“Golly!” said Jack, making his seat turn into a bed at once, and then changing it back to an armchair, and then into a bed again. “This is like magic. I could do this all night!”
“You must settle down into your seats quickly,” ordered Pilescu, climbing into the pilot’s seat, with big Ranni just beside him. “We must be off. We have many hundreds of miles to fly before the sun is high.”
The children settled down again, Paul chattering nineteen to the dozen! Nobody felt sleepy. It was far too exciting a night to think of sleep.
Pilescu made sure the children had all fastened their seat belts, and started the engines, which made a loud and comfortable noise. Then, with a slight jerk, the aeroplane began to run over the dark field.
It bumped a little — and then, like a big bird, it rose into the air and skimmed over the long line of trees that stood at the far end of the big field. The children hardly knew that it had left the ground.
“Are we still running over the field?” asked Mike, trying to see out of the window near him.
“No, of course not,” said Ranni laughing. “We are miles away from the airfield already!”
“Goodness!” said Peggy, half-startled to think of the enormous speed at which the plane was flying. The children had to raise their voices when they spoke, because the engine of the plane, although specially silent, made a great noise.
That flight through the dark night was very strange to the children. As soon as the plane left the ground its wheels rose into its body and disappeared. They would descend again when the aeroplane landed. It flew through the darkness as straight as an arrow, with Pilescu piloting it, his eyes on all the various things that told him everything he needed to know about the plane.
“Why did Ranni come?” Prince Paul shouted to Pilescu.