Free Ben by Kerry Needham

been. For a few moments the world disappeared; Ben, the sales assistant, the airport itself, all vanished as I tried to think what to do. Then the dam burst and the tears came gushing out. I was so angry with myself for ruining everything. We were never going to get to Kos now.
    It was all that cab driver’s fault. I hated him. I hated Greece. I hated Greeks. I wished I’d never come.
    Then I felt a hand tap me on the shoulder and I turned to see a man in a suit gesturing past me towards the cashier. They had a brief conversation, then he reached into his pocket and pulled out 5,000 drachmas and pressed it into my palm. I was stunned. I watched it happen, I felt the warm squeeze of his hand in mine and I couldn’t take it in. This isn’t happening to me. But it was. I was still crying but laughing at the same time. I must have lookeda complete mess but I didn’t care. This wonderful, wonderful stranger had just saved the day and with it, it seemed to me, my whole life. I hugged him as hard as I could with one arm then, clasping our tickets like they were gold, I ran over to the check-in with a couple of minutes to spare. I’d changed my mind about the locals. They were incredible!
    There was a visible military presence everywhere inside the terminal so I wasn’t surprised to see a soldier stationed near the desk when I arrived, still panting. But the breath I had left was well and truly knocked out of me when he put his arm out in a ‘stop’ gesture.
    What have I done now?
    I realised the soldier was standing close enough to the ticket desk to have seen what had just gone on. Did he think I was a conman? That I’d duped the businessman into handing over money? Was I going to be arrested? What would happen to Ben?
    So many questions in so short a time, and all the while the soldier still had his hand reaching out. Confused, I noticed there was something in it. Money .
    ‘Good luck,’ he said, in a thick Greek accent, and held out another 500 drachmas. Yes, he had seen everything and he felt sorry for me.
    My natural response was to hug the life out of him. One look at the machine gun across his chest stopped me so I just smiled, wiped away the tears, and said, ‘Thank you.’ Ben was disappointed. Long after the soldier was out of sight, he was still saying, ‘Gun. Gun. Gun.’
    With a send-off like that I felt capable of flying the ninety minutes to Kos on my own. Once I saw the tiny propeller-poweredOlympic plane waiting on the runway, I wished I could. But it was fine. Nothing could ruin things now. After what I’d just experienced, after twenty-four hours of travelling, I really felt we were on our way to paradise.
    I thought I knew the sea. I’d lived by it for long enough and spent all my teen summers in or near it. As the little Olympic Airlines plane left the beigey-white expanse of mainland Greece behind, I realised the brown dishwater waves of the North Sea around Skegness were unrecognisable compared to the turquoise carpet of ocean beneath me now. It was blue, blue, blue for as far as I could see. Goosebumps ran down my arms. I wasn’t cold; I was excited.
    Landing passed without incident and we made it through the customs checks and into the arrivals lounge. But where was our welcoming committee? I scanned the whole hall and couldn’t spot a single familiar face. I tried to keep cool but after everything else, I was panicking. I knew my parents’ address but I had no money for a taxi or a bus to get there. Then I wondered, Is something wrong?
    Fighting the growing desire to scream, I put my bag down by a pillar and walked as far as I dared in every direction. For a second I thought I saw someone who looked like Stephen with long hair, but I dismissed him and carried on scanning the faces. Ben was amazingly cheerful if not very helpful. He kept saying, ‘Where’s Nana? Where’s Nana?’ which just made me feel even more uptight.
    Just about holding it together, I trudged back to the bags –