When Fatty told the sports gliders that the bombers had
decided to learn how to fly, they became terribly excited and wanted to know
how the bombers proposed to achieve this.
Unfortunately the bombers, though grimly determined to
succeed and ruthlessly reckless with their own safety, had so far failed to
make progress. Every night they gathered
their mental strength and ordered their bodies to take off into the air, and
every night they failed. Small as they
were they were still too heavy to fly unaided!
After several weeks of this even the haughty spitfire had to
admit that learning how to fly was not as easy as it looked. “Very well then,” he said in a dignified
voice, “if we can’t fly away suicide it is!
Next time they use me to teach the spotters how to distinguish between
me and the German bombers, I shall slip from Herr Grunewald’s grasp and crash
to the floor and hopefully break in the process!”
The other bombers were dubious, but did not argue with
him. But the sports gliders thought it
was hilarious! Fancy one of them
breaking just because he crashed to the ground.
That might happen to a big airplane, but to a scale model made of solid
plastic, designed to survive the rough treatment meted out by small children to
their toys? Not likely! But why bother arguing with the Limey? He would find out by himself soon enough!
Such was indeed the case.
The spitfire, and several other bombers who managed to slip from Herr
Grunewald’s hands, failed singularly to break when they dropped on the
floor. Aside from a scratch or two they
remained unharmed.
“Deutsche Wertarbeit my dear boy,” Fatty told the
spitfire. “Nothing doing.”
The sports gliders had watched the efforts of the bombers
with an air of superior amusement.
However, although they failed to fully grasp the seriousness of the
situation, they did agree that something had to be done. Moreover, here was a chance to prove once and
for all the superiority of gliders over bombers!
Mechthild Meise, the most strategically minded among them,
elected herself Project Manager and organised a brainstorming session. “What are our strengths and weaknesses? What are the environmental constraints we are
facing? Who are our allies? And first and foremost, what do we want to
accomplish?”
After some discussion they agreed that they wanted to escape
from their present situation and fly somewhere where they could not be used to
destroy their bigger brothers in the sky.
They had no exact destination in mind, but given their size, and the
fact that they would probably never be able to fly very far anyway, if indeed
they would ever manage to fly at all, this was not a big concern. “We’ll just go as far as we can, and then
hide,” suggested Rex Rhoenadler hopefully.
Which led them to the question of how to make their
escape. Once they had a bit of wind or a
thermal they could get away, but thermals and winds were rare inside a closed room! Suddenly Fatty spoke up. “Watch the dust,” he said. “Watch the dust that is suspended in the air
and see where it goes when the door opens.”
Next time Herr Grunewald entered the room the tiny gliders watched with
rapt attention as the tiny dust particles swirled and danced in the air. “The fireplace! There is a draft between the door and the
fireplace every time some one opens the door!” observed Waltraud Weihe.
