The One That Fell
- Matt and Kate begin taking photographs of the creature's skeleton. They've brought a carpet bag full of clothes as well, to pack the bones in to bring back to the ship.
- Matt is preoccupied with Kate's scandalously revealing outfit a.k.a. a tennis skirt that comes to below the knees and bare legs. Far more convenient than the full-length dress she wore the day before, but Matt can't stop covertly glancing at her exposed skin.
- Kate, on the other hand, is being quite scientific about the whole thing. First she measures the skeleton in various ways, and then she meticulously photographs everything from multiple angles to help them re-assemble the skeleton later on.
- Then Kate labels the bones with a wax pencil as they slowly begin to disassemble the creature. Matt gets pretty shocked when he realizes the dainty clothes he's wrapping the bones in are Kate's underthings. Ooh la la.
- They start talking about how amazing the creature is, with its light-as-air bones. Matt loves the fact that it's an animal that never has to land.
- Kate generously offers to include Matt's invaluable contributions to their discovery when she writes them up, and says that it will help him get into university—but he tells her he has no desire for university and just wants to fly airships. And then he tells her about how Lunardi stole his position.
- Kate's solution is for Matt to get a scholarship to the Academy and then rise in the ranks to become captain. Easy enough, right? But Matt knows that he couldn't go to the Academy even if they offered him a spot, because that would be two years where he wouldn't have any wages to send home to support his mother and sisters. In other words, it's an impossibility.
- Matt remarks that they would've been pulling into Sydney at that time if they hadn't crashed, and Kate asks what will happen when people realize that they haven't.
- Matt knows that when they don't arrive they'll be reported missing, and the assumption will be that they've crashed into the ocean and drowned.
- Kate says that her parents will at least "put on a good show" of being concerned about her, like calling important people and demanding updates. They sound like real gems.
- Kate likes the idea of being willful, and Matt says he is starting to feel bad for her parents. He shouldn't though, since they're never around enough to notice Kate's headstrong nature. Even Miss Simpkins sleeps through most of it.
- On the other hand, Matt's mom is going to be beside herself with worry, especially after his father died three years ago while working aboard the Aurora. She hadn't wanted Matt to take the position in the first place.
- Matt and Kate bond over having "storyteller" figures in their lives: Matt's dad and Kate's grandfather.
- They finish packing away the skeleton (finally), and start preparing to head back so that Matt won't be late for his shift.
- That's when the whole forest goes eerily quiet. Something suddenly eats a whole parrot, and spits the feathers to the ground. No, not just any something—one of their creatures.
- The thing lands in their tree and slowly starts to creep toward them.
- Kate, being the consummate scientist, uses the moment to try and take a picture. The flash blinds it and it angrily sails into the air.
- They start running after the creature despite knowing that it probably isn't a wise idea. It is heading somewhere, and fast.
- They are forced to stop short at a tall cliff and helplessly watch as the creature sails down and pounces from tree to tree. It can't really fly because it's left wing is either injured or permanently stunted.
- They watch until it's out of sight, but Kate hopes that that's the location of its nest.
- Kate thinks it's the same creature her grandfather watched plummet from the sky.
- They really start to head back to the ship now. Matt is going to be late, again.
- They can't stop conjecturing about its life, and how hard it must have been to adapt to a land-bound life so different from it's intended milieu.
- Kate is disappointed that she didn't get a better picture—she's also a bit miffed that they automatically assumed the creature was male.
- They start to debate whether she (they've decided it's a "she" for the sake of feminism) is dangerous or tame.
- Matt wants Kate to come up with some fancy Latin name for their discovery, but all he can think of is "cloud cat."
- Suddenly the skies blacken and they are caught in one heckuva storm.