What thrills the crowd isn’t always what lasts.
It was the day of the Great Flight-Off.
The challenge: fly the furthest distance possible from the cliff edge.
Yolotown went first. They unveiled their craft — the Kinetically-Accelerated Bird-Operated Ornithological Machine (KABOOM) — made of wood, with far too many rockets strapped to the sides.
The rooster clambered into the seat, goggles on, flying cap snug.
The snake asked, “Do you know how to fly this thing?”
“There are no controls,” said the rooster.
“Three… two… one…”
BOOM.
The crowd gasped as the craft shot skyward, spiralling wildly.
The rooster’s scream echoed back down:
“AAAAAaaahhh!!”
The rooster clung to the seat as the craft chose its own path — straight up, sideways, and briefly backwards. Before deciding to explode in a glorious fireball.
The crowd roared like a coliseum, fists pumping, screaming in delight, grinning, hats thrown in the air.
A parachute bloomed, and the crowd cheered as the rooster landed… 37.2 metres from where he started.
Dunwell rolled out a plain silk-winged glider.
The snail sat in the pilot seat.
A gentle push sent it drifting off the cliff, graceful and silent.
Far below, the sea spread like a sheet of hammered silver. Sunlight pooled on the silk as the glider banked and caught a warm updraft, wings flexing like a living thing.
A young hedgehog whispered, “Mummy, when will it explode?”
“Sorry, honey,” she said. “I don’t think it will.”
“Aw… boring.”
The snail looped and waved, but by then the cheering faded. Everyone began drifting toward the scone tent, muttering “that was an anticlimax”
The Dunwell ground crew smiled as the glider vanished toward the horizon.
Seven hours later, all the spectators had left but for Kevin the aardvark, standing alone with a half-eaten scone.
The radio crackled. “This is Snail. I landed. They’re clapping.”
The Dunwell crew whooped and folded into each other, their laughter tumbling across the grass. Kevin — who had never been much of a hugger — hovered at the edge, heart thudding, before letting himself be pulled into the tangle of arms. Warmth. Crushed grass. The faint tang of lemonade still in the air.
Through the radio, faint voices in the background murmured, “C’est très belle…”
Kevin closed his eyes for a moment, holding onto the sound.
Davide la Locomotive 
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