Penelope sneezed. She quickly grabbed her handkerchief and pressed it against her nose.

“Oh,” she said to the young gentleman wearing a green suit who was sitting next to her. “Do excuse me. I do sneeze when I am nervous.” Penelope could hear her voice rising as she spoke. She tucked one of her red curls behind her ear, also a nervous habit, and looked into the eyes of the man next to her. “Is it your first time too?” she asked. “On the plane? Oh, I do tend to babble when I am nervous as well. Do excuse me.”

The man coughed, and his mustache shook. “Yes,” he said. And that was all that he said.

Penelope leaned in closer to him, expecting more. She heard only silence. She sat back up in her seat. She felt incredibly disappointed. Should she try again? She would. “Then,” she said, “you must also be nervous?”

The man looked away from her

Penelope deduced that this must mean she was correct. She had figured out his secret, and he must be shy about it. She smiled, eyes alight with smug pride. “There’s nothing wrong with being nervous,” she continued. “I am quite frequently nervous myself. There’s no need to pretend to be strong.”

The man looked up at her. “I am not nervous,” he said.

“Oh,” Penelope said, “of course, you are unable to admit it, but we will be in solidarity in secret.”

“There is nothing wrong with being nervous,” the man agreed, “but I am not nervous. And there is something wrong with talking too much.” The man stood and walked to the other side of the room and sat.

Penelope stared after him with her mouth open. She couldn’t believe his nerve after she’d tried so hard to be nice to him and to calm his nerves.

She sat back in her seat and waited to be called to board the plane. But she did feel so nervous. She sneezed and tucked her hair and babbled to a woman in a pink dress who was sitting across from her.

Then, at long last, Penelope boarded the plane, her first plane. She walked down the aisle and looked for her seat. She found it. She gasped with shock.

And there, sitting right there, right next to her seat, was the man in the green suit. She was to spend an entire hour next to him in this plane.

Penelope suddenly felt more nervous about being forced to sit next to the man in the green suit than she did about flying for the first time. She sat down next to the man in the green suit.

Penelope sneezed. “Oh,” she said as she grabbed her handkerchief, “I do sneeze when I am nervous.”