The full grown oak 3/9

“As most of you know,” George began, “I was sent to the alternate world by a magical accident and while there learned of many strange things. One of the strangest, was that some of the men in that world had actually flown to the moon and back, indeed they landed on it and walked on the surface.”

One of the sailors stood up and attracted George’s attention. “I’ve sailed the seas all my life, sometimes for nearly a thousand miles at a time when we’ve been blown of course in a storm and I’ve never seen the moon get any nearer. It must be thousands of miles away, how ever do those people get there?”

“Probably one of them airyplanes he’s told us about before,” replied one of the villagers, “they can fly hundreds of miles in an hour he tells us, shouldn’t take ‘em long at that sort of speed.”

George smiled. “The moon is about two hundred and fifty thousand miles away, aeroplanes would be far too slow, even if they could work in space. No, men have to travel there in huge rockets that can fly in space and are ever so much faster. Even so, it takes about three days for the journey.”

“Bet it doesn’t take so long coming back,” whispered the person sitting next to Jennifer Jane, “they’d only have to let go and they’d fall back down here! Mustn’t half land with a bump though,” he grinned.

So far the audience had remained comparatively silent. George couldn’t believe his luck. He decided to tell them about the pictures of the earth that the astronauts had taken in space. That proved to be a big mistake!

“These pictures are really beautiful. Every continent and sea can be seen as the globe rotates during the day, the white of the clouds and the blue of the sea contrast in a wonderful manner against the blackness of space.”

Another one of the sailors sitting near Jennifer Jane stood up, very red in the face and spluttering with suppressed laughter. “You’re trying to tell us that the earth is round?” he asked.

“Oh yes, the pictures prove it.”

“Then why doesn’t the water fall off the bottom? I’ll tell you why! The earth is flat, everyone knows that. If all the water had fallen off, there wouldn’t be any seas left would there? The seas are still here I can assure you, so that proves the truth of it. Any way we all know that artists don’t necessarily paint what they see. Any fool can see that space is blue, you only have to look up. I don’t believe a word of any of it.”

The whole audience burst out laughing as the logic of the sailor’s remarks sank in. George threw up his hands in despair and went back into the pub, followed by a large number of his audience.

“Here miss,” said the sailor when he had finished laughing, “would you like me to get you another drink. You’re too small to get through all that crowd.”

“Thank you very much, I’ll have another ginger beer please.”

“Charlie, get another ginger beer for the young lady and a pint for me. Get one for yourself while you’re in there.”

The sailor threw a coin over to Charlie, before turning back to Jennifer Jane and continuing his argument.

“I’ve heard terrible tales from friends who’ve been right to the edge of the world. There’s a high mountain range all round you know, just to keep all the water from falling off. Some people are said to have climbed the mountains to try and have a look over the edge, but none of them have ever returned. Leave well alone I say, we get lost at sea often enough without having to worry about going round poor old George’s globe and falling off.”

Before Jennifer Jane could reply, Charlie came back with the drinks.

“Here you are young lady, drink up. Now surely you don’t really believe all that nonsense George was telling us. I mean how on earth can the world possibly be round?”

“It is round you know, you see gravity makes everything on the surface try to fall towards the centre...