Bertrand R. Brinley

by The Mad Scientists' Club

  "You'll never do it that way," shouted Henry. "Work on one rope at a time!"

  Just then a strong gust of wind shot the balloon skyward. Two of the crew lost their footing and were dragged across the ground until they let go of the ropes. Another mooring line snapped loose from the balloon. Stony Martin, with a rope coiled tightly around his left arm, was jerked off his feet and whipped sideways in a wide, sweeping curve. Only one line remained tied to a stake, and the force of the balloon's oscillations was working the stake loose from the ground. Stony was dangling six feet in the air, his legs kicking wildly, trying to find something solid to hold on to.

  "That bag sure went up with a jerk!" snorted Dinky Poore.

  Jeff Crocker dashed forward and aimed a flying tackle at Stony's legs. He caught him around the knees and brought him crashing to the ground. Before they could get to their feet another gust of wind shot the balloon upward again.

  "Go get Zeke and the truck!" cried Mortimer, giving Dinky Poore a shove. Then he and Henry ran to the lone mooring stake and threw their weight on it. Homer Snodgrass and I dove for another line and dug our heels into the ground as best we could.

  The rest of Harmon's gang staggered to their feet in bewilderment and tried to help out. They all managed to get hold of a piece of rope, but a balloon in a high wind is like a bucking bronco. We were just barely holding our own when Dinky got back with Zeke Boniface and Richard the Deep Breather in a whirling cloud of dust. Zeke brought the ancient truck to a skidding stop directly under the balloon, stepped up on the seat, and snaked one mooring line out of the air with a hamlike fist. With his leg hooked through the steering wheel, he gave a mighty tug on the rope and dragged the balloon and all the rest of us in his direction. Then he cinched the rope around the steering column and jumped to the back of the truck, where he made another line fast to the tailgate. The balloon still whipped angrily back and forth, but it was held fast to the ground by the sheer weight of Richard the Deep Breather.

  "Gee! Thanks!" said Harmon Muldoon, after we had the balloon staked to the ground again and the wind had died down a bit.

  "Don't mention it!" said Jeff Crocker. "Funny thing about a balloon. One minute you can't hold down, and the next thing you know, you can't get it off the ground."

  "We won't have any trouble getting off the ground!" shouted Stony Martin as we moved away.

  "Rots of ruck!" said Freddy Muldoon, shouting back.

  It was well after sunrise when we started inflating The Head. The wind had dropped to a gentle breeze and the weather looked good. We had just about an hour till lift-off time. As usual, Henry made us go through a checkout procedure, by the numbers, for every phase of the operation. It sounded just like the countdown for a missile launching.

  "It's the only way to make sure you aren't forgetting something," Henry explained. "When you have a lot of things to remember, it's easy to forget one of them. But if you assign every step a number, then it's a cinch. It's pretty hard to forget that 4 comes between 3 and 5."

  The hot-air balloons were inflating too, and by the time the sun was fully up, the White Fork race track looked like a fantastic fairyland of bright-colored silk. Balloons and tents were everywhere, and people were streaming onto the grounds from every direction to see the start of the race. Dinky Poore was sitting on his knapsack with his eyes popped wide open and his chin in his hands.

  "Gosh!" he said. "Charlemagne's army must have looked just like this when it started getting ready for battle."

  "Charlie who?" grunted Freddy Muldoon.

  "Shut up, you goofball!" said Dinky, and went right on staring at the balloons and the crowds.

  Suddenly the loudspeakers started to crackle and a race official began giving instructions to the balloon crews. There was a noticeable change in the movement of the crowd of spectators as they sensed the race was about to begin. They began filing out of the center oval toward the stands and the railing that circled the track. It seemed as though everyone had a camera or a pair of binoculars, or both. Telescopes and cameras were being set up on tripods all over the place. Some people had even gotten up onto the roof of the stands and were setting up movie cameras, until the White Fork police chased them off.

  All of a sudden it was for real. After all the weeks of preparation and planning and dreaming, The Head was just a few minutes away from her first flight. I could feel a big hollow place in the pit of my stomach, and I noticed that Henry kept taking his glasses off and wiping them for no reason at all.

  The mayor of White Fork got up in the officials' stand and introduced Mayor Scragg of Mammoth Falls. Then the two of them introduced the girls who were candidates for Queen of the County Fair. Each girl had to give a speech and throw a rose to the captain of the balloon crew that sponsored her. If the rose hit the ground it was considered bad luck. Stony Martin's girlfriend, Melissa Plunkett, gave a good speech, but her aim was bad and Harmon Muldoon fell flat on his face diving for the rose. He got it, though, and he and his crew dashed off and climbed into the gondola of the Green Onion.

  "You gotta hand it to Stony," sighed Mortimer Dalrymple. "That Melissa is a real knockout!"

  "Her teeth stick out too much," said Dinky Poore.

  When Daphne Muldoon was introduced, we whistled and cheered and stamped our feet. She blew Homer a kiss before she tossed the rose, and he was still standing there blushing and digging his toe in the ground when we all took off for our balloon.

  Dinky and Henry and I scrambled into the gondola, and the rest of the crew started checking the mooring lines. According to the rules, we had to keep four lines tied down until the starting gun sounded. Henry was fidgeting nervously with the quick-release buckles and checking the pressure-gauges on the helium tanks. Jeff Crocker, with his arm raised in the air, was keeping one eye glued on the officials' stand.

  We saw a checkered flag go up at the end of the line of balloons. A puff of smoke rose from the officials' stand, followed by the thin crack of a pistol shot. It didn't sound very loud, and we couldn't believe the race had started, until a roar went up from the stands and we saw one balloon rise up from the middle of the line.

  "Cut her loose!" Jeff shouted, and jumped back from the gondola.

  We flipped the levers on the release buckles and The Head shot upward for a few feet, then keeled over sideways and started spinning slowly counterclockwise. One rope still held her fast, and Dinky Poore was trying frantically to spring the buckle loose. I reached over and pulled with all my might on the release lever, but the buckle had been bent by the force of the balloon's pull, and it wouldn't budge. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Zeke Boniface step forward, and the blade of his hunting knife flashed in the sun. With one swipe he severed the rope, and The Head shot skyward for a moment, then jerked sideways and started to climb at a steep angle as the wind caught it and pushed it toward Mammoth Falls. We were on our way.

  Henry was crouched on the floor of the gondola, glancing at his watch, then at the altimeter, then at the pressure gauges for the helium tanks and the balloon envelope. Dinky and I were leaning over the railing, waving wildly at the shrinking figures of the ground crew.

  Suddenly the gondola lurched and swung crazily under our feet. A big orange balloon shot up from underneath us and bumped us again before it bounced free and went soaring straight up.

  "Whew! That was close!" said Henry. "They're rising too fast. They'll have to let some gas out in a hurry if they want to keep her under control."

  There hadn't been time to see what had happened to the Green Onion. The air was full of balloons, some rising lazily, some soaring rapidly, and some bouncing along the ground while their crews threw everything overboard, trying to get them aloft.

  Our gondola pitched wildly again, as a heavy gust of wind hit us and drove us before it. Two of the balloons that were having trouble getting off the ground got caught in it and went careening across the fields and crashed into the woods the other side of the railroad track. One of them collapsed completely, and
all we could see of it were the torn shreds of its envelope hanging from the limbs of the trees as we sailed overhead.

  Dinky and I kept rubbernecking around, trying to catch sight of the Green Onion, but there was too much going on at once. The big orange balloon had climbed far above us and was now moving toward Mammoth Falls at a rapid rate. It was already about a mile ahead of us. Henry pointed upward.

  "They've caught that layer of fast-moving air that we want to get into," he said. "But they're still climbing too fast. They'll climb right up out of it in a minute."

  I trained my field glasses on the balloon and I could see the crew members slapping each other on the back. They thought they had it knocked for sure. But Henry was right. They kept on rising until the balloon was just a tiny speck in the sky. But it was no longer moving forward. We passed right under it as The Head rose into the slipstream and started moving for home. Suddenly the orange balloon started to descend again, but it wasn't coming down slowly. It plummeted toward the earth like a wounded duck.

  "They let too much gas out too fast!" said Henry. "You've got to be careful you don't panic when you're rising too fast. It takes a light touch on the release valve. At the rate they're going they'll drop right down through the slipstream again. They might even hit the ground."

  Sure enough, the orange balloon kept dropping, seeming to pick up speed as it neared the earth. Its gondola rocked wildly as the rig passed through the slipstream, and we could see the crew frantically dumping sand overboard.

  "They'll never make it to Mammoth Falls," Henry observed. "They're dumping a lot of ballast in order to put on the brakes, and they might need it again later on."

  The balloon slowed its descent, finally, far beneath us. Then it rose, perhaps a hundred feet, and leveled off. It was moving westward once again, but very slowly. We were two or three miles ahead of it by this time, and moving very fast in the slipstream.

  "I think they're finished," said Henry. "Unless they're carrying a lot more ballast that they can get rid of, they'll never get enough altitude to clear the hills around Strawberry Lake."

  By now we could see only about ten balloons in the sky. The rest had either foundered on take-off or were too far back to pick up. I finally sighted the Green Onion far to the south of us and at about the same altitude as The Head. Apparently Harmon and his crew had managed to get into the slipstream, too.

  There's something about a balloon ride that's different from any other ride on earth. Unless you look down at the ground, you don't even realize you're moving. The balloon goes wherever the wind pushes it, and since you ride right with the wind, there isn't any air rushing past you. It's absolutely quiet and still, and sometimes you feel as though you're just hanging motionless from the sky. Of course, if you get caught in an updraft or a downdraft, or a good storm starts tossing you around, it's a little bit different. But in good, clear weather you can float right over a pasture full of cows and they won't even realize you're there.

  Dinky Poore was resting his chin on the railing of our gondola, just daydreaming. It's awfully easy to do that in a balloon, and forget all about the fact you're in a race. I pointed out the location of the Green Onion to Henry. He looked at his watch and checked the map he had tacked to a board.

  "I figure we ought to make the fair grounds in a little under two hours, if everything goes well," he said. "The big test comes at Strawberry Lake, when we have to clear those hills. If Harmon's balloon is still with us then, it may be an exciting race."

  Just then we got a call on the radio from Jeff. He wanted to know if we could see the Green Onion, and we told him it was off to the south of us, doing pretty well. Just to the north of us, on the main road between White Fork and Mammoth Falls, we could see the long line of cars heading for the fair grounds. With my field glasses I could make out Richard the Deep Breather, chugging along well behind the rest of the caravan. There was a motorcycle escort out in front of the line of cars, and all the candidates for Queen of the County Fair were sitting up on the back seats of convertibles, surrounded by flowers. I couldn't make out which one was Daphne Muldoon.

  The radio crackled again, and it was Jeff, telling us that they could see us now, and reminding us that if no balloon could land right on the fair grounds, the crew that could get there first on foot would be declared the winner.

  Another voice broke into the transmission. It was Harmon Muldoon, heckling us from the Green Onion.

  "If you're gonna run, you'd better get started now, 'cause we're gonna drop right in front of the reviewing stand!"

  We looked toward the Green Onion and could see that it had drifted a lot closer to us now. We could see the figures of Harmon and Stony Martin, and Buzzy McCauliffe, the third member of their crew. When I trained the glasses on them, Stony was holding up a sign that said, "Go soak your Head in the lake!"

  Dinky Poore started jumping up and down and thumbing his nose at them, and Henry had to tell him to sit down and stop rocking the gondola. In a little while Dinky didn't feel so exuberant, though. We sailed right under a big black cloud, and a summer squall hit us that pitched us around so badly Dinky turned green. He had to lean over the rail for real this time, while I held his legs to keep him from falling out. We were all soaked to the skin, and Dinky sat in two inches of water in the bottom of the life raft, holding his head and mumbling about what he'd do if he ever got back down on the ground again.

  When we finally floated out from under that cloud, we'd taken a bad battering and had lost some altitude, but we were all right. Henry checked the altimeter and the helium gauges and decided to let more gas into the envelope of The Head. I climbed up in the rigging and released the sliding yoke to let the bag expand as the gas flowed into it. Henry let the gas out of the pressure tanks carefully. We just needed enough extra lift to get us back up-into the slipstream. Too much, and we'd rise right through it!

  When we had leveled off again, and were getting a good wind, Henry told Dinky to keep his eye on the altimeter. "We're going to start rising again as soon as we dry out and lose some of the water we've taken on. We'll have to pump that extra gas back into the tanks again to stay in the slipstream."

  "What about what I lost?" asked Dinky.

  "Every ounce counts," said Henry. "I'll let you know if we want you to get sick again."

  Now that we were out of the squall, we took a quick look around to take stock of the competition. Only three balloons were in sight. One was the Green Onion, far out ahead of us and heading for the hills east of Strawberry Lake. She had either missed the squall completely or just passed through the edge of it. The other two were closer to us and at lower altitude, neither of them moving as fast as we were. One was painted like a top, with red, white, and blue stripes, and the other was the one that looked like a green caterpillar. If there were any others still aloft, they were too far back to worry about.

  "That caterpillar will be lucky to make it to the hills," said Henry. "She's been losing altitude ever since we got started, and I'll bet she's already thrown away all her ballast. I saw them dumping sand just before we went into the squall."

  "What about the Green Onion?" I asked. "She must be two miles ahead of us."

  "I've got an idea!" he answered, while he worked furiously with a pencil on the back of the map board. "Yes, it ought to work. I think we can pass her at Strawberry Lake, if the air currents are moving the way they should be moving."

  "I hope you're right," I said. "It looks pretty hopeless right now."

  "Gaining altitude, oh Great One!" Dinky Poore sang out. The sunshine and a little fresh air had brought his spirits back.

  "Start the compressor!" said Henry. "We'll have to keep pumping a little gas back into the tanks as we dry out."

  I cranked up the little gasoline engine and the compressor started to throb. Then I went up in the rigging again to adjust the yoke as the gas seeped back into the pressure tanks.

  "Keep your eye on the Green Onion when she reaches the hills this side of the la
ke," Henry explained. "That ridge of hills creates a tremendous updraft. And when it meets the warm air rising from the lake, it becomes a regular funnel. If the Green Onion tries to cross the ridge in the slipstream, she'll get caught in that funnel and she may zoom up to ten thousand feet. If we play it just right we can slip in under her and beat her across the lake."

  "I don't know how you're gonna do it, but I hope you're right!" I said.

  "Leave it to Henry!" said Dinky Poore.

  "A lot depends on how fast we can pump gas in and out of the bag to vary our lift," said Henry. "We've got to drop down out of the slipstream just before we reach the hills and go in low and heavy. Then, if we're lucky, that updraft should catch us and pop us over the ridge. If it does, we may be home free if we can get enough gas back into the bag fast enough to keep from dropping down the other side and into the lake."

  "I hope you know what you're doing," I said, not quite sure of what Henry had in mind.

  "Lead on, oh Great One!" said Dinky Poore with supreme confidence.

  The Green Onion was now approaching the hills a little over a mile ahead of us. She was sailing high and proud. But Henry had predicted the course of events with uncanny accuracy. Just as she was about to cross the ridge, she veered upward and started to climb at an amazing rate.

  "She's caught in the funnel!" Henry shouted. "Start the compressor again, Charlie. I want to lose at least eight hundred feet and come in well under that ridge."

  The little gasoline engine whirred again, and soon we were dropping down out of the slipstream. Henry had timed it just right. We still had plenty of forward momentum; but if we continued dropping at the rate we were, we would crash right into the middle of the hills.

  "Don't get sick now, Dinky!" Henry warned. "We need all the weight we have for another minute."

  Off to our left we could see the big green caterpillar far below us. It bumped into the lower slopes of the hills and slid into a gully, where it stayed, rocking back and forth in the wind, while its crew tried frantically to get it airborne again. The red, white, and blue top was not much better off. The updraft had caught it, but too late, and it crashed into the upper slope of one huge hill, where it snagged itself among the trees.