Balloon Boy

• Isaac El Esber, Grade 6
• Short Story
• 2022

“Jeff, come down for dinner!” yelled mum. I jumped out of my race car bed and zoomed downstairs. I ran through the corridor into the dining room. I sat down in my chair and gobbled the delicious chicken noodles. “Dad, can I get balloons for my birthday?” Without him even answering, he immediately told me to get changed.
I put on my favourite clothes and ran back to the dining room. Dad surprisingly wasn’t there. Where could he be? I looked around the house until I heard a loud, familiar noise. I rushed towards the noise and saw dad. He was in his car, trying to start it. Me being the car nerd, I popped the bonnet open to see what the problem was. The battery wasn’t plugged in properly. I jump started it until I heard the engine noise. After 3 tries, it finally worked. “Well since it works now, get in the car, we’re going to the party store,” exclaimed dad. I just realised now that was the reason he told me to get changed.
As soon as we arrived, I jumped out of dad’s HILUX and ran to the party store. I asked the nice worker what aisle the balloons were in. She replied saying that it’s in aisle 4. I rushed there without even saying thank you. I picked the one I wanted and went to checkout. I paid and I went straight home.
As soon as we arrived home, I ran straight to the garage to find a balloon pump. I looked around until I saw something that caught my eye. I started to walk towards it until I saw that there was caution tape around it. As I bent over to take it off, I tripped over my untied shoelace and accidentally landed on something. It made a loud click noise which scared me. I got up to see that my balloons had been sucked into the machine. I started to cover my eyes as I thought something bad was going to happen.
The noise suddenly stopped. I moved my hands off my eyes to see that my balloons were floating. I grabbed them all and put the strings in my backpack. As I was walking out of the garage, something weird started happening. My feet started to float off the ground. Every second I would go higher and higher. I was at that point where I was as high as the birds. I didn’t know what was happening but it was fun. All of a sudden a bird started attacking my balloons. POP, POP, POP. All my balloons were popped and I started to fall down to the ground. “AHHH,” I screamed as loud as I ever did. I thought I was going to die. I somehow landed on the ground safely. I ran back inside my house to see that my family, including me, was eating chicken noodles for dinner. I was in the afterlife.