Amelia noticed Elliot was gripping the edge of the basket so tightly that his knuckles were turning white. Elliot saw her staring at his hands and he hastily shoved them into his trouser pockets.
"I'm sorry," he said. "It turns out I'm a nervous flyer."
"Have you never flown before?" asked Amelia.
Elliot shook his head. "We don't have a lot of money" he replied. "It's just me and dad. He's a taxidermist."
"I am assuming he has never stuffed a thirty-foot damselfly," smiled Amelia.
"Or an inflatable orange octopus," grinned Elliot.
He watched two insects buzzing around frantically above the balloon. "Looks like a damselfly courtship ritual," he indicated.
Amelia squinted at the second insect. "Is there somebody riding that damselfly?" she asked with surprise.
Elliot shaded his eyes with his hands and squinted over the top of his glasses. "You're right," he agreed. "That's incredible!"
"He looks to be in some difficulty," gasped Amelia. She let out a small shriek and pointed as the figure fell from the giant damselfly, tumbling through the sky. "We have got to do something!"
The large round eye of the octopus blinked open, and Elliot felt a tentacle wrapping around his tummy again, pulling him hard from behind and suspending him, on his back, out over the rear of the basket. Elliot opened one eye and saw the figure plummeting towards him. He reached out desperately towards the floundering body and grabbed. He managed to get hold underneath the person's arms, but the tentacle swung perilously below the basket with the extra weight. The octopus held on. Elliot held on. He noticed the oversized gold chain, the ginger hair and smelled expensive aftershave. It was Jack! He was unconscious.
"Jack!" he shouted in the boy's ear. "Wake up!"
Jack's black designer puffer jacket was expensive but slippery and Elliot was losing his grip. They were losing height. There was too much weight.
"Jack, please!" Elliot pleaded.
Jack woke with a start. He realised he was dangling pendulously in mid-air and began to squirm and wrestle in terror.
"Blake? yelled Jack with surprise. "Is that you?!" Elliot gave a weak smile as their eyes met. "You can't let go!"
"I'm not strong enough!" wailed Elliot. He spotted a teardrop-shaped decorative pond below them. He hoped it would be deep enough. "Please forgive me, Jack," he said with an anguished look on his face.
"Forgive you for what?" asked Jack imploringly.
"For this," replied Elliot as he let go.
"No!" shrieked Jack flapping his arms. "I'll get you for this!" he screamed as he plummeted towards the ground. Elliot hoped he had calculated correctly and pumped his fist as he saw Jack splash perfectly in the middle of the pond. He held his breath and waited nervously. He heaved a deep sigh of relief as Jack floated to the surface, his jacket acting as a buoyancy aid. As the octopus tentacle recoiled and dropped him tenderly back into the basket, Elliot looked down to see Jack pointing up at him angrily and smashing his arms wildly on the surface of the water.
***
Rose and Isla were walking together down a narrow-cobbled ramp between two buildings when a small white object slammed into the ground in front of them and bounced into the gutter.
"Did someone just throw a shoe at us?" asked Rose, looking round, but seeing nobody.
Isla bent to pick up the expensive looking white trainer. "It looks brand-new." She noticed the letters 'JW' were stitched in silver lettering at the heel. "This is Jack's shoe," she exclaimed. "Where did it come from?"
They looked upwards between the buildings and saw a beautiful orange hot air balloon floating peacefully two hundred feet above them. A blonde head was peering over the lip of the balloon's basket.
"Is that an octopus?" asked Isla, cocking her head.
"Is that Amelia?" called out Rose, pointing up at the figure.
They noticed one of the tentacles dangling free from the balloon.
"That octopus has got Elliot and Jack!" yelled Isla with dismay. They watched in horror as Jack became separated and began falling towards the ground. Isla could not look and buried her face in Rose's neck. They waited for Jack's agonising scream but instead heard a soft splash.
"Come on," instructed Rose, shaking Isla into action. They scampered across a beautifully manicured garden that led to a crystal blue ornamental pond. Jack's head broke the surface and he spouted water from his mouth like a grotesque fountain. He was thrashing his arms and shouting angrily skywards as they reached out for him. They managed, together, to drag him out from the water before he shrugged them off violently.
"When I get my hands on him," shouted Jack, gesturing up at the hot air balloon, "I'll kill him!"
"Oi, you lot!" barked a voice from the first-floor window of a whitewashed cottage. "Who is going to pay then?" demanded a scarlet-faced, bearded man looking aghast.
"Pay for what?" asked Rose. "We didn't do anything!"
The man's face disappeared from the window. He reappeared through a small, squeaky saloon door, wearing only a yellow fluffy towel around his waist. He waddled towards them leaving wet footprints on the path and cursing as he stood on a loose stone that left him hopping on the spot.
"Sterilisation of my pond after that lump just crash landed in it!" bellowed the portly man. "Those are competition Dancing Fish in there!" he shouted angrily. "I need compensation!"
"He really couldn't help it," pleaded Isla. "We're very sorry."
Jack stood shivering and dripping wet wearing one shoe, fidgeting where he stood. He reached down the back of his neck and removed a flapping orange and blue-striped fish from inside his clothing. He threw it back in the water. "Look mate," he said to the semi-naked fish breeder. "My mum and dad have plenty of money. We'll get your compensation when we get back to London."
"London?" spurted the man, readjusting his towel nervously. "Never mind. We shall say no more of it." He retreated sheepishly towards his door. "Where are my manners?" he said apologetically. "Can I offer the young sir a towel?" he asked.
"As long as it's not that one!" smirked Rose with a wink. The man tottered off back inside in a hurry.
Overhead they heard whooping and hollering. Amelia and Elliot were waving down at them from the basket of the hot air balloon, which swooped low, narrowly missing a row of crowned chimney pots, before landing gently on the grass. Amelia vaulted out of the basket. Elliot struggled to climb out and caught his foot on the lip. He tumbled onto the soft ground.
"That was incredible!" enthused Elliot as he stood. "My calculations were perfect!"
The girls listened as Amelia and Elliot talked excitedly about the rescue mission. Nobody paid any attention to Jack who was seething and shaking in the background, water pooling at his feet as it dripped from every piece of clothing. The man had not returned with a towel. He was standing stock still and staring straight at Elliot.
"You!" he yelled. The others turned at the sound. "You!" he repeated. "Elliot Blake!" he snarled through gritted teeth. Elliot's jaw dropped as Jack started squelching purposefully towards him.
"Oh no," whispered Elliot, frantically removing his glasses from his face. They were his only pair, and he couldn't afford for them to be smashed by Jack's fist.
"Come here!" said Jack ominously.
"No chance!" squeaked Elliot, turning on his heels. Even with a head start, and with two shoes on his feet, Elliot was no match for the star of the rugby team. Jack caught him within a few seconds and tackled Elliot to the ground. Elliot lay on his back holding his hands up to his face to protect himself. Jack dragged him to his feet. "Not the face, please not the face," whimpered Elliot helplessly.
"You," Jack repeated. "You saved my life!" he croaked and grabbed Elliot into a tight soggy hug.
Elliot heaved a sigh of relief. "Well, technically the pond saved your life," he said humbly. "I just had a good aim." He could feel water seeping into his shirt and tried to squirm free, but the bigger boy was having none of it.
When Jack finally put Elliot down, Isla handed him his trainer. "At least one bit of you will be dry," she said optimistically.
"I'm still going to kill that bloody creature!" said Jack, hunting the skies. "Stephen? Stephen!!"
"Who, or what, is Stephen?" asked Rose quizzically.
"A stupid womanising damselfly," said Jack shaking his head with a smile.
"A damselfly that you stole!" called out a voice behind them.
"Charlie!" exclaimed Isla.
She ran up to him as he swung his leg over the top over the stucco wall at the edge of the formal garden. He scrambled down the climbing hydrangea and sank into the soft soil of the flower bed.
"Where have you been?" she grinned.
"Do you mean besides chasing through the streets after an idiot without a pilot's licence?" Charlie laughed.
He was interrupted by a horrible, high-pitched buzz that sounded like a mee-mawing siren. Two smartly uniformed figures were approaching, riding on huge, immaculate, majestic bumblebees. The creatures skidded softly on the gravel and the officers slid down their backs to the ground, narrowly avoiding the bees' stingers.
The taller of the two officials spoke first as she placed a peaked cap on her shaved head. A shiny silver badge was front and centre, depicting the silhouette of an insect behind a set of bars. She reached into her breast pocket and brought out a small wallet. She flashed a card briefly in their faces.
"Agent Bufftail," she said authoritatively. "Emporium air traffic police."
"Well, what do you know?" laughed Jack. "Insect traffic cops!"
"This is Agent Bombus," continued Bufftail, gesturing towards her colleague.
The male officer spoke. "We are investigating the thefts of a cephalopod dirigible and a saddled Zygoptera," he said gruffly.
"Come again?" said Rose.
"An octopus hot air balloon and a damselfly," explained Elliot meekly.
"Can you children confirm your whereabouts for the last hour?" commanded Bufftail.
They looked at each other sheepishly. It was Amelia who broke the silence. "It should be quite obvious," she said, putting her arm around Jack's soggy shoulder, "that we have just been swimming."
"Only one of you is wet," pointed out Bombus.
"Well, some of us are better swimmers than others," remarked Rose.
"Is that the balloon you're looking for?" asked Charlie, changing the subject. The officers snapped their necks upwards and seemed surprised to see the large milky eye of the octopus staring blankly back at them as it hovered directly above them.
"It must have gotten loose," offered Elliot innocently.
"Code 1512!" screamed Agent Bombus. "We have a 1512 here! Do not panic!" He leapt back onto his bumblebee and took to the skies, hotly pursued by Agent Bufftail. The two traffic cops droned around the octopus as it drifted off into the distance.
"I guess we don't need to meet back at the butcher's shop," laughed Charlie. He looked at his watch, frowned and tapped the glass with his fingertip.
"What's wrong, Charlie?" asked Isla.
"My watch has stopped working," said Charlie disappointedly. "It was a gift from my mum and dad."
She looked down at her own wristwatch. "That's odd," she said, pressing it against her ear. "Mine isn't working either."
The rest of the group looked at their watches and confirmed that they had inexplicably stopped at 11:15 a.m. Elliot added that the phones were frozen too. The others rummaged in bags and pockets to discover that none of their mobiles were working.
"It must be the Wonderground," suggested Elliot.
"We'd better get back to the train station," said Charlie urgently. "We need to get back to Aldwych and the class. We have no idea what time it is!"
They hunted for a familiar landmark on the horizon to guide them back in the direction of the train. A distant low whistle sounded six times from behind them.
"That way!" they cried in unison.