Grandpa Benny Flies in a Hot Air Balloon
By: Ran Levi
David and Grandpa Benny were in the yard feeding the roosters. They scattered small seeds on the ground and the birds collected the food in their beaks.
Suddenly, loud, deafening sounds were heard from within the house. ‘Oh no! What’s that horrible sound!’ called David. The roosters and chickens were frightened and hurriedly scattered into the chicken coop.
‘Look what I found!’ said Maya. She stood on the front steps holding an old trumpet in her hand. ‘Did you hear me play? Don’t you think I can be in an orchestra?’
‘No, you can’t,’ said David. ‘In order to play in an orchestra you have to know how to read notes.’ Maya was disappointed. ‘Really? Do you have to?’ she asked hopefully.
‘It’s not so hard to learn notes,’ said Grandpa Benny, ‘but this trumpet once saved my life, and I didn’t even know how to play it.’
‘How did it save you, grandpa?’ asked Maya. ‘It was when I flew in a hot air balloon with Jules Verne.’ Grandpa told Benny.
‘Who’s Jules Verne?’ asked David.
‘Jules Verne is a very famous French author.’ Grandpa explained, ‘I didn’t plan on flying in a hot air balloon, you see. I only went to Mr. Verne’s house in France to deliver a package sent to him by mail from a local music store.
I rang the bell once, and then again. No one answered. ‘Mr. Verne?’ I called, ‘Jules?’ Still, no one answered. I peaked inside through the window, but the house was empty. ‘Maybe he’s in the backyard,’ I said to myself and walked around to the other side of his house.’
‘The back yard was also empty.
‘Ok, I guess he isn’t home, I’ll try again tomorrow.’ I thought, and turned to leave. Suddenly I noticed a long rope hanging from the sky.
‘I wonder why this rope is here,’ I wondered. Maybe it’s connected to the bell? Yes, maybe I’ll pull the rope, the bell will ring and Mr. Verne will hear me and know that I’m looking for him.’
‘I held on to the long rope, and pulled it. Suddenly the rope stretched tight and up it went. I was so surprised that I forgot to let go of the rope, and within seconds I found myself in the air, far above the ground!
I was so frightened…I held on to the rope with two hands, and looked up. Floating above me was a huge ball with a large straw basket hanging below it. The rope I held was fastened to the basket.
‘Hey, you down there!’ I heard a voice from the basket, ‘climb up fast, so that you won’t fall!’
‘I climbed and climbed, hand after foot, foot after hand, until I reached the basket and scrambled in. When I caught my breath and stood up, I saw the famous writer Mr. Jules Verne in front of me.
‘Hi, sir!’ said Verne, ‘And who might you be?’
‘My name is Benny,’ I introduced myself. ‘I'm from the postal services and I have a package for you…But what is this? Where are we?’
‘We’re in a hot air balloon of course’, said Jules Verne.
‘Hot air balloon? I have never flown in a hot air balloon. How are we floating like this in the air? Why aren’t we falling down to the ground?’
‘This huge balloon is full of hot air,’ explained Verne. ‘Hot air is lighter than the regular air around us and so it rises up, like an air bubble in a bucket of water, and that is how the basket that we are in is being lifted. Don’t worry, Benny: We have enough hot air in order to reach our destination.’
‘And what is our destination?’ I asked. ‘Africa!’ answered the writer.
‘Africa? Why Africa?’ I asked.
‘I need inspiration for a new book I want to write.’ said Verne. ‘And besides, it’s always fun to travel the world.’
I looked outside the basket. The ground was far beneath us. Houses looked like toys. People looked as small as ants. A few of them saw us passing above their heads and waved hello.
‘The hot air balloon continued to fly quickly, and not long afterwards we passed over the Mediterranean Sea and found ourselves in Africa, floating over the vast grasslands and the winding valleys.
‘Where are we?’ I asked. ‘In the Serengeti. This is one of the most beautiful places in Africa with the largest number of animals on the entire continent.’ Verne replied. In the African Savannah’s tall grasslands we saw giraffes, rhinos, zebras and even a lion and a few lionesses who dozed in the warm sun.
‘Look,’ called Verne, and pointed outside the basket, ‘over there, below – the elephants!’. We passed over a family of elephants that was peacefully plucking leaves from the trees and munching on their snack. ‘I love elephants,’ said the writer, ‘they are very intelligent animals.’
‘Really?’ I knew that elephants were the largest land-based animals on Earth, but I didn’t know that they were smart too. ‘Definitely. Elephants have a great memory, and there are even trained elephants that learn how to paint with a paintbrush on paper…’ I wanted to ask Verne what elephants like to paint, when suddenly I noticed something moving in the bushes. ‘Oh, no!’ I shouted, ‘hunters!’
‘Look, down below, behind the bushes. A group of hunters!’ I pointed at three hunters who were crouched behind the thick bushes and were creeping up on the elephants. They held large guns in their hands. ‘They’re planning on shooting the elephants,’ said Verne angrily, ‘we can’t let them do that, elephants are endangered. They should not be hunted!’
‘We both started whistling, screaming out loudly and pounding on the basket walls. The elephants stopped eating and lifted their heads. When they saw the hot air balloon above them, they were startled: They had never seen such a strange thing. The elephants decided to make a quick escape, and within a few seconds they had disappeared into the bush and had left only a cloud of dust behind them.
‘Yes! We did it! We saved the elephants!’ Verne and I were pleased. But below, on the ground, the hunters were really upset. Actually, they were very mad at us, and they yelled and waved their hands.
‘Suddenly one of the hunters lifted his weapon, pointed it at us, and fired.
I heard a loud whistle from below, and I looked up. There was a large hole in the balloon, and the hot air hissed as it escaped. ‘Uh oh…’ said Verne. As the balloon started to empty, our basket sank quickly towards the earth.
The ground became closer and closer. ‘Hold on tight!’ said Jules Verne.
I prepared myself for the bumpy landing, but luck was on our side: Our basket got caught in the branches of a tall tree, and we were left hanging high above the ground. ‘What luck!’ The writer breathed a sigh of relief.
‘Don’t relax yet,’ I said to him, ‘look – the hunters are after us. They want to punish us for driving the elephants away.’
‘The three hunters got closer to the tree on which we were hanging. They looked right and left for us. ‘What are we going to do?’ I whispered, ‘we’re stuck on the tree. We won’t be able to escape!’
‘We have to call for help, said Verne worriedly, ‘but how?
'We thought and thought. I looked inside my postbag and saw the package that I was supposed to deliver to the writer. The intensity of the fall caused the wrapping to rip, revealing a shiny trumpet. I had an idea. I took a deep breath, lifted the trumpet to my lips and blew into it with all my might.
‘The trumpet sounded a deafening blast that even startled the birds that stood on the branches of the nearby trees.
When the hunters heard the trumpet, they looked up. ‘Ah ha! There they are!’ one of the hunters roared, ‘they’re the ones who scared off the elephants…now we’ll show them…’ He had a threatening, cruel look in his eyes, and he pointed the gun right at us.
Suddenly, we heard a loud crashing noise. The three elephants that the hunters had been stalking burst out of the bushes and stampeded towards us. ‘Oh no!!’ yelled the panicked hunters. One of them tried pointing his gun, but mama and papa elephant struck first. They stretched their long trunks up high, like a shower pipe. A strong squirt of water came out of each trunk and soaked the hunters from head to toe.
It’s freezing!! Freeeezing!!’ howled the wet hunters. They threw down their guns and ran for their lives.
We climbed out of the basket and lowered ourselves down to the ground with the long rope.
‘How lucky!’ said the writer, ‘the call of the trumpet is very similar to an elephant roar. The elephants heard us and understood that we’re in trouble. They saved us, just like we saved them…thank-you, smart elephants!’ Verne gave the animals delicious fruits, and I pet the baby elephant.
‘He’s so cute!’ I said, ‘I think I’ll call him ‘Nemo’.’
‘Nemo? What a strange name.’ said Verne.
‘It’s actually a nice name, very suitable for elephants. Maybe even for fish.’
‘And that’s it,’ Grandpa Benny finished his story, ‘Jules Verne and I returned to Paris, and parted as friends. He gave me the trumpet as a souvenir. I later heard that he wrote a book inspired by our adventure: ‘Five Weeks in a Balloon’, a very successful book…'
‘So if I blow hard on the trumpet, the elephants will come and squirt us with water?’ asked Maya excitedly, lifting the trumpet to her mouth. Grandpa Benny stopped her with a smile. ‘Ummm…I think they’re a bit too far away from us – but maybe grandma will come and squirt me if I don’t go back inside…’
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