Free Monsieur Pamplemousse Aloft by Michael Bond Page A

Monsieur Pamplemousse bent down to give his friend and confidant a consoling pat. It struck him as he did so that Pommes Frites was taking the news of his deprivation remarkably well.
    Looking round, he saw why. Some dozen or so of the waiting group had detached themselves from the main body and were clutching the gondola in an attempt to keep it steady ready for boarding. They weren’t achieving one-hundred-per-cent success. The remaining men were clutching two bow lines like tug-of-war teams awaiting the signal for the off.
    Commander Winters looked up at the sky. ‘Right!’ He clapped his hands briskly. ‘We’ll get you weighed first and then we’d better get cracking.’ He led the way into the reception room and pointed to some scales. ‘
Parlez-vous
anglais
?’
    ‘
Un petit peu
,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse non-committally as he watched the needle shoot round. ‘A little.’
    Commander Winters looked at the scales. ‘Aah!’ He made the word sound like a black mark. Monsieur Pamplemousse wasn’t sure if it referred to his lack of English or the figure on the dial; probably both. He followed the others back outside.
    ‘You need always to face the airship,’ said Capitaine Leflaix as he helped Monsieur Pamplemousse up a small flight of steps. ‘Both getting in and getting out. Otherwise, it can take you by surprise.’
    As Monsieur Pamplemousse missed the first step he saw what the other, meant. Conscious of raised eyebrows and pained expressions on the faces of those trying to hold the gondola steady, he had another go, then paused momentarily in the doorway to wave
au revoir
to Pommes Frites. Pommes Frites wore his gloomy expression, as though ‘goodbye – it’s been nice knowing you’ would have been more appropriate to the occasion. There was a clatter of feet from the other two as they followed him up the steps.
    Monsieur Pamplemousse exchanged greetings with a girl in uniform as she moved forward to close the cabin door, then took stock of his surroundings. No expense had been spared for the forthcoming event. Everything smelled new. The floor was luxuriously carpeted in deep blue. There were eight spotlessly clean wine-red armchair-type seats, two at the far end of the cabin and four grouped around a small rosewood table aft of the open flight deck. Suddenly the scale of reference had changed again. Now that he could no longer see the balloon, the gondola felt unexpectedly spacious, like the sitting-room of a small flat – except, as far as he could see, there was no galley and no room to put one, only a door marked TOILETTES and what could have been a small cocktail cabinet; someone must have got their finger out already. All the same, he could see problems ahead. In the end prepared trays might be necessary – small ones at that! The Director would not be pleased.
    Leflaix emerged from the flight deck carrying a small pair of portable steps. He mounted them, opened a domed porthole in the roof, and stretched up to peer through the gap.
    Wondering irreverently if he was looking to see if they were still attached to the balloon or whether it had floated off without them, Monsieur Pamplemousse settled himself in one of the chairs by the table so that he would have somewhere to work and make notes.
    Leflaix closed the hatch. ‘I was checking the ballonet bags to make sure we are stabilised.’ His expression was wry. ‘You need to be a sailor as well as an airman to fly an airship.’ He took his place on the flight deck.
    The girl appeared and handed him a brochure. ‘
Monsieur
must be very important for the airship to fly on a day like today.’
    Monsieur Pamplemousse gave a non-committal shrug. Nevertheless, he couldn’t help feeling flattered.
    He flipped through the pages. It was full of technical details: gross volume – 6,666 cubic metres, length – 59 metres, maximum speed – 60 knots, endurance – 24 hours, engines – two turbo-charged Porsche …
    He had hardly finished