Ballooning Safari

Ballooning Safari
Amy stared down at her plate and made a face. "I don't like prunes," she muttered to
her best friend. Mark, holding her hand over her mouth in an attempt to shield her voice.
"I'd much rather just have the ice cream."
Mark looked at his and prodded the prunes on his plate, as if the action was going to
spur them into animation. "I'm not all that keen on them myself," he whispered back hoarsely.
Amy continued to stare down at the four black glistening, objects as the ice cream
started to melt over them, the bottom of the plate turning into a brown, milky pool. Her
eyes swiveled sideways as Mark poked a prune onto his spoon with his index finger and
inserted it quickly into his mouth. Chewed it a few times, spat out the stone and
swallowed. Amy watched dumbfounded as the other three followed and suffered the
same fate in quick succession.
"I don't know how you can eat those things so fast like that," she said wrinkling her
nose.
"It's a trick I learned. If I see something on my plate I don't like I eat it up first,
getting it down as quickly as possible then I can take my time over the things I like." He
looked her. "You should try it."
Amy looked forlornly at her prunes.
"Go on," he urged
Amy delicately removed the stone and spooned up the flesh into her mouth. Quickly she chewed, and swallowed, pulling a face and sticking out her tongue. “Yuk! Do you want the rest of mine?" she asked hopefully.
"No thanks," he replied quickly, "I've eaten my ones. Come on you've only got three
more and then you can have your ice cream."
Amy dissected the next prune, breathed a huge sigh then gobbled it down.
"Two to go," he said encouragingly.
"I can count," she retorted.
Mark shrugged. "Just trying to help."
He watched intently as Amy went through the same procedure for the remaining prunes. As she swallowed she screwed up her eyes. "There you see, it wasn't so bad, was it."
"I suppose not," she said as she ate a large spoon of ice cream.
They sat in silence as each finished their puddings. Mark scrapped his spoon around
the inside of his bowl in an attempt to get as much ice cream into his mouth as possible, not wanting to let a single scrap escape. Finishing, he pushed his plate away.
"You know," he said, "I saw this man on television the other day clipping blades of grass with a pair of scissors."
Amy dropped her spoon into her bowl and looked sideways at him. "Don't be silly. People don't cut grass with scissors, they use a mower."
Mark stuck out his bottom lip. "Honest, I saw him!" he exclaimed. "He was on his hands and knees clipping the blades of grass."
"What was he doing that for?"
"Dunno. I think he was trying to get them all the same length."
"You mean he was measuring each blade with a ruler and then cutting it?"
"No, he was just trimming them."
Amy frowned. "Well how did he know that he was making them all the same length then?"
Mark thought about this for a moment. "Can't answer that. He might have looked at a
one close by and thought that would be near enough.”
"Then it wouldn't have been exactly the same length then, would it?" she interrupted.
"No," he agreed, "I suppose they wouldn't."
Amy grinned in triumph.
He didn't mind her being right; he just didn't like being wrong.
"What are we going to do this afternoon?" she asked brightly.
"Dunno," he replied.
"We can go on a picnic down by the stream. We could paddle in the water and have
sardine sandwiches and cake afterwards."
Mark's eyes glazed over. "We could go hot air ballooning."
"No we couldn't. We don't have a balloon, hot or otherwise and besides," she added, "it's too dangerous."
"No it's not," he countered. "Just think of it. We could go anywhere we wanted. Wouldn't it be fantastic!"
Amy squinted as she tried to share his picture of them floating through the air. "Where would we go?"
“Anywhere. That's the idea. We would go wherever the wind took us, floating and free."
"Well we could hardly go where we wanted then, could we? If the wind were blowing us along, we'd have to go where the wind blew us."
"That's not quite what I mean, silly. We'd start off on the ground, in some far away country and then we'd fly over it."
"I'm not silly," she said, scowling at him."
"I didn't mean it like that . . ."
"Well say you're sorry then," she said, pouting at him.
"All right then. I'm sorry."
"That's better," she said, her face relaxing into a smile.
Girls were strange, he thought. But he liked Amy. She was his best friend. Other boys
had mates. He had Amy.
"Let's go out and sit in the garden for a bit."
They both got down from the table and went outside. Amy looked up and scanned the skies.
"Looks like it might rain," she said.
Mark bent over and plucked a Buttercup. "Here," he said facing her, "let me see if you like butter. Lift your chin up."
Amy stood stock-still and stretched her neck. Mark held the Buttercup close to her skin.
"Yes," he announced firmly," you like butter."
"I know, and mummy says it wouldn't melt in my mouth as well."
They sat down under the apple tree.
"Well," she said, nudging him in the ribs, "in this hot air balloon, where would we go?”
Mark regained that far away look. "Africa."
"Africa!"
"Yeah, Africa."
"How did you learn about Africa?"
"I was reading about it in my book that my dad bought me for my birthday."
Amy liked Mark. She liked the freckles on his nose. They made him look cute. She also liked the way he always told her the truth and said sorry if he was wrong.
"What would you like to be when you grow up?"
"I'd like to be an explorer, an adventurer."
"I thought you might want to be a doctor or a policeman or something like that. I mean what time would I have your tea ready for you if you were flying over Africa in a balloon looking for lost tribes guarding mountains of hidden treasure?"
"You could always do what mum does for dad and put it in the oven. Besides, you could come with me."
"Oh no, I couldn't go with you."
"Why ever not?" His face showed pain. He had thought he and Amy would always be together.
"Because I'll be at home looking after the children."
"How many children are you going to have?"
"I'm going to have twenty-five," she answered firmly.
"That sounds a lot."
"I told mummy the other day and she said if that was the case, I wasn't going to live with her."
Mark and Amy burst out laughing and Amy reached for the remote and pressed the stop button.
"Did you know that your mother was taping all that?" he asked her.
"Not likely. Do you think I'd have gone on like that if I known?"
Mark, his arm around her shoulder, drew her closer and kissed her tenderly. They
decided to watch the video after witnessing a similar conversation between their own son and daughter earlier in the day.
"What would you like to do now?" he whispered.
"Why don't you put on that tape we took when we went hot air ballooning over the Kruger National Park?"
He kissed her again, then said. "Good idea."
THE END