I thought first grade was going to be fun. I was going to learn to read. Our books were all about Dick, Jane, baby Sally, and their dog Spot. Our teacher had big posters with pictures of them. They were as big as I was. I called them my paper friends.

At the end of the first week, I came home with a book that I had learned to read. It said, "See Jane run. See Spot run. See Jane and Spot run."

"Mama," I called as I came in the front door, "I learned to read about Jane and Spot running."

The house smelled like cookies. Clutching my book, I went in the kitchen for my after school snack. Mama was sitting at the table with Myra and Rhoda. A plate of cookies was on the table. Daddy was there, too. He wasn't usually there for snack time.

Daddy smiled. "Now that we're all here, I have something to tell you all."

I put my book in my chair and sat on it. I guessed I'd have to read it to Mama later.

"Girls," Daddy said. "We're moving to a new place."

"You're not going to be the preacher here anymore?" I asked.

"No, I'm going to have a different church. It's a church in an Indian village," he said.

"Why?" Rhoda asked. "All our friends go to this church."

"I know," Daddy said. "But I feel like God wants me to work with the Indians. There aren't many Indians in Juneau."

"We've seen some," I said. "And there are totem poles. You said those were put there by Indians."

"That's true," Daddy said. "But the mission board doesn't have a church in Juneau that works with Indians. If I want to work with Indians, the mission board says we have to move."

"But what about school?" I asked. "I just started the first grade, and I'm learning to read."

"There will be a school in the village," Daddy said. "They will teach you to read."

"But they won't have big pictures of Dick, Jane, Sally and Spot," I wailed. "And what if they don't have the same books. I'll have to start all over again."

Mama reached out and covered my hand. "It'll be okay, Deborah," Mama said. "All the schools in the state use the same readers. I'm sure they'll have the same books."

"We're going to start packing today," Mama continued. "We leave in two weeks."

"How are we going to get there?" I asked. "Are we going to drive our car?"

"No," Daddy said. "We're going to fly."

"Fly?" Rhoda said. "Is there an airport where we're going?"

"Yes," Daddy said. "Ft. Yukon is a large Indian village. There is an airport in town. There is also an army base outside of the village."

"Ft. Yukon," I said. "You mean like Sgt. Preston of the Yukon? Maybe we'll get to meet him." The move was starting to sound more interesting.

"Sgt. Preston is a TV show," Mama said. "He's not real, and the Yukon in his story is in Canada not Alaska."

"He is too real," I said. "We watch him every week, don't we Daddy?"

"We do," he said. "But he's an actor. His real name is Richard Simmons. His job is to pretend to live in the Yukon Territory."

"Well, how do they make a dog pretend?" I asked. "Does his dog King know that Sgt. Preston is make believe?"

Daddy laughed. "Dogs are taught to do tricks. I'm sure the dog lives with his real owner, not with Sgt. Preston."

The next day, I told my teacher that we were going to move. I touched the life sized poster of Jane. "I'm going to miss my paper friends," I said. "My sister's middle name is Jane just like in the books. Jane is my favorite paper friend. I pretend she's my sister, too."

"Maybe you won't have to miss your paper friends," she said. "I'm going to have to take down those pictures soon to make room to put up some class projects. Do you think you would have room to pack them? They fold up pretty small."

Mama said we had room, and so I got to take my paper friends with me to my new school.

Mama packed our household things into boxes that the mission board was going to pay to fly to Ft. Yukon. We could only take a limited number of things, so we had to leave some behind. I had to leave the trike Daddy and I had gotten from the dump. Daddy had to leave his chair, too. In fact, we had to leave all of our furniture. We would have new furniture in our new house.

Finally the day came when we would take our plane ride. Mama dressed all of us in matching dresses that she had made. We wore our coats but because it was still September, we didn't have to wear our boots, scarves and mittens.

We ate breakfast and then one of our church members took us to the airport. Our boxes had already been sent to Ft. Yukon, but we had suitcases with our clothes. Mama said we were going to fly to a town called Fairbanks and change planes. The second plane would take us to Ft. Yukon.

When we got to the airport, Mama went to a water fountain and filled a cup she took out of her purse.

"Why did Mama have a cup in her purse?" I asked Daddy.

"So she could get some water to give us some pills," Daddy said.

Mama had come back and was giving everyone a little white pill.

"Why do we need pills?" I asked.

"They are to keep you from getting air sick," Mama said. "The doctor gave them to me for this trip. They're called Dramamine."

"How can you get air sick?" I asked. "I breathe air all the time, and I don't get sick."

"Air sick means you get sick because you're on a plane that is high up in the air," Daddy said. "Now take your pill."

"Okay," I said and swallowed the pill.

I hadn't seen a plane up close before. It was really big. We had to climb stairs to get on it. There were things attached to the wings that looked kind of like windmills. Daddy said they were called propellers.

"Once we get on the plane, the propellers will start to turn," he said. "They turn really fast. The pilot will take the plane down the runway and then up into the air."

When we got the top of the stairs, a lady met us at the door. She gave each of us a box of Chiclets.

"If you chew this, it will help keep your ears from hurting," she told us.

"My ears don't hurt," I told her. "But I'll take this anyway. I like gum."

"They might start to hurt when we get up in the air," she said. "You should start chewing the gum when we take off."

The plane had a row with two chairs on one side and one on the other. Mama and Myra sat together. Daddy and I sat behind them. Rhoda sat across from us.

"How come Rhoda has a chair by herself?" I asked.

"The chairs on airplanes are called seats," Daddy said. "Rhoda has a seat by herself because there aren't three together. She's right across from me so I can reach her if she needs help."

"Why would she need help?" I asked.

"Her ears might hurt, or she might get sick," Daddy said.

"Well, the lady gave her some gum and mama gave her a pill, so she shouldn't need any help," I said.

"Let's hope so," Daddy said.

Daddy reached into a pocket in the seat in from of him and took out a paper bag. "See this bag, girls," Daddy said. "It's there in case you get sick. You can throw up in the bag. There's one in front of each of you. I want you to take it out and keep it in your seat because if you have to reach for it when you feel like you need to throw up, you might not get it fast enough."

Daddy also showed us how to fasten the seatbelts that were hooked to our chairs.

"You have to wear those while we're flying," he told us."

"Why?" I asked.

Daddy sighed. "Just once I wish you'd forget that word," he said. Before I could voice the same question, he continued. "The plane ride might get bumpy," he said. "The seat belt will keep you from bumping your head or falling out of your seat."

"How can a plane ride be bumpy?" I asked. "Will we run into some clouds? Clouds don't look bumpy. They look soft."

"There are winds that blow all the time up in the sky," Daddy said. "Sometimes they create what are called air pockets. If the plane hits an air pocket, it might drop suddenly or go up quickly. When it does that, it feels like a bump."

Myra yawned. "I'm sleepy," she said.

"Me too," Rhoda added.

"The doctor said Dramamine might make you sleepy," Mama said. "Maybe you can sleep while we fly."

"I'm not sleepy," I declared.

"No, you wouldn't be," Daddy said, smiling. "And don't ask why."

The lady closed the door of the plane and checked to make sure everyone had their seat belts on. She told us what to do in case of an emergency.

"What's an emergency," I asked Daddy.

"It's when something unexpected happens," Daddy said.

"You mean like running into a bird?" I asked.

"I suppose that would be an emergency," Daddy said. "But we shouldn't have an emergency. Most planes don't."

Suddenly a loud noise started up like a car starting. I looked out the window. The propellers were turning.

"Look, Daddy," I hollered over the noise. "The windmills are starting up. We're going to fly!"

"Yes, we are," he said with a grin. Taking out his Chiclets, he said, "You'd better start chewing girls."

The plane rushed down the runway and then it started to go slowly upwards. I was pushed back in my seat. My stomach did a flip flop. I picked up the bag Daddy had told me to get out of the seat pocket, but then my stomach felt a little better. I decided I wasn't going to throw up, at least I didn't think I was.

The gum tasted sweet for a minute. When I couldn't taste the sugar anymore, I asked Daddy, "Where can I spit out my gum? It doesn't taste good anymore."

"Don't spit out the gum," he said. "Keep chewing. You don't have it for the taste but to keep your ears from hurting."

"My ears don't hurt," I said.

"Good, the gum is working. Keep chewing," was his reply.

"Look," I said, pointing out the window. "We're going into a cloud."

Pretty soon all I could see out the window was white. When we came out of the cloud, blue sky was above us and white below us.

"Daddy," I said in awe. "We're on top of the clouds. Are we almost to Heaven?"

"No, honey," he said. "You can't get to Heaven in a plane."

As we got higher, my ears sort of stopped up. There was still a lot of noise from the propellers, but it was muffled. Then my ears started to hurt a bit. I tried chewing harder. It didn't help. The pain got worse.

"Daddy," I said. "The gum's not working."

He put his thumbs on both sides of my head just under my ears and rubbed. That helped a little.

"They're not going to stop hurting completely until we go down," Daddy said. He handed me a coloring book and some crayons. "Mama brought these so you would have something to do. If you concentrate on coloring, you won't be thinking about your ears and the pain won't seem so bad."

"What's concentrate?" I asked.

"That's when you focus on something and try not to think about anything else," Daddy said.

I picked out a picture and tried really hard to color inside the lines. I figured that was concentrating, but my ears still hurt.

"Tell me stories about Indians," I said to Daddy. "Maybe I can concentrate on a story and forget about my ears."

The nice lady who gave us the gum came to our seat. "Would you like some milk to drink and some crackers?" she asked me.

"No, thank you," I said. "My stomach still feels funny."

Daddy didn't take any either. I think his stomach felt funny too. Once the lady left, he started telling me stories. He told them for a long time. Then he said, "Look out the window. See the town down there? That's Fairbanks. Our first plane ride is almost over."

I pressed my face to the window and looked down. There were tiny houses.

"Why is Fairbanks so small," I asked. "It looks like a toy town."

"That's because we're so high," Daddy said. "As we come down, everything will start to look normal size. See that thing that looks like a road running through town? That's the Chena river."

Our plane started to go down. When the plane started down, my stomach started up. I figured it was just acting up a little like it did when we took off. I didn't want to take my face away from the window and find my bag. Then we hit one of those bumps Daddy had told me about. My stomach did a flip flop. I reached for the bag, but it had fallen to the floor while I was listening to Daddy.

"Help," I got out. Then I leaned forward and threw up all over the back of the seat in front of me. There was throw up on the floor, too, but I missed Daddy's shoes. It sure did smell bad.

"I'm sorry," I said, tears running down my face. "I dropped my bag."

"That's okay," Daddy said. He leaned out in the aisle and waved at the lady with the gum. "Excuse me, ma'am," he said. "We've had an accident."

The lady came to our seat with a towel. She rubbed it across the back of the seat and the threw it on the floor over the vomit.

"That's all I can do until we're on the ground," she said. She went back and sat down.

While all of this was going on, the plane was coming down. I felt a bump as the wheels hit the runway. I didn't even get to see Fairbanks grow to normal size.

We went down the stairs and walked towards the airport. My legs felt funny. I wasn't walking very straight. Daddy picked me up and carried me the rest of the way.

"Your face sure is white," he said.

I was the only one who threw up. Rhoda and Myra said their stomachs hurt, but they didn't vomit.

"I'm surprised you didn't get sick, Oliver," Mama said. "Even the motion of a porch swing makes you sick."

"I guess I was too busy concentrating on distracting Deborah to get sick," he said.

"You concentrated better than me," I said.

Mama had brought some sandwiches, but Daddy said we probably shouldn't eat them. "We're going to get on another plane in a little while," he reminded her. "We don't want to have more stuff to throw up."

"Do we have to get on another plane?" I asked. "Why don't we take a train like we did when we moved to Alaska?"

"The only way to get to Ft. Yukon is to fly or take a boat," Daddy said.

I remembered the boat we took from Seattle. "I got sick on the boat, too," I said. "And it took a lot longer. I guess I'll go on the plane."

Mama gave us some more Dramamine before we got on the plane.

"Can I have two?" I asked.

"No," Mama said. "Two at the time is too much. You can only take one every four hours. That's what the doctor said."

Daddy took us over to a map on the wall.

"This is a map of Alaska," he said. He pointed to a line that went from one side of the map to another. "That line is called the Arctic Circle." He pointed to a little black dot above the line. "That is Ft. Yukon. It's above the Arctic Circle. You girls will be Arctic M.K.'s when we get there."

"What's and M.K.?" I asked.

"A missionary's kid," he said.