Balloon Acrobatics. Audio story narrated in British English.

The day finally arrived. It was time for the great acrobatic balloon competition. Every insect in the garden had been training hard, and now they were preparing to begin their routines. The balloon competitions were always something really special, since they could only happen after the children of the house had had some big party. There was only a short window of opportunity too, before the parents came round to collect up the balloons.

Each time, the flying insects were favourites to win, because they could grab the balloon strings and fly off in all directions, creating all sorts of patterns in the air. However, on this occasion there were some rather unusual insects taking part: a group of ants. Of course, no one expected that they'd do anything special. They were so light that no ant had ever bothered to take part, but it was quite impressive to see all the ants all perfectly organised and prepared.

So the competition began, and the different insects took their turns, performing beautiful manoeuvres with the balloons. As always, the butterfly and the firefly left everyone amazed with their twist and turns, and their wonderful colours. When it was time for the ants to perform, it seemed like the competition had already been decided.

For the first time in living memory, the ants shared just one balloon between them, and one by one they climbed up the balloon string; forming a thin black thread of ants. When all the string was covered, the last ant climbed over his teammates to reach the balloon. Once there, he climbed onto the top of the balloon.

This strange spectacle attracted everyone's curiosity, and they were just about to witness the most important moment: the ant opened his jaws as wide as he could... and then he stabbed the balloon with all his might!

Pssshhhhhhh!!!

The result was tremendous! The balloon began blowing out its air, flying madly about, here and there, doing a thousand pirouettes, while the perfectly synchronised ants, made all kinds of beautiful shapes out of the string.

Of course, that acrobatic flight ended with quite a hard landing, but it didn't matter. The originality and teamwork of the ant performance was so impressive that the crowd didn't even have to vote for there to be a winner.

From then on, in that garden, everyone understood how much could be achieved by working together. In the years to come, the balloon competitions were full of displays carried out by teams, and they put on some wonderful routines; something those individual insects could never have achieved on their own.