Polly Flies the Balloon

On her last morning the field was still dark. The pilot crouched down and held out the string of the little helium balloon to Polly. "You know the ritual by now," he said. She let it go, and the two of them stood together and watched it drift slowly away toward the east.

In the basket, the pilot held her up close to the burner handle. "Now you," he said. Polly pressed it down with him. One breath of fire, two, three. The great balloon lifted itself off the ground, and the passengers laughed out loud with the joy of it.

The sun came up, and more than a hundred balloons rose all around them, gold and red and blue. Below, the fairy chimneys began to glow, and in their small carved houses the pigeons woke up. Polly looked at all of it for a long time without saying anything.

High over the valley she said goodbye to the pilot and to the crew. Then she lifted off from the edge of the basket and flew east on the morning wind, the same wind the little balloon had shown her at the start of every day.