For a moment I lay still, my eyes scrunched tightly closed, waiting for the pain to kick in. I knew I was badly injured. You can’t fall fifteen metres headfirst and not wind up in hospital – or worse.
‘Brace yourself,’ said a woman’s voice. ‘We’re about to crash-land.’
I opened my eyes. I was lying with my head in the red-haired woman’s lap. Above her, framed in a dark rectangle of woven cane, were the gas burners. Above the burners was the huge, brightly coloured nylon envelope of the balloon. I’d fallen into the basket.
But now the basket was falling!
I took the woman’s advice and braced myself.
CRUNCH!
That was my second crashlanding in about fifteen seconds. But I felt okay – apart from the dead weight of the unconscious pilot lying on top of me. I pushed him gently to one side and struggled into a sitting position. The woman crouched next to me, clutching her broken arm. We had landed in the park. The basket lay on its side. A few metres away, the slowly deflating balloon sank to the ground like a huge, tired whale.
One of the twins appeared in the mouth of the basket. ‘That was wicked!’ he said, which told me it was Harry.
Then they were both there, grinning from ear to ear, as if my near-death experience had been a performance put on for their entertainment.
‘I think I’m seeing double,’ the woman said.
‘They’re twins,’ I told her. ‘Jordan, Harry, help us out of here.’
We helped the woman first. She said she broke her arm when the balloon crashed into the trees, and it was very sore. She sat on the ground hugging it while the twins and I went back for Anthony. He was still unconscious. His body lay jammed between the two gas cylinders, as limp as a rag doll but fifty times bigger. I got Jordan to support his head, while Harry and I eased the unconscious pilot out onto the grass.
As soon as we were all out of the basket, it began sliding slowly away from us across the park. The floppy balloon had filled like a giant parachute in the freshening wind and was dragging the basket along. There was a freeway on the other side of the park, but it was about three hundred metres away and I didn’t think the balloon would get that far before it deflated again.
‘Is he breathing?’ the woman asked.
I bent over the pilot. ‘Yes. But he looks pretty crook.’
‘You’d better get help. But first, put him in the recovery position. Do you want me to show you?’
I shook my head. We’d learned the recovery position in first aid at my old school. I arranged the pilot’s arms and legs how I’d been taught, then carefully rolled him onto his side. Perfect.
‘Someone’s coming,’ the woman said.
A man hurried towards us. His car was parked under the Norfolk Island pines with its door flung wide open.
‘Can I help?’ he puffed. ‘I’m a doctor.’
The woman told him that Anthony needed antivenom. Before she could explain, a loud whoosh came from behind us. It sounded like a jumbo jet taking off. We all turned to look.
It took me a few seconds to understand what was happening. The basket was still lying on its side, but it was sliding slowly away from us across the dewy grass. A column of flame three metres long went boiling up into the balloon. Somehow the gas burner had ignited. Suddenly the massive nylon envelope lurched up off the ground, dragging the basket upright.
Now we could see what was going on.
‘Harry, Jordan, NO-O-O-O-O!’ I yelled, and started running towards them.