The airport was one of the most exciting places in the whole of Horsmarlonerpool, because it’s where everybody went and found the planes that would take them on holiday.
You could fly to faraway seasides, where the sand was soft and warm - and if you added some water from the sea you could build tall, spiraling castles with special rooms and moats and bridges and flags.
Or, you could fly to snowy mountains, thousands of miles to the south, and you could ski as fast as you liked, so you could join in the biggest snowball fight of all time.
Or, you were allowed to fly to exciting cities, where you were allowed to stay up all night and live at the top of skyscrapers and watch loud and exciting shows where everybody danced under laser lights and explosions.
The airport was so exciting that it was getting very popular. When they first built it, only about three planes landed into Horsmarlonerpool every day, and only about three took off. Well now, there were about fifty planes landing a day, and about FIFTY about taking off.
So Laura Bora, who ran the airport, well she knew that she had a problem. The runway - the big long road where the planes took off from and landed on - it was too short and it far too worn out. All the planes landing on it had made holes, and all the planes taking off with their big engines had blown the surface and the holes so much that loads of cracks had appeared.
If passengers arriving into her airport were going to have the best welcome possible, they needed a nice smooth runway to land on. And for all those families going away on holiday, they needed a nice gentle runway to take off from - or mummy and daddy might get scared!
So Laura Bora decided, she’d have a brand new runway built, and she’d need the finest builders in Horsmarlonerpool to built it.
There was only one team for the job, Bense and Elsie Higherground. You see, Bense and Elsie had been had been builders in town for years and years and had done all the big, important jobs. They’d build a sports hall for the school. They’d built the highest scaffolding you’d ever seen to bravely mend a turret on Castle Earnose, and they’d even build a swimming pool for cows on Farmer Headcorn’s farm.
If anyone could build a new runway, it was Bense and Elsie Higherground.
So, that Friday night, when the last plane had left for the evening, and the others were cosy and warm in their hangers, Laura Bora gave the instructions: “I’m shutting down the airport for the whole weekend,” she said. “So you have two days to build a brand new runway, or nobody will be able to fly away on Monday morning!”
Two days was not a lot of time. Elsie and Bense Higherground snapped their fingers and their biggest diggers grumbled into life. “Start removing the old runway!” they commanded and off the diggers went, scraping it up, and putting the old concrete into trucks.
By the end of the first day, the old runway had completely gone and all that was left as a long, wide strip of mud. But there was only one day and a bit to get the new runway down before Monday morning arrivals!
Laura Bora paced nervously around her house all weekend. She didn’t want to get in the way, but this was HER airport - she had to know what was going on. But Elsie and Bense did have her number - if there was a problem, they would call. And so far, the phone remained silent.
Early on Monday morning, Laura Bora got dressed quickly, ran into her garden, and climbed into her helicopter.
Within two minutes, she was hovering over the airport. The sun was just coming up, so she couldn’t see properly, but something about the new runway didn’t look quite right. She lowered her helicopter down and landed with a… wobble.
Her whole helicopter wobbled. She turned off the engine and climbed out, but when her feet met the runway, she wobbled too.
She looked down at her brand new runway and saw that it was… orange.
Bense and Elsie bounced up happily. “There you are, Laura! All finished and not a second to spare!”
Laura just kept looking at her boots, which had sunk a little bit into the orange runway, when she tried to do a little jump. The runway was so bouncy that she had to bend her knees to stop herself from bouncing off.
“Bense. Elsie. What exactly did you build the runway out of?” she asked.
Elsie looked a little confused. “Well,” she said, “we’ve never built one before so we built it out of… jelly.”
“You built my new runway out of jelly?” said Laura Bora. “My expensive new runway? Out of jelly?”
“Well!” said Bense. “They’re going to want a nice soft landing aren’t they?”
Laura didn’t know what to say, apart from “Look out!” The first plane of the day was coming into land at the airport - and her runway was made of orange jelly!
It came in with a roar and BOUNCE! It took straight back off right up into the sky.
“Well what’s he doing up there?” wondered Bense.
“Oh no…” said Laura Bora.
The plane circled around and had another go. This time it bounced a bit, then bounced a little, and then wobbled to a halt.
The pilot opened the door, and looked a little dizzy. Laura Bora ran - well, bounced - right over to him.
“My dear Pilot Swann, I am so embarrassed!”
“What on Earth was that,” said Pilot Swann. “Why, that was the softest landing we’ve ever had!”
A big smile spread across his face as his co-pilot, Pilot Rachel, came to the door. “That was brilliant!” she said.
Laura Bora looked back at Bense and Elsie Higherground and gave them a bit thumb up.
From that day forward, Horsmarlonerpool airport was known for its wonderful runway, and became more and more popular than ever. Passengers liked to take off on it because they’d bounce off into the sky - it was the best possible way to start your holiday.
And passengers loved landing on it because it was the softest return to Earth you could imagine.
And soon, there were a hundred planes taking off and a hundred planes landing every single day.
But there were two customers who were always allowed to go wherever they wanted for free.
Elsie and Bense Higherground. The inventors of the jelly runway.
