Professor Z had to spend so much time in his laboratory he decided to move there. He was constructing a Zeppelin kind of balloon that would allow for human transportation by air.
This required all his attention, and in order to avoid unnecessary and/or undesirable visits, he didn’t tell anyone that he was moving. So he kept his usual dwellings with his wife and secretly moved to the laboratory. To keep himself even more unnoticed, he moved into the balloon, which stayed kind of suspended from the ceiling. He had a ladder to get into his new room and from there he could see the rest of the room that was his laboratory.
Other people had their plans too. The local youth was determined to try the balloon to see if it could actually fly. Then something happened in the village that made this flying not only a curiosity, but an actual necessity. And an urgent one.
They went to the professor’s house only to find his wife alone. She said she didn’t know where he was, but every one knew that if he was not at his house, he would be in his laboratory.
So off they went.
Either the door was open or they had a key for the place, because next thing, they were looking for the profession inside the lab. Or maybe they were not looking for it, just the flying machine. It took them a while to locate it, right under the ceiling, because the ceiling was very high and it was not an obvious thing. It was so high, the professor, who at that time was inside his balloon, did not even hear them enter. At some point he sensed some activity down there and looked through the aperture that allowed him to get in and out of the balloon. A few youths were in an attitude of searching for him. He was then very satisfied with himself and the work he had done preparing for occasions like this. He would remain hidden in the balloon and would happily ignore those rascals. The only inconvenience was that he could not hear what they were saying, but then, was he interested in the slightest.
The youths looked at the balloon and tried hard to figure out how it would work. They knew little about balloons, but they did know that the balloon would have to get hot air from something burning, and that a recipient big enough to hold a few people in it would need to hang from it. They found all those things and got everything outside. The balloon itself was the most difficult one, but they managed that too. The profession was inside, unbeknown to them, and their plans remained unknown to him too. He was so busy and abstracted in his work, he did not notice that the balloon he was in was moving.
By the time he realised what was happening, it was too late. He looked out the aperture in the balloon material again, only to see the boys manoeuvring the whole thing and putting it in the air. One he overcame the shock, he screamed.
“What are you doing!!!”
The boys were equally shocked that he had been there all the time. They tried to explain the situation, but even though the balloon and the basket where they were crammed were closer now than inside the laboratory, they were not close enough to have a comfortable conversation.
The professor was livid. He could not believe what was happening and he could not do anything against it. Now he had to sit there until those rascals would decide that the trip was over.
When he calmed down, he braced himself for a bit more work, now that he was stuck there. At least, while the air was not too hot, he could almost pretend he was still in the laboratory. He was inside his balloon anyway, his now habitual working space.