Sonny's Biography
“This is the captain speaking, fasten your seat belts immediately, this is going to be a bumpy ride!” Is what Sonny remembers hearing right before a smack of air turbulence launched him up into the ceiling of the airplane he was flying in with 15 other passengers on a flight from his hometown of Snorez to a city in northern Snoozeland.
The impact knocked him out cold, and by the time he landed back in his seat, he had become limp and lifeless. The book he had been reading also landed back down with a thud. It was very special to Sonny. His grandfather had given it to him when he was 9 and it was called El Poder de la Magia (The Power of Magic). He read that book over and over, making sure to learn every magic spell in it. Sonny had been practicing casting the spells, but none of them had worked yet. He’d been growing increasingly frustrated by not being able to make the spells work.
The plane had been in the air for only about an hour when it, seemingly without warning, found itself in the midst of a massive, dark, swirling storm cloud that the pilot had not seen coming. The flight attendant on board was unable to mask the look of worry on her face, which only served to add to the level of fear the passengers were feeling. The turbulence was so strong that the flight attendant couldn’t get out of her seat to help Sonny.
When he finally snapped out of unconsciousness, he fastened his seatbelt and starred out his window. The sky was incredibly black, and felt charged with energy. Sonny was completely terrified. He could only think about the plane falling out of the sky and crashing to the ground. And, that’s exactly when a brilliant flash of light filled the plane, followed immediately by an intense bang of thunder that rattled everything.
The plane suddenly started tilting to the left and Sonny got a sick feeling in his stomach; that feeling of dropping. Something was horribly wrong, he just knew it. He saw the flight attendant grab the phone near her on the wall and dial something. But no one seemed to be answering her call. Was she calling the pilot in the cockpit?
A couple of the passengers were screaming, which was making the situation all the more urgent. Sonny felt something was very, very wrong. He also felt some kind of force make him undo his seatbelt and get up out of his seat. He was trying to walk up the aisle, but it was very difficult because the plane was tilted to the left and downward.
He stumbled his way to the front where the flight attendant seemed to now be gripped by fear and was clutching her seat desperately. Sonny grabbed the handle of the cockpit door and tried to open it, but it was locked. He banged on the door, hoping to hear back from the pilot….but nothing. He knew there was a serious problem on the other side of that door.
He took several steps back and started to run at the door. He lowered his shoulder and barreled into it with all the force he could muster…..but nothing. He felt a feeling of desperation at this point. Then it popped into his mind….use his spell-casting power. Without much thought, he heard his own voice say:
“Flying through the air, this flight is in despair.
On the other side of this door, I need to be more.
Calling on the power of magic, to avoid a scene that is tragic.
Blast open this door, while I crouch to the floor.”
In a poof of smoke, the cockpit door blew off its hinges and exposed what Sonny had feared….the pilot was slumped over the joystick completely unconscious. His body was pressing the joystick forward and to the left, which was rapidly causing the plane to hurl toward the ground. There wasn’t much time left, Sonny knew he had to act fast.
He pulled the pilot out of his seat and put himself in it. Sonny had played airplane flying video games before, but this was the real thing, and he wasn’t sure he could actually land this plane. But he could see the ground directly in front of him, so he grabbed the joystick and pulled back, stopping their path toward certain destruction. Sonny guessed they had only been a few seconds away from crashing. Now he had to figure out how to land safely and end this nightmare.
Fortunately, they were over a flat, dry desert, so there was no need to find a runway at an airport somewhere. Sonny looked for, and found, a button with the words landing gear on it. He pressed it and heard the wheels extending out of the bottom of the plane. He eased the joystick forward and used the foot pedals to soar the plane closer and closer to the ground….just like he had done many times on his video game console at home.
His heart was pounding, and he felt a bit sick to his stomach, but he just kept focusing on keeping the plane as level as he could as it floated over the desert floor. Then he felt the wheels touch down and the plane bounce off the ground, then back down again. The front wheel came down and he pushed against the foot pedals to apply the brakes. The plane gradually slowed until it came to a complete stop. Dead silence. Then applause from the passengers made him turn his head to look back into the plane. That’s when Sonny realized he had just saved them, the flight attendant, the pilot, and himself from what was likely going to always be the scariest day of his entire life.
He couldn’t believe what he had just done. He didn’t understand how he had done it. All he could do was clinch his fist, raise it up, then pull it down and say “Yes!”
When he finally arrived back home from that fateful trip, he was greeted by his mother who had just finished putting the cinnamon drizzle and icing sugar on his favorite treat - hot chocolate pie. Sonny loves good food, and sharing mealtime with his family, so on this day, boy did he have a story to share…
