Would Aunt Vicky go off to the bathroom and leave her purse on the seat? Would she do that when her travelling companion was not only ten, not only asleep, but blind?

Dinah didn’t think so.

Don’t give up your fear... but don’t give in to it, either. Sit still and try to reason things out.

But she didn’t like that empty seat, and she didn’t like the silence of the plane. It made perfect sense to her that most of the people would be asleep, and that the ones who were awake would be keeping as quiet as possible out of consideration for the rest, but she still didn’t like it. An animal, one with extremely sharp teeth and claws, awakened and started to snarl inside of her head. She knew the name of that animal; it was panic, and if she didn’t control it fast, she might do something which would embarrass both her and Aunt Vicky.

When I can see, when the doctors in Boston fix my eyes, I won’t have to go through stupid stuff like this.

This was undoubtedly true, but it was absolutely no help to her right now.

Dinah suddenly remembered that, after they sat down, Aunt Vicky had taken her hand, folded all the fingers but the pointer under, and then guided that one finger to the side of her seat. The controls were there — only a few of them, simple, easy to remember. There were two little wheels you could use once you put on the headphones — one switched around to the different audio channels; the other controlled the volume. The small rectangular switch controlled the light over her seat. You won’t need that one, Aunt Vicky had said with a smile in her voice. At least, not yet. The last one was a square button — when you pushed that one, a flight attendant came.

Dinah’s finger touched this button now, and skated over its slightly convex surface.

Do you really want to do this? she asked herself, and the answer came back at once. Yeah, I do.

She pushed the button and heard the soft chime. Then she waited.