Fire in the Dark

The next morning Polly woke long before the sun. In a dark field outside the village, trucks were arriving with heavy baskets and long bags of folded cloth. The crews worked quietly by the light of their headlamps, talking to each other on handheld radios.

Polly perched on a basket and watched. The crew dragged the balloon out of its bag and spread it flat across the ground, where it lay like a great sleeping whale. Then two powerful fans began to blow cold air into its open mouth, and slowly the whole shape began to swell.

The pilot was holding a small helium balloon on a thin string. He let it go, and everyone stopped to watch it climb away into the dark. "The little balloon flies first," he told Polly. "It shows us where the wind means to carry us today."

Then came the fire. The pilot squeezed the burner handle and a long flame roared into the open mouth of the balloon. One breath of fire, two, three. The great shape lifted its head off the ground and stood upright in the dark, glowing orange from the inside like a paper lantern.