Way up in the air the balloon with a basket containing Olivia and
Jesper moved slowly to the south. They moved so slow that at the
hight they were at that the horizontal movement was very hard to spot,
unless they looked really long at a specific object on ground such as a
house.
After the fascination in
the beginning when they rose, the current slow motion really started
to bore the two persons that lately were used to much more action.
In an attempt to make the trip less boring Olivia tried to start a
conversation by saying:
"One thing I been planning to ask you for a few day now is..."
As Olivia spoke Jesper looked at her with the
worried face of a man fearing to get an
undesired approach from a women just when he has no place to run.
However, before Jesper had interrupted Olivia she continued:
"...when the alien asked you 'What is a Blurp?', when we were at Bleep
escaping from the castle, you started to act so strange, why?"
Jesper didn't reply immediately, instead he looked at some bird around
and below the balloon. He the thoughtfully said:
"It seems like the birds below us that are flying...", he glanced at
the sun then at his watch before he continued," ...towards south take
better use of the wind than the ones at our own altitude. Thus I
suggest that we decrease our current altitude to take best advantage
of the present wind situation."
"Oh, no! Not again", Olivia murmured under her breath, and sat down
to sulk.
As Jesper turned off the heater that heated the air in the balloon, he
suddenly realized that 'winds in
the north' blowed from the north, not to the north.
Luckily he also realized that his stepfather Al that lived in Wodonga,
was a man called Alfred and was not the one he just met.
That was Albert, and he lived in Yabulu that was straight north of
Wagga Wagga. So, he should go south which he did.
After the balloon had sunk to a perfect latitude it soon become
obvious that it still moved too slow.
"We must find a way to speed things up", Jesper said, looked down at
the railway below and continued, "and I think I just found a way to do
that!"
Jesper then suggested to Oliva that they should go 'balloon-joring'
after a south going train. Hardened by the life the last days, Oliva
thought that this was a very good suggestion that might live things
up. So, Jesper lowered the balloon down to about 15 meters altitude,
straight above the railway track. Jesper then made a lasso from a rope
that hanged down from balloon basket.
When that was done he sat down beside the still sulking
Olivia hoping for a south
going train, and that the wind wouldn't move them away from the track.
Luckily, or perhaps unluckily, both Jesper's hopes came true 5 minutes
later when a high speed south going train approached them.
When the train was just under them Jesper casted his lasso and
manage somehow to hook on to a projecting object between the
penultimate and the last wagon. He then screamed:
"Hold on tight", when a enormous pull suddenly twitched the balloon
90 degrees. This meant that things that use to be horizontal, like for
instance the bottom of the basket, now became vertical and vice versa.
Even though Jesper had tied himself tight to the basket he was
almost ripped away by the sudden acceleration up to about 160 km/h.
Olivia, that had assumed that Jesper's lasso cast would fail, hadn't
taken the same precautions to stay in the basket as Jesper had and
was immediately thrown out of it and thrown into the bottom of the
huge balloon.
Even though the added air resistance due to the unexpected stowaways
must have been
significant, the powerful and heavy train continued to move with a high
speed with the balloon in tow during the following two hours.
The traveling space Jesper occupied
would not exactly be regarded as a first class seat, since it was very
uncomfortable to be tied to a basket that was dragged behind a train.
Olivia on the other hand lied very cosy and free of care.
Her only problem was the enormous heat inside the balloon that made
it feel like she was in a sauna. To survive the heat she had
undressed and was now dressed it just her lace bra and silk panties,
but she still sweated so much that she begun to fear that she could
dehydrate. As the trip went on Jesper suddenly noticed something
that obviously was going to affect them. Less than a kilometer in
front of them the track disappeared into a long narrow tunnel
through a mountain.
"Oh, I wonder what's going to happen to the balloon when we
reach the tunnel. One possibility is obviously that the balloon
will explode. However, it is perhaps more likely that the lasso
rope will brake from the force from the balloon that doesn't
fit into the tunnel. A third, more unlikely but still possible,
scenario is the main part of the air inside the balloon is
pressed out through the hole in the bottom, and that the balloon
become shaped after the tunnel walls and follow the train all the
way through the tunnel, and that it will be filled up again to
normal size from the speed wind on the other side of the tunnel.
From a strict scientific point of view this should be an extremely
interesting experiment to observe. However, from a more Darwinistic
survivor point of view, it wouldn't be very wise and a good indication
that we are fit to survive to go through with the experiment.", Jesper
analyzed the situation.
A few second before the last wagons entered the tunnel Jesper
suddenly untied the lasso from the basket and let go of the rope.
As soon as the balloon was free again it immediately flipped back to its
normal position, that is basket down, balloon up. The gravity force
then made Olivia fall down from the balloon and down into Jesper's arms.
The exhausted, enticing dressed witch whispered to Jesper:
"I'm so hot. Help me to something about that."
However, instead of helping the poor woman, Jesper threw her down
to the basket floor and screamed:
"I've had it with you. I can accept all the previous improper
advances and sexual allusions you have made. But this!
The sexual harassment level is way passed; getting dressed like a
stripper towards the end of her working day, and gasp into
my ear that your are hot, and that you want me to do something about it!
I want you to get off my balloon right now!!"
When Jesper was done he noticed that Olivia lied down unconscious.
Further examinations of her reviled that she indeed was very hot and
was very dried out. With a very bad conscience Jesper started to
investigate the possibilities pour water down the poor woman's throat.