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“Where are you going?” Biff asked.

“I go to Willemstad in Curaçao. That’s in the Netherlands Antilles.”

“Yes, I know,” Biff replied. His astonishment continued to grow as the coincidences grew. “I’m going there too. Here we are. We look alike, and we’re going to the same place. Now how about that!” Biff laughed. Derek joined in the laughter.

For the next few minutes the boys were quiet as the aircraft taxied to its take-off runway. The four engines revved up. The plane started rolling slowly down the strip. It rolled and rolled, gaining momentum. Then it was airborne, heading out over the Atlantic toward Port-au-Prince, Haiti, nearly eight hundred miles away.

During the flight, Biff and Derek became more and more friendly. They had much in common, but Biff noticed during the conversation that while Derek was most willing to talk about his home in The Netherlands, his schooling, and other, incidental topics, he said nothing about why he was going to Curaçao.

Biff was cagey, too. If Derek wouldn’t talk about the reason for his flying across the Atlantic to visit a speck of an island in the Caribbean, then Biff felt it wise to say as little about his own visit as possible.