The Tightrope Walkers

The Tightrope Walkers Read Free Page A

Book: The Tightrope Walkers Read Free
Author: David Almond
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turn to me with furrowed brow and with snot trickling to his upper lip.
    “You can do it, Norman,” I’d whisper.
    “I can’t,” he’d say. “I just bliddy cannot, Dom.”
    I’d watch his hands trembling with the struggle of it, the fear of it.
    Holly knew the joy of it. I loved the times we were allowed to work together, to see the pictures that she drew to supplement and intensify my words, to make our shared creation.
Sum people said Don’t go. It is too danjerus. But the boy was very brayv
. And to see a boy shaped just like me setting out across the page’s snowy waste.
    The school, Saint Lawrence’s, was a stone-built place towards the river. It stood upon earth that was riddled with ancient mines. We were close to the wailing and shuddering of engines in the factories and shipyards down here. We could smell oil and weird sweet chemicals and the foulness of the river when it was low. On hot days we gagged at the stench of the boneyard on the opposite bank.
    The school was a place of ghosts. The older children told us tales of the children who had died below a hundred years ago, children killed in rockfalls and explosions. They rose to haunt this place above.
    Beware of certain corridors
, we were told.
    Beware of that cupboard, of turning that corner
.
    Try this. Count the kids in your classroom. Sometimes you’ll be counting more than there really are. You’re counting ghosts. They come up from the dark to sit here in the light, especially with you, the younger ones. You haven’t seen them yet? Keep your eyes peeled. Watch and be prepared. There, look! Oh no. Just a shadow. There! Run!
    And worse. Monsters roamed the schoolyard at night when we children were away. They that hid in the daytime in lairs in the earth.
    They’re things half human and half beast
.
    We’d stare and wonder. How could that be so?
    You’ll come to understand, when you’re old enough to know
.
    They sniggered, rolled their eyes.
    Dogs and women, mares and men
.
    Ask your fathers, if you’re brave enough, but be ready to get clouted
.
    Holly was a sceptic, even in her infancy.
    “All a load of nonsense,” she would say.
    I didn’t dare to contradict her, didn’t dare agree.
    She put her hand up in class one day.
    “Yes, Holly?” said Miss Fagan.
    “There are no such things as ghosts, are there, Miss Fagan?”
    Miss Fagan smiled.
    “Some say yes, some say no.”
    “But there
aren’t
, are there, Miss?”
    “Well, I don’t believe so, Holly. I believe God sends us on our proper way once life is done.”
    “And there are no such things as monsters, are there? They’re just things for stories, aren’t they?”
    “Hmm. Jesus himself encountered demons, Holly. In truth, there are things we cannot really know and understand. That is why we need the Church and prayer.”
    “The Church and prayer!” Holly muttered.
    Miss Fagan’s face darkened, a rare occurrence.
    “Holly,”
she said.
    “Sorry, Miss.”
    “Be careful, Holly Stroud.”
    “Yes, Miss Fagan.”
    Saint Lawrence’s was the school of all Catholic children in that town. Vincent McAlinden was one of us. He was three years older than I. He had few friends. For a time he took Norman Dobson to his side, until Norman came into the classroom one afternoon with tears in his eyes and a cigarette burn on the back of his hand.
    “Vincent?” I whispered.
    “It was an accident,” he said. “He didn’t mean it, Dom.”
    Later, as we worked, tears fell to his book and made his page even messier than usual. I put my arm around him. I whispered to him to stay away from awful Vincent. By this time we’d left the room of kind Miss Fagan and were in the care of cold, strict Miss Mulvaney.
    “Dominic Hall!” the teacher snapped. “What on earth do you think you’re doing?”
    I took my arm away.
    “Sorry, Miss,” I said.
    “Sorry, indeed,” said Miss Mulvaney. “And stop that snivelling, Dobson. I can’t bear a boy who snivels.”
    Fortunately for Norman,

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