Ben flew in a small circle over the roof. Kelly was right behind him. She cut the revs of her engine to a gentle chug, and flared the pulleys on her chute so that she floated gently down.
Bel saw she was about to be rescued. She put the jacket on and looked up expectantly, but Kelly suddenly pulled the throttle and rose up again, away from the roof.
She manoeuvred her chute over until she was hovering opposite Ben. He shook his head, baffled, trying to mime, What’s going on?
Kelly indicated her bandaged hands.
So what? thought Ben. Then understanding dawned. Kelly couldn’t hold onto Bel and operate her chute at the same time.
Ben nodded. He would have to go down and get Bel himself.
He cut the revs and the chute began to drift slowly down. But would his chute be able to lift both of them? Ben figured he must be a lot heavier than Kelly.
Bel was glaring up at him, hands on hips, annoyed. Her blue eyes flashed in her grimy face. He saw her mouth something that was probably the sort of thing a thirteen-year-old shouldn’t hear his mother saying.
Ben was aiming to land next to her but an air current took him over to the other side of the roof and deposited him on the glass canopy. Still partly supported by the chute, he had no choice but to run along the glass roof. At any moment he expected to crash through the panes, but obviously they were stronger than they looked. He half ran, half flew over to where Bel was standing.
‘Mum, quick,’ he gasped. ‘Hook your arms into my harness.’
He expected Bel to obey immediately, but instead she looked at him with a sceptical expression.
Behind her he could see the plume of smoke rising from the petrol station. It was getting darker as the thick smoke shut out the light from the setting sun.
‘Ben,’ she said, ‘you surely don’t expect that thing to carry the both of us?’
Typical! Ben thought. Here he was, risking his life, and his mother — just as she used to do when he did anything dubious as a small child — seemed to be angry, rather than worried about him. What was it with parents? How come they just slipped into telling-off mode in any situation?
‘I didn’t have time to pack a spare!’ he almost screamed at her.
The more he lost his temper, the more Bel dug her heels in. He forced himself to speak very calmly. ‘Let’s say we’ve got a fifty-fifty chance. Could be worse.’
Bel still looked dubious, but she took a step towards him.
‘Hurry!’ he yelled.
At last Bel seemed to understand it was an emergency. She turned round so that she faced forward and put her arms into his harness. Ben un-fastened the waist band and adjusted it so it would go around her too. Hastily he buckled her in front of him. She smelled of wet soot and smoke, and chemicals.
‘Now what?’ said Bel.
‘Now we have to run like blazes!’
It was awkward, like running in one of those races where you’re tied to someone else.
The chute began to catch the air and rose, dragging upwards on his shoulders. Ben pulled on the throttle. The engine roared, but it didn’t pull them into the air. Something was wrong.
The chute didn’t have enough power to lift them.
Chapter Twenty-two
Ben tried to slow down, but Bel was powering forwards, pulling him along by the harness. He yelled in her ear, ‘Stop!’
Bel stumbled to a halt and he nearly fell over her.
‘What did you do that for?’ she snapped.
‘You’re too heavy,’ Ben gasped. He unclipped the waist harness and Bel half fell forward.
She twisted round and looked at him, furious. Her red hair was nearly black with sweat and soot. In fact most of her was. ‘Don’t be so rude.’
‘It’s that jacket. You’ll have to take it off.’ With one hand he yanked the jacket off her shoulders, then saw her boots.
‘Take those off too,’ he said, pointing. ‘They must weigh five pounds each! Jesus, Mum, you picked a hell of a time to give up wearing sandals.’
‘Take off my boots?’ said Bel. ‘Have you gone mad?’
‘Yes, and take mine off too. Otherwise we won’t be able to get airborne.’
She knelt down, obviously not convinced he was entirely sane.
‘Try and do it sometime today,’ shouted Ben.
‘There’s a petrol station over there and it’s about to blow.’
‘There’s no need for sarcasm,’ she said. But the thought of an exploding petrol station obviously persuaded her. She undid his bootlaces, grumbling, ‘I haven’t done this to you since you were three years old. Foot up.’
Ben lifted his foot. ‘Yeah, yeah,’ he muttered.
She got one boot off, then the other. The sky was growing darker and darker.
Ben saw Kelly, a lime-green figure high in the grey clouds. She was already making good progress towards the sea.
Bel knelt down and unfastened her own boots. She had done them up securely with double knots because they were a size too big.
While she fumbled with them, Ben watched the roof of the petrol station. The flames were getting higher and burning debris was dropping down onto the fore-court. Then a chunk of blazing roof fabric landed near one of the pumps.
‘Hurry up!’ yelled Ben.
‘I’m going as fast as I can,’ grumbled Bel.
‘Well, go faster,’ retorted Ben, ‘or we’ve had it.’
The piece of roof was throwing out flames and sparks barely half a metre away from the looped hose of the pump. Ben watched the progress of the flames with the same fascination that a mouse watches a cat stalk towards it.
Bel stood up, both boots off. She turned her back to Ben and hooked her arms into the shoulder straps. Ben again fastened the waistband and the leg straps.
‘You know the routine,’ he shouted. ‘On your marks … go!’
The roof was covered in fine gravel and it was painful to run on it in bare feet. Ben felt Bel falter with the discomfort and yelled in her ear, ‘Faster!’
The chute rose up behind. He opened the throttle. The propeller roared up to top speed.
Had they shed enough weight? Would the chute’s remaining fuel be enough to lift them?
The power pack dragged their feet clear of the roof, but it was like a badly judged take-off with too little lift. Ben kept the throttle on maximum. It wasn’t enough. They were starting to drift back down again.
Ben saw a flash out of the corner of his eye. Suddenly they shot vertically up into the air as if they’d been fired out of a cannon. The deafening roar came a split second later. A wave of heat followed, so intense that Ben felt as if his skin was peeling off. The shock wave catapulted them further up still. The sky around them was completely dark and filled with burning debris that wheeled and tumbled like a flock of birds on fire.
The flames had reached the petrol tanks in the filling station. The explosion and the immense burst of heat had rocketed them vertically upwards. Far below, under the seething black smoke, the petroleum fire blazed as bright as the sun.
Way off in the distance, Ben could see a lime-green speck. It must be Kelly. She seemed to already be well away from the danger. That told him which way to steer to reach the coast.
He pulled on the left side of the canopy, but the chute didn’t respond. He looked up. Was the steering rope caught?
Then he saw a tongue of orange flame licking at the purple fabric. One section of his canopy was a tattered scrap of smouldering material. Already he could see sky through a hole that was getting wider by the second.
Quickly, he pulled the other side. The chute responded and took him inland again, over the burning city. Now they were starting to lose height again.