Two Stories about Flying

Why This Matters

Think of the first time you tried something that scared you. The first time on a bicycle. The first time in deep water. The first time you stood up to speak in front of the class. Your mind kept saying one thing: what if I fall? And so, for a while, you did not move.

This chapter is built around that exact feeling. It is called “Two Stories about Flying”, and both stories are really about fear — and about what finally makes a person move past it.

In the first story, a young seagull is too scared to take his first flight. In the second, a pilot is trapped, alone, in a deadly storm. Neither of them feels brave. That is the point. These stories do not say “be brave”. They show something more honest and more useful: you do not have to feel brave to act. Something stronger than the fear takes over — a need inside you, or a helping hand from outside.

Two short poems come with the stories. One is a silly, joking poem about wild animals. The other looks like a poem about a lost ball, but it is quietly about something every person on Earth must learn: how to lose things, and how to stand up again. By the end of this chapter you should understand not just what happens in each piece, but why — why the seagull flies, why the pilot is saved by a mystery, and why a small boy’s lost ball can teach a giant lesson.

The Big Idea

Fear is normal, and you do not beat it by simply “deciding to be brave”. You move past fear when something becomes stronger than the fear itself. In His First Flight, that something is hunger — a need so strong the seagull forgets to be afraid. In The Black Aeroplane, it is help — a mysterious pilot (or the pilot’s own steady mind) that guides a lost man home. The two poems then show the two sides of feeling: How to Tell Wild Animals uses parody (a funny copy of a serious “how-to” guide) to make us laugh, while The Ball Poem uses a lost ball as a symbol of life’s first real loss, teaching that things will always be lost — and we must learn “how to stand up”. Across all four pieces, one thread runs through: growth comes from facing the hard moment, not avoiding it.

📖 Where to read the original: For copyright reasons, the full original text of the prose lesson is not reproduced here — read it in your NCERT First Flight textbook. This page gives you a complete summary and explanation to study alongside it. (The poem(s) in the public domain appear in full, with meaning, in their own section below.)

Before we read story by story, here is how the two stories speak to each other. They look very different — a bird on a cliff, a man in a plane — but they carry the same message from two directions.

The link is laid out in Figure 3.1 below.

Tap to zoom

Story I — His First Flight

This first story, written by the Irish writer Liam O’Flaherty, is about a single afternoon in the life of a young seagull. Nothing huge happens in the world. But for the bird, it is the biggest day of his life.

What happens — the summary

A young seagull is alone on his rocky ledge, high on a cliff above the sea. His two brothers and his sister have already flown away. He could not. Every time he ran to the edge and tried to flap his wings, the sea looked too far below — miles down — and he felt sure his wings would not hold him. So each time he ran back to his little hole and stayed.

This has gone on for a full day. His parents have called to him, scolded him, even threatened to let him starve if he does not fly. Still he cannot move. He watches his family fly, dive for fish, and catch herring, while he sits hungry and ashamed.

The next morning the sun is hot and he has not eaten since the night before. He is desperate with hunger. He cries to his mother for food. She picks up a piece of fish and flies toward him — but then stops in the air, just out of his reach, holding the fish where he can almost touch it. Maddened by hunger, he dives at the fish. And in that instant, he falls off the ledge into open space.

For one terrible moment, terror grips him and his heart seems to stop. Then his wings spread on their own. The wind catches them. He is not falling any more — he is flying. He soars, he dives, he curves through the air. His whole family flies around him, screaming with joy. At last he lands gently on the green sea, floats on it, and his family offers him scraps of fish. He has made his first flight.

Here is the journey as a picture, so you can see the whole shape of the story at a glance. Figure 3.2 traces it from fear to flight.

Tap to zoom

Who is in the story — the characters

There are really only two characters that matter, and both are seagulls.

The young seagull is us — anyone facing a scary “first time”. His feelings are easy to recognise: he is afraid, he is jealous of his braver siblings, he is ashamed, and he is hungry. The mother is the interesting one. She does not push her child off the cliff. She does not beg. She uses his own hunger as the tool. That is a smart kind of love: she creates a situation where he has to act, then lets him discover he could do it all along.

Let us be sure of one word the story turns on before we go deeper.

This story’s whole meaning sits on the idea of a “theme”, so here is a quick reminder of what that word means in literature:

The theme — overcoming fear (and why hunger, not bravery, made him fly)

Here is the most important question in the whole story, and the one NCERT never stops to answer: the seagull was just as scared in the morning as the night before — so why did he fly now?

The book simply says he was “maddened by hunger” and dived. But think about what that really means. His fear did not shrink. He did not suddenly become brave. Something else happened: his need grew bigger than his fear. When he was only a little hungry, the fear of falling was the stronger feeling, so he stayed. After a full day with no food, the hunger became unbearable — and at that moment the hunger was stronger than the fear. So he moved. The fear was still there. It just lost the contest.

This is a deep and honest idea, and it is worth a picture. Figure 3.3 shows it as a weighing balance — fear on one side, need on the other.

Tap to zoom

Why does this matter to you, the reader? Because it changes what “courage” means. You may have been told that brave people feel no fear. That is not true, and this story proves it. Brave action is just action taken while still afraid, because something matters more than the fear — a hungry stomach, a person you love, a goal you want badly. So when you face your own scary “first flight”, do not wait to stop feeling scared. The seagull never stopped feeling scared. He just found a reason that mattered more.

There is a second small theme worth noticing: we are often more capable than we believe. The seagull thought his wings “would never support him”. He was wrong. The wings worked the instant he trusted them — that is, the instant hunger made him stop thinking. Sometimes fear is just a story we tell ourselves about a danger that is not really there.

Let us check the most common confusion about this story before moving on.

Story II — The Black Aeroplane

The second story, by Frederick Forsyth, is told by the pilot himself, in the first person (“I”). It is short, fast, and ends on a question that has no clear answer.

What happens — the summary

A pilot is flying his old Dakota aeroplane at night, from Paris back to England. The sky is clear, the stars are out, and he is happy, dreaming of a big English breakfast with his family. He calls Paris Control on the radio, gets directions, switches to his last fuel tank, and turns toward England. Everything is easy.

Then, about 150 km past Paris, he sees huge storm clouds ahead — “like black mountains” filling the sky. He cannot fly over them, and he does not have enough fuel to go around them. The safe choice is to turn back to Paris. But he wants to get home. So he takes the risk and flies straight into the storm.

Inside the clouds, everything goes black. The plane shakes and twists. He looks at his compass — it is spinning, dead. The other instruments die too. The radio gives no answer. He has no compass, no radio, no way to see, and he is running out of fuel. He is completely lost.

Then, in the black clouds, he sees another aeroplane right next to him. It has no lights on its wings, but he can see the pilot’s face turned toward him. The strange pilot waves: “Follow me.” Relieved, the lost pilot follows the black plane “like an obedient child”. After about half an hour — with only minutes of fuel left and fear rising again — the black plane begins to descend. The pilot follows it down. Suddenly he breaks out of the clouds and sees two lines of runway lights below. An airport! He is safe.

He turns to thank his rescuer — but the black aeroplane is gone. The sky is empty. He lands and asks the woman in the control tower who the other pilot was. She looks at him strangely and says there were no other planes flying that night; his was the only one on the radar. The story ends with the pilot’s own unanswered questions: who helped him, and who was the pilot of that strange black plane?

The mystery and the twist — and why it is never explained

The twist is the whole point of this story: the rescuer cannot have existed, according to the radar, yet the pilot was clearly saved by someone. A curious reader instantly wants the answer — so who was it? — and the story flatly refuses to give one.

That refusal is not a mistake or a missing page. It is a deliberate choice by the writer. Let us lay out exactly what we are given and exactly what we are denied, because the gap between the two is the mystery. Figure 3.4 separates the known facts from the unanswered questions.

Tap to zoom

So why would a writer leave such a big question open? Because an unsolved mystery does more work than a solved one. If the story said “it was a ghost” or “it was a rescue pilot from the airbase”, you would close the book and forget it. By leaving it open, the writer hands the question to you, and now there are interesting ways to read it:

• Maybe it was real help from a stranger — someone who appeared exactly when needed and asked for nothing in return. The story then becomes about how unexpected help can arrive in our darkest moment.
• Maybe there was no other plane at all — maybe, when every instrument failed, the pilot’s own calm, trained mind took over and guided him down, and his frightened brain pictured it as a friendly plane to follow. The story then becomes about the strength we did not know we had inside us.

Notice that both readings teach something hopeful, and the open ending lets both live at once. That is why the mystery is left unexplained: it is not a puzzle to be solved, it is a mirror held up to the reader. What do you believe helped him? Your answer says something about what you believe helps people in trouble.

Let us pin down two useful words this story plays with.

The story’s title and its eerie mood both depend on the word “black”, and on the idea of a story told by its own character, so here is a quick refresher on both:

The theme — help, courage, and the unexplained

This story carries two linked themes. The first is unexpected help in our darkest hour — the idea that when we are truly lost, help can come from where we least expect it. The second, quieter theme is our own hidden strength — the possibility that the “help” was the pilot’s own steady skill, and that we are stronger than we feel when everything goes wrong.

Both stories in this chapter, remember, are about pushing past fear. The seagull is pushed by a need inside him (hunger). The pilot is pushed by help from outside him (the black plane) — or perhaps by a strength inside him after all. Either way, both characters survive a frightening “first flight” of their own.

Here is the misreading to avoid with this story.

The Poems

Two poems are printed with the stories. They could not be more different in mood — one is a giggle, the other is a quiet ache — but both are about facing the world honestly.

How to Tell Wild Animals — its humour and parody

Before we analyse the poem, here is the full text, stanza by stanza, with a plain-English explanation after each one so you can enjoy the joke as you read.

If ever you should go by chance
To jungles in the east;
And if there should to you advance
A large and tawny beast,
If he roars at you as you’re dyin’
You’ll know it is the Asian Lion…

The poet says: if you ever happen to visit the jungles of the East, a big yellowish-brown (“tawny”) animal might come towards you. How will you know it is the Asian Lion? Easy — it roars at you while you are dying. That is the joke. By the time you “learn” the answer, the lion has already killed you. The poet also bends the spelling, writing “dyin’” instead of “dying”, just so it rhymes neatly with “Lion”.

Or if some time when roaming round,
A noble wild beast greets you,
With black stripes on a yellow ground,
Just notice if he eats you.
This simple rule may help you learn
The Bengal Tiger to discern.

Next, if a grand animal with black stripes on a yellow body “greets” you, the poet’s tip is simple: just notice whether he eats you. If he does, it is the Bengal Tiger. Again the advice is useless and deadly — you only confirm the answer by being eaten. Calling the tiger “noble” and saying it “greets” you adds to the fun, because there is nothing friendly about being eaten.

If strolling forth, a beast you view,
Whose hide with spots is peppered,
As soon as he has lept on you,
You’ll know it is the Leopard.
‘Twill do no good to roar with pain,
He’ll only lep and lep again.

If you are out for a walk and see an animal whose skin (“hide”) is covered in spots, you will know it is the Leopard “as soon as he has lept on you”. The poet has fun with sound here: she misspells “leapt” as “lept” and then invents the word “lep” so it chimes with “Leopard”. And it is no use crying in pain — the leopard will just “lep and lep again”, that is, pounce on you over and over.

If when you’re walking round your yard
You meet a creature there,
Who hugs you very, very hard,
Be sure it is a Bear.
If you have any doubts, I guess
He’ll give you just one more caress.

Now the danger comes right into your own yard. If a creature there hugs you “very, very hard”, be sure it is a Bear — the bear’s deadly squeeze is described as a “hug”. And if you are still not certain, the poet jokes that the bear will give you “just one more caress” (one more gentle-sounding hug) — which would, of course, crush you completely.

Though to distinguish beasts of prey
A novice might nonplus,
The Crocodile you always may
Tell from the Hyena thus:
Hyenas come with merry smiles;
But if they weep they’re Crocodiles.

The poet admits that a beginner (“novice”) might get confused (“nonplus”) when telling dangerous animals apart. But she offers one rule to separate the Crocodile from the Hyena: the hyena seems to laugh (its call sounds like a laugh, so it “comes with merry smiles”), while the crocodile sheds tears. This plays on the famous phrase “crocodile tears”, which means fake, pretend crying.

The true Chameleon is small,
A lizard sort of thing;
He hasn’t any ears at all,
And not a single wing.
If there is nothing on the tree,
‘Tis the chameleon you see.

The last animal is harmless. The chameleon is a small lizard-like creature with no ears and no wings. Because it changes colour to match its surroundings, it is almost invisible. So the poet’s final joke is this: if you look at a tree and seem to see “nothing” on it, that nothing is actually the chameleon hiding in plain sight.

Carolyn Wells’ poem pretends to be a helpful guide for travellers: here is how to tell one wild animal from another. But every “tip” it gives is hilariously useless, because you only find out the answer when the animal is already attacking or eating you. For example, the poem says you will know it is the Asian Lion if it roars at you “as you’re dyin’”. You will know it is the Leopard “as soon as he has lept on you”. You will know it is the Bear because it “hugs you very, very hard”.

Before we explain why this is so funny, let us name the technique it uses.

The whole joke of this poem depends on one literary term, so here is a quick definition before we use it:

So why is this poem funny? Because it is a parody of a serious how-to guide. A real wildlife guidebook tells you how to spot a dangerous animal from a safe distance, so you can avoid it. This poem keeps that exact serious, instructive tone — calm, polite, step-by-step — but the “advice” only works after the animal has caught you. A guide whose whole purpose is to keep you safe instead gets you eaten. That clash between the serious form and the deadly-silly content is the joke. Figure 3.5 sets the two side by side.

Tap to zoom

The fun is doubled by the language. The poet bends words on purpose to keep the rhythm and rhyme and to add to the comedy. She writes “dyin’” (so it rhymes with “lion”), and “lept” and “lep” instead of “leapt” and “leap”. These are not spelling mistakes — they are jokes. Twisting the spelling to fit the rhyme is itself part of the playful, don’t-take-me-seriously mood of the whole poem.

The Ball Poem — the deeper theme of loss and growing up

John Berryman’s poem looks tiny and simple: a boy is playing, his ball bounces away, “merrily” down the street and into the harbour water, and the boy is shattered. That is the entire event. And here is the question NCERT asks but a student must really feel: a ball costs almost nothing, and you can buy another in five minutes — so why is the boy so completely broken?

The answer is that the poem is not really about a ball at all. The ball is a symbol.

This poem leans entirely on one literary idea, so here is what it means:

So why is the loss of a cheap ball such “an ultimate shaking grief”? Because for this boy it is his first real loss — the first time he learns, in his body, that something he loved is gone and no one buys it back. The poet even tells us the boy is “learning… the epistemology of loss” — which is a grand phrase that simply means learning what it means to lose. The boy is not crying over rubber. He is meeting, for the first time, a hard truth that every human meets: in this world of possessions, “balls will be lost always”, and nothing lost can truly be bought back. Money cannot replace what is gone, because “money is external” — it stays outside us, while the loss is felt inside.

That is also exactly why the poet says, “I would not intrude on him” and refuses to offer money for a new ball. Buying him a new ball would teach the boy the wrong lesson — that loss does not matter and can always be fixed. The poet steps back on purpose, so the boy can learn the real lesson himself: how to feel the loss, and then “how to stand up”. Figure 3.6 shows this journey in three steps.

Tap to zoom

So the deeper theme is growing up through loss. Losing the ball is the boy’s first lesson in a truth he will use his whole life. The poem is gentle but unflinching: it does not promise the pain away. It says, very quietly, that learning “how to stand up” after a loss is one of the most important things any person ever learns.

Common Mistakes

These are the slips students make most often when writing about this chapter. Read each one — fixing them quietly raises your marks.

The first mistake confuses the seagull’s feelings with what actually moved him.

Next, a very common mix-up about the second story’s “help”.

Finally, the mistake that misses the heart of The Ball Poem.

Quick Check

Try these before the practice section. Each one tests an idea we just explained.

Practice Problems

Attempt each answer in your own words first, then open the model answer. These are written in the style of CBSE board questions.

Easy

Medium

Challenge

Summary

After studying this chapter, you should be able to explain each of these in your own words:

• His First Flight tells how a young seagull, too scared to fly, finally takes off when his mother holds fish just out of reach and hunger drives him to dive off the ledge.
• The story’s key idea is that we move past fear not by becoming fearless, but when a need grows stronger than the fear — courage is action taken while still afraid.
• The mother seagull uses clever, firm love: she does not force or beg, she creates a situation where her child must act and discovers he could fly all along.
• The Black Aeroplane tells how a lost pilot, trapped in a storm with dead instruments and no fuel, is guided to safety by a mysterious black plane that then vanishes — and radar shows no such plane ever existed.
• That mystery is left unexplained on purpose, so the reader thinks about both unexpected help and our own hidden inner strength.
• How to Tell Wild Animals is a comic parody: it copies a serious wildlife guidebook but gives ‘tips’ that only work once the animal has caught you, and bends words (‘dyin”, ‘lep’) for fun.
• The Ball Poem uses the lost ball as a symbol of life’s first real loss; its true theme is growing up — learning that things are lost forever, cannot be bought back, and that we must learn ‘how to stand up’.

What’s Next

Next is Chapter 4: From the Diary of Anne Frank. You move from short fiction to a real diary written by a teenage girl, Anne Frank, while she hid from the Nazis during the Second World War. The link to this chapter is closer than it looks: where the seagull and the pilot each faced a single frightening moment, Anne faced fear that lasted for years — and, like them, she found a way to keep going. Her diary shows how an ordinary teenager used honesty, humour and writing itself to survive the hardest of times.