She climbed aboard. Terms connected to balloons, like ballast and envelope, went through her head, but she had no idea what they meant. She tried to sort through the levers, none of which bothered with helpful things like labels or directions. She found one that was connected to the rope anchoring the balloon to the floor. She gave it a hopeful pull, and in an instant the balloon shot up into the air and the Help Desk dwindled away below.

A strange thing happened as Lenora got closer to the orb. Gravity simply switched from the Earth to the globe. The balloon rotated until the globe was no longer above her, but below. Now she was soaring over a blue ocean, and then along a coastline, with the floor and walls of the Cartography section forming the sky. She was astonished to see, below her, a school of fish swimming by, ignoring her completely.

The balloon was going faster and faster. The ocean rocketed by. The coastline blurred past. Lenora pulled desperately at the levers as wings flapped and sails unfurled. She was thrown back and forth in the basket as the balloon jerked about wildly, completely out of control. This will never work, thought Lenora. She wasn’t sure that whoever built this balloon was really the right person for the job. But she would simply have to make the best of it. The balloon was proving useless, but she had to get an answer for that sad young man. She searched and searched until she found one lever that lifted flaps that briefly brought the balloon to a lurching halt.

And then she clambered onto the edge of the basket, swayed for a moment, and jumped.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Lenora Sails the Seas

Lenora landed firmly on her feet along the rocky coastline of the world’s largest globe. The out-of-control balloon careened away into the distance. Good riddance, she thought. She had grown to hate that balloon. Beyond it, in what was now the sky, she could see the Cartography section’s wall of maps curving off to the horizon, its walkways with railings far out of reach.

Now, how to find the place with the longest name in the world? Unlike her experience in the Calendars section, Lenora had not had time to read a book on cartography. She was going to have to improvise and think on her feet and rely on her wits and valor. She remembered something Bendigeidfran had said. Some things in Wales have quite long names. Lenora supposed that was as good a place to start as any. But how could she find Wales?

As she stared out at the sea, thinking, she saw letters, large and black, floating on the waves. ATLANTIC OCEAN, they said. If everything on the globe was labeled, she ought to be able to track down Wales eventually. She just wished she had some idea where to start.