunting, and Stephanie and Ben had been thinking about kissing under the boardwalk. But when they got back to the beach, they noticed something strange: their ship wasn't there!

"Where could it be?" Lionel asked the group.

Suddenly Ben pointed outward toward the ocean. "There it is! And it looks like someone's driving it!"

"We shouldn't have left it untied or unattended," sighed Alexis.

"Oh, no!" Stephanie cried, clinging to Ben's arm. "Someone's stolen our ship! Don't tell me we're going to be stuck here on this beach forever!"

"We won't, honey," Alexis reassured her. "There's gotta be another way we can continue our journey."

"Isn't there an airport somewhere nearby?" Matthew asked.

"Rosita understood English pretty well. Maybe you can run back to the restaurant and ask her," Ben suggested.

"No way," said Matthew. "I can't face seeing her or her fiancé."

Ben rolled his eyes. "Fine, I'll go back myself," he said. He sprinted back to Papa Gonzalez's restaurant, found Rosita, and asked her if there was a nearby airport, explaining the situation to her. She smiled and told him there was a small airport on the other side of the village. Ben thanked her, hugged her goodbye, and left.

"Guys," he called as he ran back to the beach, "there's a small airport on the other side of the village!"

Everyone was thrilled. They joined Ben in walking to the other side of the village. When they got to the airport they looked for their canteens because they were so thirsty from walking, but then they remembered their baggage was still inside the ship. They sighed.

"We're thirsty, but we have no stinkin' water here!" sighed Matthew glumly.

"No food!" groaned Ben. "I can't eat my snacks for traveling!"

"No laptop! I--I can't e-mail my sister Elizabeth," moaned Stephanie.

"Relax, everybody. We'll eat at the restaurant in the airport, buy Stephanie some stationery so she can write to her sister, eat on the airplane, and just find a place to wash our clothes every day so we can wear them again," Lionel announced.

Everybody agreed that was the best they could do now. So they ate a good meal at the airport restaurant. They told a kind old woman who managed the restaurant that they were super hungry and thirsty and that their money had been stolen. So she let them eat for free, knowing they were not lying.

"Wait, how will we get on the plane?" Stephanie asked. "We don't even have plane tickets."

"We'll have to stow away, Stephanie," Ben said. "Keep ourselves really hidden."

"Where should we fly to?" Matthew asked.

Ben looked at all the destinations of this little airport: Houston, Texas, Phoenix, Arizona, Mexico City, Mexico, and Chile. "Let's go to Chile," he said. "That will get us closer to the cities of gold. Let's take the next flight out!"

Everyone knew sneaking onto a flight was wrong and illegal, but they didn't see much choice they had now, so they all agreed. They went and joined the other passengers to wait for the flight to Chile.

But just then a woman's voice announced over the loudspeaker that the flight to Chile would be delayed for up to 15 hours due to some super bad weather.

The explorers sighed. It was going to be a long night!

TO FOLLOW...

A young employee at the airport who has been meaning to give away his private plane for free gives it to the explorers. Ben, whose dream it had always been to try aviation, becomes the plane's pilot. Read the next episode of THE MYSTERIOUS CITIES OF GOLD REVISITED.