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Here's
how the mystery starts:
The hot air balloon had been a glorious experiment and that experiment had failed when the anchor line had snapped. The sudden uplift had caught the balloon's crew by surprise. By the time they had managed to get control of the flame that provided the balloon's lift, they were caught in the firm grip of a howling thunderstorm.
The balloon soared out over the ocean at the front of a sixty-mile-an-hour raging wind.
Huxley T. Farnsworth, Jacob Hendricks, and Alicia Woods were very clever high school students who knew almost everything there was to know about hot air balloons. But now their science fair project was hurtling out of control over an ocean and the sun was setting. They were surrounded by thick clouds and could no longer see the water below.
The balloon flew with the storm all night long.
As a faint morning light began to show over the horizon, Huxley called out to the others, "Hey, look! The weather's cleared. I can see something ahead! It's an island!"
"How will we ever put the balloon down to land?" Alicia asked.
"We've got to try. Let's drop some sand bags!" cried Jacob as he leaned out over the side of the basket. |
