The Tightrope Walkers by David Almond Read Free Book Online Page A

to hear what it said when it moved. I wanted to address him, to meet his eye and to explore the mystery of what was within him. But, like Jack Law, I dared not speak, dared not move. He was like a statue, framed by the doorway with his head bowed, like the statues we had in church, and maybe I was too. I stayed in the shadow of the little hallway while the sun between the houses poured down upon him. Mam came with the tea and sandwiches, and even then he did not look up. He bowed slightly, turned away and headed upwards through the estate.
    “There but for the grace of God,” she murmured as he disappeared.
    Jack seemed so beautiful to me. Sometimes on dull afternoons in school, bored by trigonometry or stories of ancient saints, or trying to turn my thoughts from tales of Hell, I’d close my eyes and see him wandering through the town as if he wandered through myself. That’s the way to live, I’d think, to be footloose and free, to have nothing, to be Jack Law.

We were in the allotment again when was saw the circus. It appeared like something in a dream, a line of coloured trucks and horse-drawn carriages and caravans making their way across the playing fields, shimmering in the sunlight. We heard the distant drone of engines, the creak of gears, the whinnying of horses. The convoy halted in an untidy circle on the grass. We held our hands as shields against the sun. We narrowed our eyes and strained to see. People spilled out from the carriages. Dogs and ponies and children began to run across the open spaces. And then the music started, familiar, hackneyed, unmistakable, wavering in the breeze on its way downhill to us.
    “A blooming circus,” said Bill. “How did that get here?”
    It only stayed a day or two. It was maybe during the summer holiday, maybe some half-term. We walked to it on a breezy day, a little bunch of kids of all ages from the estate. Mothers came with us. Other kids, other families walked across the great green spaces from other estates and from streets of terraced houses and Tyneside flats to gather at the red tent. There was a little zoo of beasts: goats and a llama and a group of tiny, gorgeously maned white ponies. And a pair of peacocks, and a green parrot in a silver cage that called out, “Hurry along! No time to waste.” I remember the feel of fur against my fingers as I reached into the little pens and cages, the feel of hot breath across my wrist, the smell of beast and dung and straw. Inside, the tent was like the night — tiny holes in the fabric letting in light like a million scattered stars. It must have been a sad and rundown thing but it seemed a thing of power, transporting us into an astonishing night while an ordinary afternoon passed by in our ordinary town outside.
    I sat with Holly on the hard bench. Tumblers performed. Dogs leapt through hoops of fire. A girl who seemed little older than Holly climbed a rope high towards the apex and danced above us in the air. Clowns sprayed us with water from the flowers on their lapels. The lovely ponies trotted round and round the ring under the guidance of a girl with broken feathers in her hair. A strongman in black trunks and white vest posed before us to show the mightiness of his biceps and thighs and chest, then lifted rocks and dumbbells and thumped himself with metal bars and allowed circus workers to jump up and down on boards laid across his chest. Rudolfo, I think he was called, for I remember a woman named Mrs. Thompson saying afterwards, Yes, he was indeed quite rude.
    The tightrope walker came on last. His rope was strung between two poles. He danced into the ring. He had a sky-blue cloak on his back. He too roamed the ring to show himself to everyone.
    He called out to us in an accent none of us suspected could exist in our world.
    “I am Gabrielli. I dare to do what no other dares to do. I dare to walk with nothing beneath, just empty space and then the hard and deadly earth.” He pointed up to the rope. “Do