Chapter 3

Fine by me.

Honestly, I hoped they'd take it further, sue louder, make a bigger scene.

Anything that would finally split my family clean away from them and from Grandma.

Relatives like that, better to have none at all.

It took forever, but we finally got every passenger boarded, the ticket count matched the head count, and my coworker and I let out a breath.

Still, I knew this plane wasn't taking off on time. The main event hadn't started yet.

I got my coworker and we walked the aisle one more time, warning everyone again not to touch the emergency exit, not to pull on anything, no matter what.

I knew exactly what that sentence would turn into inside my cousin's head. "Definitely go touch it."

He'd had OCD since he was little. He'd gone through treatment for a while, and on the surface it seemed under control, but it had never fully gone away.

And I'd found a bug in him. Say the same thing three times and it triggered his compulsion, dead on.

Three warnings in, and my cousin was already itching. I walked over to him and aimed the camera right at him on purpose.

"So cool! So cool! This is my first time on a plane! I never knew planes were this big, this much fun!"

He clapped his hands, delighted, pretending to touch the plane while his hand crept toward the emergency exit.

His seat was right beside it. That bright red marker sat there like a monster's eye, and it grabbed his attention in a heartbeat.

"Huh? What's this? Is it the switch that flies us to outer space? If I pull it, does the whole planeful of us go to outer space?"

Beside him, my uncle didn't care one bit, head down over his cards. As long as the plane hadn't taken off, he was racing the clock to finish that hand.

My cousin was busy taking pretty selfies, striking poses, switching angles, banking material to post later as travel photos, the classic act of faking a life she couldn't afford.

My aunt wasn't idle either, digging through everything around her seat. If it was free and could be pocketed, she took it.

She even begged things off the passengers in front and behind her, no sense of boundaries at all, and the rows on both sides had complained to me more than once.

And it was exactly because this family didn't care that, half a minute later, my cousin got the emergency exit open, clean.

Bang——

One huge crash, and everyone on the plane jumped three times over.

A giant chute burst out from the side of the plane and swelled up like a slide.

"Cool! Fun! A giant slide! I've never seen a slide this big, this is awesome, this is awesome!"

The whole plane was stunned, staring at my cousin like he was an idiot.

He wasn't old, but the boy was strong.

An emergency exit even we flight attendants struggled to open, and he yanked it wide with sheer brute force.

In an instant, every cooling and ventilation system on the plane shut down.

The passengers all started up, and before long the cabin was stifling.

"What's going on? Whose brat is this, why isn't anyone watching him? How did he get the emergency exit open? Is that a toy? This is insane!"

"That's it, we're done, the plane can't take off now, everything's going to be delayed. Can that brat cover this loss, take the blame for this?"

"Grab him, quick! Where are his parents? Grab the parents too, that brat's about to slide right down!"

"..."

Before any of us could react, my cousin slid straight down the emergency chute, and out on the tarmac my coworkers nearly jumped out of their skins too.