The Weather Balloon
A free A2-level English story for language learners, readable online in 5 languages, with an option to listen via the free Storyteller app.
The school science club sends a balloon with a camera into the sky, then has to find it again.
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The science club at Constance's school made a plan. They wanted to send a weather balloon up with a small camera. They worked for a month.
They tied the camera to a white box. The teacher wrote the school's phone number on the box. Under it she wrote, "If you find this, please call."
On Saturday, they let the balloon go behind the school. It went up fast. Soon it was a tiny white dot, and then it was gone.
The balloon came down far away. The battery in the tracker was dead. The last point on the map was far to the east. They drove there. They saw only forests and fields. They looked for three hours. They did not find the box.
"A month of work is gone," Constance said.
"Wait," the teacher said. "Remember the phone number on the box?"
Two days later, the school phone rang. "I'm a farmer," a man said. "I found a white box in my field. Is it yours?"
"Yes!" the teacher said.
The next day, the club drove to the farm. The box was in a barn, safe and dry. The camera still worked.
In the computer room, they looked at the photos. The first one showed the school, small like a toy. Then the clouds came. From above, they looked like a white sea. At the top, the sky was dark blue.
Constance chose her favorite photo. She printed it for the wall of the science room.
