Free The Tightrope Walkers by David Almond Page B

canyons, across rivers, between buildings, with nothing but this between them and death.” He laughed. “But two feet up’s a decent place to start.”
    Dad came through the gate. He hesitated as it clanked shut behind him.
    “Hello, Frank,” said Bill, lowering the wire.
    Dad grunted a reply.
    “Thought we might ask you to do a little job,” said Bill.
    “Aye?” said Dad.
    “Aye. If you don’t mind. It’s for these tightrope walkers here.”
    “Bliddy tightrope!” said Dad.
    “Couple of hooks to put in, that’s all,” said Bill. “Keep ’em safe and secure while they’re dancing in the sky.”
    Dad took the cable in his hands and touched it like I had. His scarred hands were coarse against the smooth cold manufactured steel.
    “It’s lovely work,” he said.
    “Indeed,” said Bill.
    Dad didn’t look up.
    “If I carried out a thing like this they’d have me neck.”
    Bill said nothing.
    “There’s times they check our bags and pockets at the gate.”
    “I know that, Frank.”
    “That Hector Minton spat on Solly Hull and called him a thieving bastard. Fined him two days’ wages for two tins of paint. Joe Robson was chucked out for a hammer and a bag of nails.”
    “I know, Frank,” said Bill. “I don’t approve of it.”
    “Do you not? Where do the bliddy hooks go, then?”
    Bill crouched and pointed.
    “I thought about this high. I thought about just here. What do you think?”
    “Aye, that sounds just right. Shall I do it now?”
    “It’s not urgent. You’ll want your dinner maybe.”
    “No need for that to get in the way, Mr. Stroud.”
    “Bill. I just thought it might be nice to update the equipment and keep these two moving forward. The holes’ll need to be deep. The hooks’ll need to be really secure.”
    “Is that right? I’ll do it now.”
    He got a bag of tools from the outhouse. He drilled through the pebbledash with a crank drill. Tiny stones and mortar tumbled down. He drilled deep. He bent down and blew dust out from the hole, brushed its edges with his fingertips. He rolled some fibre filler to a point between his fingers then pushed it in. He forced it deep with his thumb, then with a piece of dowelling that he struck with a mallet. He kept filling until the fibre was at the surface, then carefully put the point of the hook to it and turned. The hook went tight and deep. He put his finger into it and pulled.
    “That’s not going anywhere,” he said.
    Then he checked with Bill — how high? exactly where?— and he did the other one. By now, Mam was watching from the doorway.
    He swept up the fallen pebbledash with a dustpan and brush. Stood up, hands on hips, looked down at what he’d done.
    “Nice work,” said Bill Stroud. “It’s a perfect horizontal, Frank.”
    Dad touched his finger to his brow.
    “Thank you, Mr. Stroud.”
    Bill opened a pack of cigarettes and held them out to Dad.
    “I’ve got me own,” said Dad.
    Both men lit up, breathed their smoke into the sky, and Holly and I fixed the wire. I ratcheted it tight. We fastened the top rope as before.
    “Look how straight it is,” Holly murmured. “Look how beautiful it is.”
    “You first,” I said.
    Mam brought the stool. Holly stepped onto it, reached for the top rope, stepped onto the steel.
    “Oh!” she gasped. “Oh, wait till you feel it under you, Dominic!”
    It moved ever so slightly as she stepped along it. A slight give and then a slight recoil. It shuddered if she trembled. She closed her eyes and stood dead still. She opened them and dared take her hands from the rope above. She balanced, swayed, then dropped.
    Then it was me. My turn to feel the narrow tight line below, the line that seemed to push me up as I pushed down, the line that made me feel for the first time that I might be able to do this thing.
    Mam applauded us all.
    “What a team!” she said. “And all for the benefit of two daft kids.”
    She walked the wire, of course, and showed again how fine she was, how