chapter 4

Chapter Four

It happened so fast Chris didn’t know what was going on. One minute he was safely rooted on the ground, the next he was airborne, dangling from the side of a hot air balloon, rising higher and higher above everything he knew and loved. For the first few minutes he just stayed there, eyes shut tight, feeling the cold of the wind brush against his knuckles and ruffle his clothes. It was deathly silent except a creak from the hot air balloon here and there or a feathery flap-flap-flap of a bird flying past. How high were they now? Chris couldn’t think straight enough to figure it out. He let out a tiny whimper and wished he had thought this through more carefully.

On Sally’s side of the operation, things were going smoothly. The weather was just right for a hot air balloon, the hot air balloon itself was sturdy and still working as it should, and she felt with her element in the basket, doing what her father did. She did, in fact, have a bit of experience in a hot air balloon, for her father, when he was alive, gave her lessons on it. She was deep in thoughts about her father when she noticed the pale white fingers gripping the side of the basket.

She rushed to the side of the hot air balloon and looked down. “Chris!”

Chris had his eyes squeezed shut until he heard his name. He opened his eyes and saw Sally bending over him, grinning from ear to ear. “So, you decided to join me after all,” Sally said.

“Just…get…me…up.”

Sally smiled again and took Chris’s wrists. “Ok, but you’ll have to work with me, here. After all, I don’t think you’ll wanna fall at this height.” She grunted and pulled on Chris’s wrists as hard as she could while Chris scrabbled his smooth-soled sneakers on the side of the basket. For a moment they succeeded in nothing but white circles on Chris’s wrists, then slowly he began to move until he was flopped on his stomach over the basket like a wet down hung over a railing. He flailed his legs for a moment before Sally hooked her arms under his armpits and heaved the rest of him into the basket.

For a moment he just lay in a slump on the floor, panting, mouth moving in a silent prayer. Sally sat down on her luggage trunk and panted along with him. “Y’know, Chris, you’re heavier than you look. You should…watch what you eat.”

“I’ll…” Chris sat up and mopped cold sweat from his forehead. “…I’ll remember that.”

Sally grinned. “Welcome aboard.”

“So, what made you change your mind?”

Chris looked up. He was crouched on the floor of the basket with his arms wrapped around his shins, trying to ignore the weightless feeling of the hot air balloon. Sally was sitting on the luggage trunk, staring down at him. “What made you change your mind?” she asked again.

Chris hesitated, shrugged, and looked away.

“Worried about me?”

Chris gave her an irritated look and shrugged again.

Sally grinned.

“When are we going to land?” Chris mumbled. It was cold in the hot air balloon and he was feeling slightly queasy at the rocking motions and the occasional bob of the basket.

“Can’t wait to get exploring?”

Exploring. Chris had totally forgotten. His stomach tightened.

Sally grinned wider. “You remember why I’m doing this, right?” She inspected her nails. “The hot air balloon is simply a method of travel to get to the different possible sites…then our feet do the work.”

“This is very ambitious.”

“Don’t worry.” She looked at him. “How hard could this possibly be?”

“Don’t say that.” Chris squeezed his eyes shut. “You’ll jinx it.”

Sally sighed wistfully. “Isn’t the view beautiful, Chris? The sunrise is at it’s peak. Gorgeous.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Chris, you’re not even looking.”

“Am so.”

Sally smiled at him and took his elbow, hoisting him up. “Just look.”

“No.”

“C’mon.”

“No!”

“One look!” Sally dragged him to the side of the hot air balloon. In front of them was a vast globe of speckled green land and mountains, and glittering pools of waters stretched piecemeal across the terrain. But Chris wasn’t focusing on that. He was focusing on the dizzying drop between the balloon and the ground. Suddenly he felt very, very sick.

“Oog,” he said. “Sally, I’m gonna be sick.”

“Not on me,” Sally said, pushing him away.

Chris stumbled to the side of the hot air balloon and threw up over the edge. Sally rolled her eyes. “That’s nice, Chris. Real nice.”

“Once we get over the rough part of the island we will be landing,” Sally said to Chris, who was crumpled on the floor of the basket moaning occasionally about airsickness. Sally turned to him. “Honestly, Chris, if I’d known you would be such a travel burden, I wouldn’t have brought you.”

Chris let out a whimper.

Sally turned back to her map. “Well, of course, I didn’t have much of a choice anyway, did I? Ya sort of just piggybacked on unsuspecting, like a pouncing jaguar or some disease.” Chris groaned. Sally sighed. “Are you going to be like this the whole time? I’ll need your help when it comes to landing.”

“Landing?”

“Yup.”

Chris sat up slowly and wiped the drool off his lips. “Sally, we can’t land this thing on our own.”

Sally smiled. “We aren’t going to.”

Chris raised an eyebrow and Sally laughed. “I have a friend down there,” she said, pointing a finger down at Dumberkew. “I’ve been scheming with her for a while, through pigeon-mail.”

“Friend? Friend? What-past the borderline??”

“Uh-huh. Her name is Vondra Thabiti. She’s from one of the tribes that live off the borderline.”

“Tribes?” Chris hadn’t heard anything about one tribe, much less more. “What tribes?”

“I don’t know their names,” Sally said irritably. “Now shush, I’m concentrating. I don’t want us to get lost.”

“But-”

“Chris, hush.” Sally squinted against the glare of the early-afternoon sun. At least, Christ thought it must be afternoon. There was no real way to tell the time, but it seemed to Chris they’d been flying for hours.

Suddenly, Sally pointed downwards. “There. The blue flag.”

“Blue fl-”

“Shh, Chris.” Sally turned to Chris with a renewed sparkle in her eyes. “We’re taking her down.”