The Balloons

by ~reido

"Psst.  Hey, kid."  Nine-year-old Amanda Wells looked left and right, unable to figure out where the voice was coming from.  "Over here, by the air pump!  We need your help."

"You're a bunch of balloons," she said quietly, not wanting anyone else to hear her.  "You can't really talk."  She was sitting on a bench near the balloon vendor while her mother blabbed to the antique dealer.  They had come to the fair, but all mama wanted to do was look at shops.  Bo-ring.

"Clearly, I am, so you're wrong, kid."

Amanda looked at the bunch of balloons, a cluster of rainbow-colored balls tugging upwards on the ribbons holding them in place.  "It's just my imagination."

The balloons kept floating.  "No, seriously, listen.  We really do need your help."

The little girl sighed, and glanced at her mother.  She was still engrossed with the antique chair or lamp or coaster or whatever.  "Fine.  What do you need?"

"Untie us."

"But I haven't paid for you, and mama's not gonna let me buy a bunch of balloons.  Maybe just one of you."  She shrugged.  "But I doubt it.  We're going to get ice-cream on the way out.  I'd rather have that than a balloon."

"Understandably.  But listen, kid, seriously--just untie us and let us go.  We don't wanna get bought--we just don't wanna hang here anymore."

Amanda looked at the balloons again.  "You're not hanging, your floating."

"Maybe to you," another voice replied.  "To you the ground is down--you're pulled to it by gravity.  To us, it's the opposite.  We want to rest on the sky.  We're tired of being hung here all the time."

The first voice returned:  "All you have to do is untie us, and we'll float away and stop bothering you."  Amanda thought it was probably a red balloon.

"I'm not going to untie you, that's illegal."  She spoke a little too loud, and the balloon vendor leaned around the cluster to look at her oddly.  She just smiled at him.  He shrugged.

"Look at it like this," the red voice said a moment later.  "If someone hung you from the ceiling by your feet, would you want to stay there?  Don't answer--it's no.  You'd get tired of it.  Well, we're tired of this.  We want to fly away and be free!"

"But," Amanda replied, "You're balloons.  You're not supposed to be free."

The second voice--yellow, she decided--sounded offended:  "And what is that supposed to mean?!"

"It's simple, really," she said slowly, making sure they understood her.  "Birds fly.  Planes fly.  Balloons just float--do you see flocks of balloons floating around in the sky?"

"Well--"

"No, you don't," she interrupted the yellow, "Because balloons aren't meant to be free--you'd just drift into the power lines or something and burst."

"Maybe," said the red voice, "But let's worry about that later.  You just untie us, and we'll figure out the rest."

Amanda sighed again.  "You sure?  There's an awful lot of things for you to pop on here."

"We're sure.  Just pull on that one ribbon and we'll all come loose.  We watched him tie it that way."

"Okay, but don't say I didn't warn you."  Amanda reached out and pulled the ribbon indicated, and the balloons were free to drift in the wind--which is exactly what they did.

"Hey!" the balloon vendor shouted, "You gotta pay for those, you twerp!"  He started yelling more but Amanda wasn't listening.  She was listening to the balloons cheering as they floated away.

Amanda's mother came over and got in an argument with the balloon vendor.  Eventually she paid for the balloons.  "Well, so much for ice-cream.  When we get home you're to go straight to your room.  What were you thinking?"

Amanda shrugged.  "I warned them."  

As she and her mama walked away, the cheers of freedom became shouts of horror--"The tree, the tree!"--which were cut off very suddenly by a loud series of pops.