took her seriously. “Say, that’s a great idea,” he said. “Now you can wash after all, Danny.”
Danny did not reply. He was staring upward, shading his eyes with one arm.
“Look at that,” he said.
The other two followed his gaze. Something was shining in the sky, something silvery like a half-moon tipped upside down.
“It’s a parachute,” Danny said, after a moment.
“A paratrooper?” Irene suggested. “No, it’s too small.”
“Maybe it’s a paratrooper from a flying saucer,” said Joe. “Let’s go home.”
“Oh, wait a minute,” said Danny. “It could be the nose cone of a missile, or—or something interesting like that.”
“Interesting missiles give me goose pimples,” grumbled Joe. Nevertheless, he waited.
Lower and lower the thing floated. Now they could see clearly that it was, indeed, a small pale-blue parachute with a box of some sort attached to it.
Suddenly Danny said, “Maybe it’s a bomb.” Joe and Irene drew nearer to him. The thing was dropping straight into the reservoir.
“Watch out! ” Danny said nervously. “It may blow up when it hits.”
Before they could move, the box touched the water and the parachute slowly folded about it like a crumpled sail.
CHAPTER TWO
The Weather Forecaster
For a long, breathless moment the three waited. Nothing happened. Then Danny said, “If it is a bomb, it’s wet by now and that will stop it from exploding.”
“Not if it’s an underwater bomb,” Joe said.
“I don’t believe it’s a bomb at all,” Irene said stoutly. “We didn’t hear any plane. And why would anyone drop a bomb that size on a parachute? I’ll bet it only came from a flying saucer, or from outer space.”
At these words, Danny’s eyes widened. “Hey, maybe you’re right,” he said. “We ought to fish it out of the reservoir. It—it might have germs on it from another planet. It might poison the whole town.”
“How can we get to it?” Irene asked, frowning. Joe looked about. His eye fell on a long, dead branch that had blown down from one of the pine trees. He got it, and went out to the edge of the rocks.
“Danny, you hold my hand,” he said. “I’ll reach out and try to catch hold of the parachute.”
Danny took his friend’s hand, and Joe leaned far out with the stick. The parachute was just out of his reach. Further and further he stretched, and suddenly his hand slipped out of Danny’s. With a splash, he went headfirst into the water.
Irene uttered a shriek. Danny fell over backward on the rocks. Gasping and blowing, Joe came to the surface and shook the water out of his eyes.
“Oh, well,” he said. “Now I’m in, I might as well swim out and get the thing.”
A few strokes took him to the parachute. Using his branch, he hooked it up gingerly and brought it to shore. Danny took it from him, and Irene helped him up to the rocks.
“Anyway,” he said, wiping his face, “I’m clean.”
Danny was already examining their catch. They could see now that it was a white cardboard box about the size and shape of a large box of corn flakes, with a tape handle and a ring that held it secured to the parachute.
Joe bent over it. [,,/nrauituqsuisxqx,,] he read. “A secret code!”
“You’re reading it upside down,” Danny said, reversing the box. “Here it is—it’s a radiosonde.”
“Some kind of radio?” Joe wrinkled his brows.
Danny read the square of printing aloud. “‘This weather instrument, known as a radiosonde, was attached to a balloon and sent up by a United States Weather Bureau station. During the observation, while the radiosonde was in the air, it operated as a radio transmitter of the temperature, pressure, and moisture of the air through which it passed. The balloon burst at a height of about sixteen miles and the radiosonde came down on the attached parachute.’ ”
“Look here,” Irene added. “It says it’s to be returned to the Weather Bureau so they can use it again.”
“Yes. Here are the instructions for mailing it,” said Danny thoughtfully. “But listen— we’re not far from the weather station. It’s over on the airfield, beyond Midston University. We could walk it easy from here. Let’s take it back now.”
“Gosh,” Joe protested. “It’s more than a mile.”
“Maybe they’ll give us a reward,” Danny said craftily.
Joe jumped up. “What are we waiting for?” he exclaimed.
Leaving the reservoir behind them, they struck off through the woods, and then across some fields until they came to the campus of Midston University, where Irene’s father, Dr. Miller, headed the astronomy department, and Professor Bullfinch occasionally lectured. Taking short cuts, they soon came to the airfield, which lay to the north of the town. A main road, Washington Avenue, ran past it, and a little way from the road were two small white buildings. One contained the waiting room, office, and control tower of the airport. The other bore the sign: U.S. DEPT. OF COMMERCE, WEATHER BUREAU.
Danny knocked at the door. After a moment it opened, and a tall man peered out. He had a round, ruddy face and small, sleepy-looking blue eyes, and his lips were curved in a lopsided but pleasant smile.
“Yes?” he said, blinking at them.
“We’ve come to return your radiosonde,” Danny explained.
“That’s very kind of you. Won’t you come in?” said the man. He held the door wide, and the three friends filed inside.
The little room was crammed with equipment. A teletype machine clattered away in one corner. A long table was piled with diagrams and papers, and the walls were covered with charts of clouds, weather maps, and a large relief map of the United States. Two windows looked out on the airfield, and a door in one wall stood open, revealing another office, a tiny one in which were a desk and a couple of lockers. Cabinets and instruments were ranged all about the main room, and on a corner of the table a teakettle steamed on an electric hot-plate.
“My name is Mr. Elswing,” said their host. “I’m the meteorologist in charge here.”
Danny introduced himself and his friends, and they all shook hands.
“So this is where you make the weather?” Joe said, looking about. “When are you going to give us some rain?”
Mr. Elswing laughed, a jolly, booming laugh. “My goodness,” he said. “That’s what comes of people thinking of us as weathermen, instead of weather forecasters.”
“Is this machine used
