The Twenty-One Balloons PMC

by William Pene du Bois

  “What in the world did they do to it?”

  “Electrified all of the chairs and the couch,” said Mr. F. in the hushed whisper of a man who is describing the work of a maniac.

  “What for?” I exclaimed hastily as I was about to enter the livingroom.

  “They say that it’s to move around the room more easily. I’ll show you how they work.”

  I wasn’t too anxious to walk into this electric livingroom, but felt that it was safe to follow Mr. F. wherever he went. The floor was made of steel. The chairs all had a decidedly unusual look about them. First of all, on the left arm of the chairs (they were all armchairs) there was a little tiller much like the tiller of a sailboat. The chairs were on little wheels. There was a rod up the back of these chairs with sort of a steel brush on the end of it which touched the ceiling. The ceiling was covered with a wire mesh.

  “The scientists who ‘improved’ this room say that man spends too much effort moving his chair around the room or walking from his chair to the window, bookcase, or table to get his pipe and so forth. They figured out that some men walk an unnecessary half mile a day, just around the livingroom. These chairs are supposed to save people this trouble. Look,” he said. He sat down in an armchair and drew the tiller around in front of him. “I shall now move effortlessly around the card table and stop in front of the window. There is a button at the end of this tiller which I will press to start me off. I will steer the chair with the tiller, and stop it by taking my thumb off the button. Are you ready?”

  “Go ahead,” I said, backing into a corner.

  Mr. F. pushed the button in the tip of the tiller. The chair shot around the table at breakneck speed, stopped in front of the window with such suddenness that Mr. F. was plunged head first out of the chair out through the open window. A shower of blue sparks followed the trail of the chair as the brush rubbed on the mesh ceiling.

  “There,” said Mr. F., climbing back through the window out of breath and with a most distressed look on his face. “You can see that this is hardly what one might call an improvement in livingrooms.”

  “Why don’t they slow them down a bit?” I asked.

  “The scientists who designed these infernal machines insist that they could slow them down. But Mr. and Mrs. M. have had so many sad experiences, such as shocks and bumps, in the room that they refuse to have electric chairs of any sort. M-1 and M-2 are crazy about them, however. The room has been turned over to them and their play-room has been made into a livingroom for Mr. and Mrs.

  M. All of the children on the Island spend many hours a day driving the easy chairs around the room, yelling and screaming and bumping into each other. The couch holds about four children and is the fastest in the room. I would hate to predict what will become of this younger, mechanically minded generation.”

  I agreed that the electrical age we were entering was indeed frightening.

  “What are the bedrooms belonging to M-1 and M-2 like?” I asked. “Are they furnished with beds with continuous sheets too?”

  “No,” said Mr. F. “After seeing the chairs and tables we installed in the dining room, they designed beds of their own. Their beds have levers on them and move up and down. Their rooms have skylights, like the upstairs rooms in most Moroccan houses. They can move their beds up to the ceiling and look through the skylights at the stars; or they can open the skylights and move right up on the roof on hot nights. A little over the height of the roof is as far up as they go. On the other hand, they can lower their beds right through the floor of their bedrooms into their bathrooms below. We are having a hard time deciding what sort of bed we are going to install in our own houses: the bed with the continuous sheets of Mr. and Mrs. M. or the elevator bed of M-1 and M-2. Both models have many fine features, you will have to agree.

  “The other rooms in the house have improvements too, such as walls divided into decorated revolving panels which permit a complete change of decor at the press of a button; kitchens with dish washing and drying machines—the whole house has every imaginable convenience, we believe. I have shown you all of its most spectacular aspects.”

  “It leaves me speechless,” I muttered. But then as I started thinking it all over, I suddenly exclaimed in a very loud voice: “I’m a balloonist, and I must admit this kind of efficiency rather bores me. For instance, I far prefer your stunning and elaborately elegant Hall of Mirrors dining room to the mechanized mushroom grove we have just visited. It seems strange to me that mechanical progress always seems to leave the slower demands of elegance far behind. With all of the peace and spare time on this lovely Island, why should any part of your lives be speeded up?”

  “Many of us are in complete agreement with you,” said Mr. F. “The artists all are. The scientists express themselves through a different medium. You are a balloonist. If you are interested I will show you the two remaining innovations we have made on this Island. One of them, our Balloon Merry-Go-Round, combines the two sports most dependent on Nature, ballooning and sailing, and should please you immensely. On the success of the other invention the lives of the families of Krakatoa depend. I saw your balloon, the Globe, and I know that you are a balloonist of great ingenuity. I am sure you will like these two balloon inventions.”

  “Ladies and Gentlemen,” announced Professor William Waterman Sherman, “before telling you of the two balloon inventions of Krakatoa, I am going to call a fifteen-minute intermission. This will give you a chance to digest the many inventions I have already discussed, and it will give me a few moments of rest. The end of my story is, I suppose, the most exciting part of it; for as you know from having read your newspapers during the last month, the time is near at hand in this account for the lovely Island of Krakatoa to start blowing up. Thank you very much for having been such an excellent audience up to this time. Come back in fifteen minutes and I’ll tell you of two extraordinary inventions and of one history-making explosion. Thank you.”

  The audience spent three of their fifteen minutes applauding and cheering and then went outside for a stretch and a breath of fresh air. Professor Sherman poured himself a glass of water, drank it, stretched out on his bed, looked up at the ceiling, and prepared to spend a most comfortable and relaxed intermission.

  VIII

  Airy-Go-Round

  DURING THE INTERMISSION, THE MAYOR and the Chief Surgeon of the San Francisco General Hospital rushed to Professor Sherman’s bedside to see if he was all right. “Are you tired?” they asked in one voice. “Would you rather resume tomorrow?” asked the Mayor. “How do you feel?” asked the Chief Surgeon. “Is there anything we can do for you?”

  “I feel fine,” said Professor Sherman.

  “Would you like one of the nurses to change the drinking water in your carafe?” asked the Chief Surgeon.

  “I don’t care, it tastes all right to me.”

  “Could I fetch you a little refreshment?” asked the Mayor. “Something to renew your strength.”

  “If you insist,” said the Professor. The Mayor ran off at a fast puffing trot while the Chief Surgeon busied himself tucking in the comforter on the Professor’s bed. It should have been obvious to anyone, even two such important personages as the Mayor and Chief Surgeon, that all Professor Sherman wanted during this intermission he had called was a few minutes of rest.

  The Mayor came back with a nip and the Professor swallowed it in one gulp. Then, looking at the Mayor and Surgeon, he said with a smile on his face, “You know, Gentlemen, this to me is very funny. A little over a month ago, I was an insignificant arithmetic teacher who would have found it almost impossible to get to see either one of you. Now you are waiting on me like a pair of well-trained valets. I thank you for your kind attention. It goes to show how wonderful ballooning can be. You never can tell where the winds will blow you, what fantastic good fortune they can lead you to. Long live balloons !” he shouted. The Mayor and the Chief Surgeon joined in with a few sheepish giggles, then backed away.

  By this time
the fifteen minutes were up and Professor Sherman was gratified to see that the people of the audience had quietly returned to their seats and were sitting attentively. The packed auditorium wasn’t making a sound. It was waiting anxiously to hear the end of his extraordinary story.

  The Chief Surgeon saw, as before, that the Professor was comfortably propped up with pillows, and the Mayor walked over to the Professor’s bedside. With one hand resting on the head of the bed, he turned to the audience and said:

  “Again it gives me great pleasure to present Professor William Waterman Sherman.”

  The Professor thanked the Mayor, cleared his throat, and resumed his talk:

  Mr. F. led me to the first invention he had promised to show me, the Balloon Merry-Go-Round. On our way I told Mr. F. that the name of the invention suggested something at an amusement park. “Just what is this invention for?”

  “It is part of an amusement park,” said Mr. F., “which the children of Krakatoa are planning for themselves. You see, our children now are between the ages of ten and fifteen. When we return from our trips to other countries, they help us unload our freighter with great interest. It suddenly dawned on them a year or so ago that it would be an excellent idea if a few boatloads were brought back full of supplies exclusively for them; for after all they do own a share in the mines, too. We agreed to give them two boatloads a year, so all of the children held a meeting to decide how best to fill their freighters. This amusement park they have started to build is the result of their planning. The Balloon Merry-Go-Round is their own invention, designed with but little help from us.”

  “Is there any school here?” I asked.

  “The children have no formal schooling. We have taught them how to read and write, and we have tried to teach them a little arithmetic. They have all taken part in the building of our international houses—which is most educating in itself. But all in all, a school is sorely needed here. You aren’t by any chance a teacher, are you? Just what does the title Professor stand for in your case?”

  “Professor of, uh, Aeronautics,” I stuttered. “I teach Balloon Theory at, uh, the San Francisco Lighter than Air School.” I felt a flush of heat in my cheeks as I waded through this fabulous lie. I had no intention of getting involved again in teaching, the very thing from which this trip of mine was intended to take me.

  “How interesting,” said Mr. F. “That goes to show how quickly one gets out of touch with one’s native city. I can’t say that I even recall hearing of such an institution.”

  “It’s one of the latest,” I muttered, “practically brand-new.” Then quickly changing the subject, I asked what other forms of amusement could be found at the park.

  “So far, they have just had time to design and build the Merry-Go-Round, but they have a lot more planned. Most of the usual rides found at amusement parks are impractical for Krakatoa because they are higher than the jungle life on the Island and would be visible from the sea. As a matter of fact, we only take rides on the Balloon Merry-Go-Round after thoroughly scanning the horizon for passing ships. We never use it if anything is in sight. Do you see that tall pole in the distance?”

  “Yes, I do,” I said. The pole was straight and the same width at the bottom as at the top. It was threaded like a gigantic screw and it was about seventy-five feet tall.

  “That’s part of the Balloon Merry-Go-Round, the axle around which it revolves to give it its spin when it is gaining altitude.”

  “Can’t that be seen from the ocean?” I asked.

  “Yes, it can. But one lone pole isn’t enough to attract much attention from passing ships.”

  We came to a little forest of palm trees, the same sort of neatly kept little forest I had seen the day before, with freshly cut lawn instead of the usual jungle underbrush. We walked through this forest for a hundred yards or so and then came upon a clearing. In the middle of this clearing was what was apparently the Balloon Merry-Go-Round. There were eight little boats around the base of the pole, all joined together bow to stern. In the place of oarlocks, there were two brass rings on these boats, and through these rings passed poles which all met at the main vertical pole of the Merry-Go-Round where they were screwed into the hub of another large brass ring around the pole, forming spokes of a giant wheel. Each boat was covered with a protective tarpaulin. Mr. F. removed one of the tarpaulins and showed me one. They were nice little centerboard sail-boats, sturdy and quite seaworthy. The sails were neatly stowed in trim lockers. I didn’t notice any masts, but there was definitely a place for them. Alongside of each of these boats was a large deflated balloon painted a pale sky-blue. Off to one side in the clearing there was a little shack made of bamboo which reminded me very much of my basket house. On its walls outside, eight silk hoses were hanging, neatly coiled up and in line. There was a bell on top of this little shack, which could be reached by climbing a ladder.

  Mr. F. walked over to the shack, went inside, and came out again with a spyglass. He climbed up the ladder to the roof of the shack and carefully looked over the horizon around him, apparently for ships. “Would you care to risk a trip in it?” he asked me. “The weather today is ideal.”

  “As an ardent balloonist, I accept with enthusiasm; but as a sixty-six-year-old man I must confess that I accept with some trepidation. Is it safe?”

  “Absolutely,” answered Mr. F. “You don’t believe that we would allow our children to make ascensions in dangerous contraptions, do you?”

  “I guess not,” I said, reassured. “I am sure that any invention using balloons and wind as motive power cannot but be enjoyable.”

  “Very well, then,” said Mr. F. He then loudly rang the bell on top of the shack. This sound produced the same reaction, only considerably happier and more excited, as a school bell back home. We were shortly surrounded by children. These children didn’t seem to need to be explained anything either; as soon as they arrived in the clearing they made themselves extremely busy readying the Balloon Merry-Go-Round. They took the tarpaulins off all the boats and rolled them up neatly. Four of the children ran into the shack where they prepared the hydrogen machine and pumps. Another eight each grabbed a silk hose, attached it to the hydrogen machine in the shack on one end, and to one of the balloons on the other. The balloons were all carefully unfolded and laid out flat on the ground, and the nets and ropes which attached them to the boats were carefully placed around and beside them so that they wouldn’t get tangled up when the balloons were filled with gas. Slowly the balloons started to fill with hydrogen, the ones nearest the pumps filling faster than the others. They lazily lifted themselves off the ground with the children watching them carefully, constantly straightening the ropes so they wouldn’t get tangled. Soon they were all full of hydrogen and straining at the boats which were roped to the ground. All forty children were present, working efficiently on the Merry-Go-Round, although it was apparent that there was only room for fourteen of them on this trip. There was room for two in each boat, making a total of sixteen seats, but Mr. F. and I were going to occupy two of the seats. There was no arguing among the children as to whose turn it was; they must have had some sort of passenger schedule they followed closely. I did notice that neither B-1 nor B-2 were among the children who climbed into the boats when they were ready. I suppose that this was because it was “B” Day of the Month of Lamb and they had plenty of work to do at their British chop house. I sat in a boat with Mr. F.’s son, F-1, and Mr. F. sat with a child in a boat which was on the opposite side of the big pole from ours. “This will make the Merry-Go-Round balance better,” said F-1.

  The Balloon Merry Go Round on the Ground

  There were two children on the ground near each boat. When we were all aboard, they detached the silk hydrogen hoses and rolled them back up to the shack where they carefully hung them up. They then returned to us and one held a rope at the bow of each boat and the other held a rope at the boat’s stern. One of the children passengers had a blank pistol, the sort used for starting race
s at track meets. He stood up and yelled in a high clear voice, “Is everybody ready?”

  A shrill and deafening “yes” was heard, mixed with the deeper voices of Mr. F. and myself. At this signal, the children standing near the boats all gave their ropes a sharp pull, which seemed to unhook the boats from the ground, and they all ran around the pole in the direction we were heading, giving us a good fast start.

  The boats were joined together to form the rim of a wheel. The poles going through the brass oarlocks of the boats formed the spokes of this wheel. The spokes were attached to a big brass ring, or hub of the wheel, and this whole gigantic Merry-Go-Round revolved around the seventy-five-foot pole which was pointing straight up to the sky and was threaded like a screw. The balloons lifted the boats around and around the huge screw up into the air. The Balloon Merry-Go-Round gained speed as it gained altitude. The pole was well greased so that by the time we neared the top we were going very fast. I asked F-1 what happened when we reached the top of the pole. “Do we quickly deflate the balloons and revolve back down to the ground around the pole in the opposite direction?”

  “Of course not,” said F-1. “We fly right off the pole into the air.”