The gondola is lying on its side, facing toward the balloon’s open mouth.

My watch starts to grow warm on my wrist. I take it off, and toss it into the big wicker basket. Sure enough, it glows blue, and starts to flame. Within seconds the heat is so intense that Gisco and I have to step back. I worry that the gondola may burst into flame, but most of the heat is directed upward.

Gisco glances at the boy. Travel light, travel fast, as the old saying goes. We can’t take on extra baggage.

Take your pick. He’s coming or I’m staying.

Don’t be melodramatic. He may not want to be “saved” by us. Those drug bandits may be the only family he has.

You’re the one who said they enslaved him and cut his tongue out.

The point is that charitable as your impulses may be, we have a responsibility to a greater cause—

No, the point is that he risked his life to save us.

As we debate his fate, the boy in question stares at the blue flame like he’s witnessing a miracle—the burning bush or the parting of the Red Sea. “It’s okay,” I reassure him. “Don’t be scared. This is our way out.”

But the balloon is not rising. Gisco, are you sure this will work?

The scientific principle is simple enough, the dog responds. Hot air rises through cold air. So when the air in the balloon reaches a high enough temperature vis-à-vis the air outside it, the balloon will be pulled skyward, and we’ll be on our way.

But what if it doesn’t reach that temperature before we’re machine-gunned?

That’s a whole separate calculation, Gisco admits, with variables beyond my control. But look! It’s starting to rise!

Indeed it is. Now the balloon is an inch off the ground, now three inches. The gondola is pulled upright, and Gisco and I leap in. “Come,” I say to the boy.

He backs away a step.

Jack, he clearly doesn’t want to join us. And allow me to point out that our chances of lifting off and escaping before the submachine guns target us will be significantly reduced by the weight of an additional passenger.

It’s a risk we’ll have to take. I’m not going to have another P.J. or yellow dinghy on my conscience. I reach out my hands to the boy, palms open. He can’t mistake my meaning—get in and join us.

He still hesitates, fearful of the blue flame.

Our gondola is now a foot off the ground and rising more quickly. In an instant we’ll be whisked away from him, the way the Wizard was separated from Dorothy when he made his sudden aerial departure from Oz.