Most people like going to the airport because it means they’re going somewhere exciting, or somewhere warm and sandy, or somewhere with huge snowy mountains or skyscrapers taller than the clouds, but Leah and Felix liked going to Horsmarlonerpool airport - and go nowhere at all.
You see, Leah and Felix liked going to the airport just to look.
“Because,” Leah told her friends, “being bored at an airport is impossible.”
And she was right. Not only do planes float down out of the sky and land with a big noise and screech on the runway, planes load up with people and parcels and zoom off down it too - taking off at the very last second and powering up into the sky.
But it wasn’t just planes that Leah and Felix went to see. There were special cars and trucks that you didn’t get on normal roads zipping about helping the planes. There were helicopters. There were flashing lights and a huge tower with green windows. Horsmarlonerpool Airport was a magic land.
And inside the airport was just as exciting. Grown ups running to their planes to go to work, whole families going away together on holiday, and people from all over the world landing to visit.
Some of them were arriving from far away lands for the very first time, so Leah and Felix liked to give them a big smile and a wave; to let them know that Horsmarlonerpool was a friendly place.
Leah and Felix went to the airport a lot. And because they went to the airport a lot, they were good friends with the lady who was in charge of it; Her name is Laura Bora.
But on this particular day, Laura Bora was running around the inside of her airport looking very worried and very unhappy.
“What’s up?” asked Leah.
“Today is the day I’ve decided to paint the whole inside of the terminal for the special visitors tomorrow. The Prince and Princess of the Skylands are arriving and I wanted everything to be tip-top, but the painter’s plane is stuck in a sticky cloud and they’re going to be late!”
Felix looked around the huge walls of the terminal building. On one side, builders had already put up the ladders and scaffolding so painting could begin.
“We could do it?” he suggested.
“Oh don’t be silly,” said Laura Bora. “Sorry, Felix, I know you’re very clever at other things but this is a grown up job for - oh where ARE they?”
Leah didn't think it was very fair to call them silly when all they were doing was offering to help.
“Well if you don’t want the terminal looking its best for the Prince and Princess…” she said.
Laura Bora looked down. Leah looked very confident. Felix folded his arms and smiled. It looked like she had so choice. “Are you sure you could do it?”
Felix and Leah nodded proudly. “Painting,” began Felix, “is a speciality of ours.”
BUT, once the two friends were high up by the roof and had climbed off the ladders on to the rickety platform, it was a lot more scary.
“I think I want to get off,” whispered Felix.
“Just keep looking at the wall,” advised Leah. “And not down.”
Right up by the high roof, they examined the wall. It was white, but a bit grimy, and there were several cracks.
“Well I know that you can’t paint on a cracked wall,” said Leah. “Let’s smooth it out.”
So she ran her hand along the surface, and as she did so, the old cracked white paint flaked off and fell onto the platform and through the cracks in the wooden planks towards the ground below. But look at the wall! Underneath the old paint, was a pattern.
Felix did the same, scraping away his area with his fingers, and as the old paint fluttered to the floor, he too saw some markings.
Soon, they’d picked away a whole big area. And then they stood back as far as was safe on their platform.
And what did they see? On the wall… was a painting.
And the more white paint they scraped away, the bigger the paining became.
They saw pictures of lions, and pictures of cowboys, and pictures of sail ships and dolphins.
“But what is it?” asked Felix.
Leah looked at the painting on the wall very carefully. “It’s a map!” she said.
And she was right! A secret old map of the world, painted back when the airport was first built many, many years ago but then covered up with boring white paint.
“But why would they cover it up?” said Leah, and she reached out to touch a picture of the Eiffel Tower in Paris when ZOOM!
Leah opened her eyes, and saw that she was in Paris.
“Urrgh… Magic map, take me back!” she prayed, and then there she was, back in the airport, next to Felix, on top of their scaffolding.
“Errrr,”
“Where did you go,” said Felix, leaning against a picture of a palm tree in Hawaii when ZOOM!
Felix opened his eyes, and there he was - standing on a beach in Hawaii!
“Magic map, take me back!” he prayed, and within a second there he was - standing next to Leah in the airport.
“I think I’m beginning to understand why they covered this map up,” said Leah.
“It’s a TRANSPORTER!” said Felix.
“Ooh! Let’s go somewhere together!” suggested Leah. And so they looked at the map: There were the Amazonian jungles. And over there, the leaning tower of Pisa in Italy. And there, the sands of the Sahara in Africa.
They put their hands together and touched a pyramid in Egypt and ZOOM! There they were under the scorching sun, at the foot of a huge flight of steps near Cairo.
“Magic map, take us back!” said Leah, and just like that, there they were, standing back on their paining platform.
“This is going to have to stay a secret,” said Felix, and Leah nodded.
“How’s it going up there?”
It was Laura Bora!
“What’s that you’ve found? Oh my! A map!”
Leah and Felix thought quickly. They could hardly say it wasn’t a map… But they couldn’t say it was a magic transporter. It might be dangerous! What could they do?
“Yes! We’ve discovered a map!,” called Leah. “It will make your airport the most famous in the world! But it’s very old and delicate - so we can’t let anyone near it in case they muck it up.”
Felix nodded.
“Oh! Quite!” said Laura Bora. “And to think someone painted all over it!”
The next day, the Prince and Princess of the Skylands landed at the airport in their helicopter, and Laura Bora proudly showed them the old painting of a map on the wall.
“And these are the two that discovered it, your highnesses,” said Laura, introducing the Prince and Princess to Leah and Felix.
“Oh, can I look closer?” said the Prince.
“Um. No, your highness,” said Felix. “It’s very delicate. And I’m sure you understand how delicate and precious old things are?”
“Oh. Oh yes,” said the Prince, trying to sound very clever.
And so not only did Felix and Leah get a medal for finding the map, they also kept hold of its secrets. And now, whenever they visited the airport, they knew that they could travel to anywhere in the world - without even getting on a plane.
