Harry on the Run Page 5

  Harry just wanted it all to stop. Everything had gone wrong. Where were they going to find the parts to make another Ostrich? How was she going to fly?

  “Harriet!”

  She climbed out of the car. Her arms ached.

  “Sorry, Dad.”

  “Sorry?” he said, coming down the steps with Sellie under one arm he reached out with the other and she came to him. He put his arm around her shoulders and squeezed.

  “Happy birthday.”

  “We didn’t get to the post office.”

  “Well, that was just a ruse to get you away from the house.”

  “What?”

  Not letting go of them he guided the two of them across the drive, their shoes crunching on the gavel. Then on to the grass.

  The thing on the lawn was really very big. It was long rounded at one end and then flat at the other. Squarish in cross-section but with curved corners.

  Their father shouted. “Now!”

  Invisible in the dark until now, they saw some of the staff standing further down the lawn. They pulled on ropes and the tarpaulin slid off the construction.

  In the light from the house Harry could not make out what it was at first. It looked like the fuselage of a flyer. It had the windows and the body but no wings. She frowned. Was this a tasteless joke? A flyer without wings?

  Sellie breathed in suddenly. “Oh my.”

  “Happy birthday to both of you,” said their father again. “It’s second-hand but I hope you like it.”

  Then Harry saw the wings, folded up against the body.

  “Pegasus,” was all she said.

  Now read HARRY TAKES OFF (click title)

  Three more fantastic stories about the Edgbaston sisters.

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