The coldest wind I’d ever felt in my life blasted me across the ice. Johnny Skye burst out laughing. He crossed his arms in front of his chest and laughed as if I were the biggest joke he’d ever seen.

“What’s so funny?” I shouted.

He pointed to my feet and laughed and laughed. I’d slipped and fallen on the ice so many times that my luggage arrived in the little airport before I did. One of the Eskimos on my flight said to Johnny Skye, “She needs mukluks!” which sent him reeling with laughter again. I was a million miles from home. I wasn’t in the mood to hear some bush pilot named Johnny Skye laughing at me.

“Your boots” he said. “You’ve got to get rid of those ‘lower 48’ boots!”

My brand-new boots were white leather with pointed toes and rolled-down tops and fake silver spurs. They were the most expensive boots in the mall at South Coast Plaza, and probably the most popular boots in Dana Point and Huntington Beach, and maybe even the whole state of California.

“Hey, kid, ain’t you kind of gangly?” he said. “There’s not enough meat on your bones to keep you warm ‘round here. A stiff wind’ll blow you right over.”

“I want to call my mother,” I said.

Johnny Skye laughed even more. There was ice on his wool scarf and ice on his yellow beard.

“Lots of luck, kid,” he said. “They don’t have phones up there, not where Linda Atwood is working. Didn’t anyone tell you? This is Alaska!”

I glared at him, but he just grinned.

Johnny Skye was tall compared to the Eskimos, and he had straight, white teeth. He wore a black jumpsuit zipped to his chest and a tan parka with a furry hood. His boots were the biggest I’d ever seen, like big white bunny feet. Chunks of ice fell from them and melted into puddles on the dirty floor.

“No phones?” I asked.

“No phones, no electricity, and no plumbing where you’re headed. That means no toilets either. Welcome to the Arctic!”

“You’re joking! My mother would never come to a place that didn’t have a phone.”

“I’m dead serious,” he said. He adjusted his cap and wiped the melting ice from his beard with a grimy mitten.

I sank onto one of the plastic chairs lining the wall. Only Mom would send someone like Johnny Skye to meet me. I hated her for leaving. I hated Dad for letting her go. I hated the year and a half since the bicentennial. That’s when Dad and Mom had declared their independence from one another and from me. Now I was in Kotzebue, Alaska, and I couldn’t have felt more miserable.

“Cheer up, kid,” Johnny Skye said. He glanced at his watch as if he had an important appointment. “I've got some boots for you behind the counter over there, and there’s a parka and a bedroll, too. The way you’re built, you’ll need all the goosedown you can get.”

An Eskimo girl grinned from behind the airport counter. Her dark eyes were shaped like almonds. “Come! See!” she said, motioning with her hand. She wore a flowered top that wasn’t a dress and wasn’t a blouse either. It had a ruffle around the bottom and a hood at the collar.

Johnny Skye clutched the shoulder of my cream-colored cashmere coat and pulled me up from the chair. The girl held a huge, ugly parka and some fur-lined boots with soles at least three inches thick.

“Uh, no thanks,” I said. “I’ve got my own clothes.”

“Your mother told me what you needed,” Johnny Skye said. “I bought everything over at Rotman’s.” He took the coat from the girl and held it out. “This here’s got a wolverine ruff. That means it won’t ice up.”

“So?”

“Look here, young lady, there ain’t no stores where you’re headed. You’re gonna have to sacrifice some of your stuck-up fancy ideas.”

Mom once had a whole closet full of clothes. I’d even borrowed some of her stuff. She must have been out of her mind to ask Johnny Skye to shop for me.

He looked at his watch again. “Don’t argue. Just put on the boots and dump what you need into that duffel bag. I’ll bring along the rest of your gear next trip.”

“Next trip! When will that be?”

“When we have better weather,” he said.

“I need all my stuff,” I said. “This is a major move, you know.”

“It looks like you brought along everything you own,” he said, opening some of my boxes and looking inside. “Come on kid, put just your essentials in the bag. The plane’s loaded. You want us to get off the ground, don’t you?” He poked through my stuff, shaking his head and muttering to himself. I was sure he’d break something. “What are all these horse statues for?”

“I collect them.”

I was ready to go back to Dad’s place in Dana Point, even to his red Porsche and silly girlfriends.

“Do what Johnny Skye say,” the Eskimo girl said. “Weather get worse maybe.”

“That’s right, kid,” Johnny Skye said. “I’m making the run within ten minutes or I ain’t going at all. The temperature’s dropping, and we won’t get over the pass. I’m the best damned bush pilot in the Northwest Arctic, but you better hustle or you ain’t getting out of Kotzebue today, tomorrow, or the day after.”

A lady at Alaska Airlines said I was lucky the flight to Kotzebue hadn’t been canceled. I’d hung around the Anchorage airport studying a stuffed grizzly in a glass case and flipping pages in magazines for three hours before the only plane scheduled for Kotzebue departed.

It had been a mistake to come. And the boots were too big.

“Put the socks on first,” Johnny Skye said. He handed me a pair of thick thermal socks, then dug out a second pair from his pocket. “Always carry along extra. You never know when you might need them.”

“They’re so big and so . . . gray,” I said.

“What did you expect?” he asked.

He waited until I put on the socks. The boots fit better.

I stuffed everything I could into the duffel. It swelled with my clothes, shampoo and conditioner, the teddy bear I’d had since I was three, my best jeans, favorite sweaters, and jewelry. I gave up my electric hair dryer and my portable television. Thank goodness I’d taken the trouble to put my posters into a long shipping tube, or they would have been crushed for sure! I found space for my tape player, even though I wasn’t sure how long the batteries would last. I put in my journals and the new white boots Johnny Skye didn’t like I stuffed in my bicentennial cardigan sweater with the red, white, and blue stripes and ‘76 on the sleeve, and all my cassette tapes.

Johnny Skye took away my cashmere coat, saying it was too thin. He made me put on the horrible parka. Then he carried what was left of my stuff to a storage room behind the counter. I silently said good-bye to my horse collection and paperback novels, my photo albums and scrapbooks, my tennis racket, summer sandals, embroidered pillows and padded hangers, makeup mirror, manicure kit, bedspread, feather boa, and a ton of other things. I wanted to cry when I saw my boxes being carted away. They contained a part of home, a part of a time when we were a family in Huntington Beach. Inside were bits and pieces of me.

I followed Johnny Skye out the front door, through an enclosed porch, and out onto the dirty snow. I’d never been in such a place. Even in the middle of the day, it was as dark as night. There weren’t any trees or sidewalks or billboard signs. Kotzebue didn’t look like any place in Orange County, California. It was scary and unreal. Snarling dogs sat at the end of their chains on stained yellow snow. There weren’t many lights, and it was quiet except for the howling of dogs and the sound of our footsteps squeaking in the snow.

Johnny Skye’s plane was flimsy. A side window had been mended with silver duct tape. The seat on the passenger’s side was split, and a spring was sticking out. I stood there staring at the spring.

“Better hop in back with the cargo,” he said, shoving me aside. “It’ll help balance my load.”

I thought he was joking, but he waited while I climbed into the plane and crawled on my hands and knees to join the cargo. I wondered if Dad could get his money back, since I didn’t actually have a seat.

Johnny Skye slammed the door, then came around and got into the pilot’s seat. I peered out the side window. I couldn’t believe I was leaving behind all my valuables just so Johnny Skye could haul out to nowhere crates of cigarettes, crackers, soft drinks, and stuff anyone could buy in any convenience store on just about any corner of the United States.

Once locked inside the crowded plane, I felt claustrophobic and a little panicky.

“Is it safe?” I shouted over the rattle of the engine. “Is the weather going to be okay? Do you have radar? Johnny Skye was busy pulling switches and saying things into a microphone. He didn’t answer.

Then he turned around and grinned. “Hang on, kid!”

Suddenly, the plane zigzagged across the ice. We weren’t on a landing strip. We were on a frozen ocean! Ice flew past the windows. I could see aluminum boats along the shoreline, probably locked in ice since summer. I wondered if Johnny Skye had a license to pilot a plane. The engine coughed and sputtered. I crossed my fingers and shut my eyes, wishing with all my heart for home.

Then I felt the plane lift, dip, and lift again. We were off the ice and rising into the sky. Dogs chasing one another on the ice became smaller and smaller. The little spit of land disappeared below. Soon there was nothing to see out the tiny oval window but snow and ice.

Whether I got to Mom or not depended entirely on Johnny Skye, a hot shot pilot who didn’t take very good care of his plane.

“We’re flying awfully low, aren’t we?” I shouted.

The engine coughed. Johnny Skye flipped switches. There was a gasp, then a gulping sound.

“Do we have enough fuel? I mean, that was pretty close, wasn’t it?” Johnny Skye didn’t answer. A mountain loomed ahead. “Look out!” I shouted.

Johnny Skye pulled up the nose of the plane just in time. We soared into the crystal-clear night where a galaxy of stars whirled around us. I was scared to death, but he had no fear. He turned around and grinned. “No problem, hon,” he said. “I can handle it.”

“Maybe we should turn back and wait for daylight,” I said. I crossed my fingers and wished on all the stars that Johnny Skye would do just that.

“No way!” he shouted. “If we go back, it’ll mean waiting a week or longer. In this business, you have to take risks. You’re flying with Johnny Skye, honey, and Johnny Skye ain’t worried about a little bit of weather.”

We rose higher, but the pass kept rising, too. We hovered close to the ground even though we were steadily climbing. Then Johnny Skye turned around in his seat and this time he wasn’t grinning. He was squinting, trying to see the wing through a side window.

He swore and hit the control panel with a fist. “Damn! Wings are icing up!”

The butterflies rose from my stomach to my throat. I waited, hugging my bedroll. I told myself Johnny Skye was probably the kind of guy who liked scaring people, especially girls.

It was like descending in a fast elevator. The ground swelled below. The engine groaned. Any second I thought he’d pull us out of the dive. Johnny Skye tried to bring up the nose, but the plane dropped even lower.

“Uh-oh!” he said.

The engine coughed, then died. Utter silence. Only the sound of my heart. We fell through the darkness, descending down, down, too fast. I shut my eyes and waited for the crash. I waited to die.

I didn’t look. The plane shuddered as if coming apart. I was only fourteen. I was too young to die.

There was the sound of metal scraping ice. The plane bounced up and down like a toy, then coasted as if it might take off again. I opened my eyes. Wooden boxes were falling like blocks. Packages split open. Cartons hurtled past me. I held on to my bedroll as if it were a life preserver. I could hardly breathe. My legs were twisted and cramped. I thought the plane would bounce and skid forever. Then something caught. The plane jerked, spun around, and slammed into a bluff of snow. Suddenly there was blackness and silence.