" Sky Gardens "

"Heya, kiddo.  Weren't you here before?  I gave you one balloon already.



You lost it?  Friends told you to let it go 'cause it'd come back if you called it?  Aah, kids can be so cruel.  I remember my buddies pulling the same thing.  Stood in the park like an idiot for an hour, yelling and yelling for it to come back.  Woulda spoiled me on balloons, but I learned the secret to really <i>doin'</i> it.  Heck, why else would I be the balloon man?



You wanna know?  Gimme a quarter for the secret, and you'll get the balloon free.  How's that sound?



Good deal, kiddo.  Another red one?  Good choice.  Now, you take this one and hold it tight.  You take this into the sunniest part of the park, and you take this piece of paper, and you tell it the words on it before you let it go.  When you wake up tomorrow, your balloon will be waiting at your window!



'Course I promise.  If I'm lying, you come back tomorrow, and I'll talk to my friends and you can have a free balloon <i>and</i> a free ice cream.  I wouldn't lie with ice cream at stake, would I?



There he goes.  Sweet kid.



Aw, c'mon.  Don't look at me like that.  You know I'm not funnin' him.



'Course, I didn't tell him that the balloon would do a little changing, a little growing, or that it'd spend the night tapping on the windows of his so-called pals...hey, it was a quarter secret, not the whole shebang, y'know?



Gotta get new balloon men somehow."