Free Cobwebs by Karen Romano Young Page A

he said. As the subway came aboveground to cross the canal, the city rose up huge and sparkling, making the train seem tiny.
    Nancy glanced at the platform of the station they pulled into, saw just one old man Grandpa Joke’s age waiting for their car. She dropped her backpack onto the seat. Leaped to catch the straps in her hands. Walked up the wall and window and flipped (good thing she was wearing tights, not just kneesocks) and landed, “Ta da!” on her Docs.
    The old guy, entering, let out a
tsk
of irritation.
    Ned caught his eye. “You ought to try it,” he said. The man snorted, smiled. Ned and Nancy spun and flipped, shooting along through the dazzling New York night.
    Ned’s station had no playground outside, no playground inhabitants, just the Uprising Bakery on the corner, darkened for the night, leftover rolls in the window. “I’m hungry,” Nancy said, throwing herpack onto her shoulder, running up all the stairs.
    “Rice Krispies and raisins,” Ned said. “Then sleep.”
    Nancy jolted awake in the middle of the night.
    It was never really dark in the penthouse, not with all those city lights out there. Ned was out cold—she was absolutely certain this time—in his bed in the corner, snoring most convincingly under his mosquito netting. “Lends a romantic air,” he’d said, and lent privacy for Nancy.
    She pulled her black sweater over her pajamas, opened the door without the least creak, and hesitated, breathing in the night.
Here’s what I’m going to do,
she directed herself:
Walk straight and slow across the roof to the ladder, and up and over it and down to the first landing.
There would be no pause in the rhythm, no pause in the pace. She’d been there already, she’d lived through it twice.
Let three times be the charm.
    Some charm. She was wet with sweat before she was halfway across the roof, nauseous and dizzy before she mounted the edge of the wall, and her knees were so jelly-useless by the time she reached the final landing that they collapsed beneath her.
    Holy Saint Christopher! Would she ever get over this fear?
    Her toes sank between the metal slats as if they were monkey toes, trying instinctively to reach around and hang on.
    “You okay?” A whispered call came from above.
    Oy. What woke Dad up?
    “Come on, girl!” His voice was echoey, encouraging, hoarse (with sleep?). She didn’t let herself think how high up he was, how far she had to climb back up to reach him. She forced herself to think as a spider might, focusing on what was precisely in front of her: Wall. Steps. Railing. The dark damp spring night air.
So what if I’m not a natural. So what if I’ve got no spinnerets and no talent, either. I can still find some ability to work with. Focus.
One stitch at a time. One step at a time. She couldn’t have been any less steady if she were climbing a steel knitting needle.
    She made it.
    She squinted around in the dark: nobody. She found Ned inside, lying in bed. She lifted the edge of the netting, found his eyes closed.
Faker.
    “Dad?”
    “Hmm?” he murmured. And then, “It’s a lovely evening for some fresh air.”
    “Go to sleep,” she told him. She climbed into her hammock and passed out from exhaustion.
    Nancy woke early the next morning, steadied the hammock by lying still and reorienting herself to the idea that no part of her—nothing she was directly connected to—was connected to the floor. Revelation! The hammock was the ideal place to knit a sweater of many colored stripes. She dropped each ball of yarn on the floor and threaded its end up through a loop in the hammock’s netting. Each time she started a new stripe, she simply picked up a new end. Beneath her, the balls rolled around the floor freely and didn’t get tangled.
    Dad came through the roof door. “It’s a lovely morning for some fresh air,” Nancy said, and watched him. He didn’t seem to react to her words. Had he really been awake when she came in last night, or just sleep