My heart was pumping in my chest. I was on flight 562 to Miami from San Fransisco. I watched as I counted down the minutes on the clock in front of me. Once we landed I would only have a 40-minute layover. And if that wasn't hard enough, the gate I had to get to was on the other side of the Miami airport. My mom sat next to me wringing her hands. She was worried. The entire flight here she had been worried. She said that when we were on the flight to Brazilia that is when she would stop worrying. The flight attendant came over the intercom, "I would like to inform everyone to please make their way back to their seats, we will be landing shortly. I let out a deep breath. My mom was dressed in a pair of jeans and a turtleneck. Her usual. I was wearing a pair of sweatpants, a t-shirt, a sweatshirt, and a pair of flip-flops. Once again my mom went over the plan with me, clicking onto the map of the airport on the mini TV in front of her. "So, here is our gate." Pointing to one end of the airport. "And here is where we are," she said, pointing to the opposite end. "We need to exit and re-enter security. Do you see how it is in a U shape? We need to be fast. So, we're not going to walk, we are going to run." She looked down at my feet. "You might want to take off those flip-flops," she said. I considered it but then I thought about how dirty the airport ground was. "Let me try," I told her. I didn't want to be exposed to all of those germs until I had to. "We are beginning to descend." the flight attendant said. And my mom sighed and sat back in her seat. 3, 2, 1, the plane rumbled like an awakened beast before settling back down as it zoomed across the tarmac. We had landed. We rolled into gate 1, and I not so patiently counted the minutes that passed by until we were able to get off the plane. 6, 7, 8, the two people in front of us got up and left, leaving us next. I looked at my mom and she looked at me and then we both took off running through the plane, out the door, and into the airport. Know we were just racing against the clock. With 32 minutes to get to the gate. People were staring at us like we didn't have our heads on, but I didn't care. The reason it was so pressing to make this flight was that 1, we would have to stay in Miami for 3 more days if we didn't and 2, my donar dad lived in Brazil, and I only got to see him 2 weeks out of the year. He amazing dad and spending any less time with him than I can is torture. We raced through the corridor, after corridor, turn after turn until finally, we reached security. We had 9 minutes left to get to the gate. My mom ran up to the security guard. "Is there any way we can get to the front of the line? My plane leaves in 9 minutes." she pleaded. The security guard looked at both of us and then sighed, "you can ask the people in front but otherwise, it is out of my hands." he said. "Okay, thanks." We weaved our way to the front of the line where a man was hauling his suitcase onto the black belt, that rolled its way into the scanning machine. "Sir," my mother asked tapping him on the shoulder. "Sir, my flight leaves in 9 minutes is there any way my and my daughter could go in front f you?" He looked at us, smiled, and then said, "Of course" then he turned to what I assumed was the rest of his group. "Hey guys, these two people have 9 minutes to get on their flight how about we all help them out?" Everyone nodded. And began to take their stuff off of the security belt, the man did the same. And instead, they started to help us put our things on the security belt. After thanking the man, we got through security and were racing down the hall when suddenly my mother stopped. What was she doing? We only had three minutes to get to the gate. "We forgot our pillow," she said. Without saying anything I quickly raced back to the security belt and grabbed it. I saw something that looked like our backpack, but no. Mom had it with us. She wouldn't leave something like that behind. So I whipped back around and ran back to where my mom was standing, handing the pillow to her. We both took off charging down the halls towards the gate. We were in terminal J and were almost there when we heard, "Last call for White. Last call for white." And then again, but this time in Portuguese! "Ultima chamada para White. Ultima chamada para White." My mom turned to face me, "Are you going to be okay if I run ahead?" I just nodded, I couldn't say anything, I was too out of breath. So she ran down the hall, and without caring what other people thought started yelling in Portuguese, "We're here! We're here!" We finally made it to the gate, out of breath and sweating, and got onto the plane. That's when my mom realized her backpack was missing. She asked them if she could go back to get it but they said no. Even though the rubber bands for my braces were in there. The flight attendant came and asked, "so... are you going to Brazil?" My mom looked at me and said, "Yes, we are going to Brazil."
