“We’re Losin’ Altitude”
“I’m calling your father,” she snapped.- stands awkwardly outside the door while she pees
- not a crease in my coat
- where I will inflate my balloon
- in lurid detail
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“We’re losin’ altitude,” Jim drawled. “Looks like a gull got through the hull.”
“A zeppelin does not have a hull,” Fleur said. “It’s an envelope.”
Jim smiled crookedly. “But those birds don’t rhyme with envelope. Anyway, there’s a puncture and the gas is escaping.”
Fleur handed him the babies, then stormed over to the cargo door nearest the piano and hauled it open. In seconds she’d unlocked the baby grand’s casters and shoved it overboard, silvery dove lamp and all.
“How could you!” screeched Isolde as our descent leveled off. Isolde and Fleur stood glaring at each other, their hair whipped by the wind coming through the open door. I wondered which one of them would be tumbling out after the piano.
Isolde shut the cargo door. “I’m calling your father,” she snapped.
“Isn’t he your father too?” I blurted.
“We’re half-sisters,” Fleur explained. “To me, he’s daddy. To Isolde, he’s just the man who stands awkwardly outside the door while she pees.”
“That was one time at the mall, when I was five!”
I let their argument distract the women and turned to my brother. “What’s our situation now, Jim?”
He was rocking the infant twins, steering the ship with his knees. “There is not a red light on the control panel, and not a crease in my coat.”
“You’re not wearing a coat.” Or a shirt.
“And this panel hasn’t got any lights, red or otherwise. But we do appear to be stable at the moment. The auxiliary gas supply is keeping up with the leakage. At least for now.”
We each glanced upwards, knowing what this was leading up to. One of us was going to have to go up there and make repairs.
Jim cracked the crooked smile again and sang, “Fly me to the green lagoon, for that is where I will inflate my balloon.”
While I gritted my teeth, Jim sang another twelve verses. The lagoon and the balloon were metaphors, and not subtle ones, as the even-numbered verses portrayed in lurid detail.
“Okay!” I finally shouted. “I’ll fix the envelope.”
bonus points for using them in order