“Twist the other spool!” Janey told him. “I don’t like to be up so high. Everything seems so small.”
Johnny gave the other spool a twist and the Flying Machine swept ahead at twice its former speed.
“You’re twisting the wrong spool!” Janey screamed. “You must have been twisting the wrong one all the time, somehow. See, you’ve been twisting the one marked ‘Start.’”
“Sure enough! That’s just what I did,” Johnny admitted. “Well, I’ll twist the other now.”
The Flying Machine came to such a sudden halt that the children were almost thrown from the box, and the basket of lunch was whirled off its nail so suddenly that it flew straight ahead of the Flying Machine for nearly a hundred feet before it curved to the earth.
The children watched it curve and circle as it fell. Then the paper came off and there was a regular shower of sandwiches, doughnuts and small cakes.
“Now, Mister! You be careful or we’ll never get back!” Janey cried as she clutched her brother tightly by the collar. “Send the Flying Machine down to the ground again, Johnny. Please do!”
But the Flying Machine, when it stopped, hung suspended in the air although when Johnny gently twisted the “Start” spool and it started off again, it went in the opposite direction from the earth.
“It won’t go down,” cried Johnny, as he brought the Flying Machine to a stop again. “What shall we do?”
“Well, if it won’t go down, there’s nothing to do but go on!” Janey answered. “It’s all your fault for building the Flying Machine!”