High Wire

Copyright © 2012 Melanie Jackson

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Jackson, Melanie, 1956-
High wire [electronic resource] / Melanie Jackson.

(Orca currents)

Electronic monograph.
Issued also in print format.
ISBN
978-1-4598-0238-4
(PDF)
.--
ISBN
978-1-4598-0239-1
(EPUB)

I. Title. II. Series: Orca currents
PS
8569.
A
265
H
53 2012           j
C
813'.6          
C
2012-902230-6

First published in the United States, 2012
Library of Congress Control Number:
2012938159

Summary:
High-wire walker Zack
has to solve a mysterious theft at the youth circus.

Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support for its publishing programs provided by the following agencies: the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.

Cover photography by
Dreamstime.com

www.orcabook.com
Printed and bound in Canada.

15   14   13   12   •   4   3   2   1

To Bart,
who catches me when I fall.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter One

The thin black line stretched out in front of me.

I stood on the ledge. The spotlight was fixed on me, hot, white and bright. I couldn't see the opposite ledge. I couldn't see the crowd below, watching to see if I'd make it across.

All I saw was that thin black line going from the spotlight into darkness. The line was all that mattered to me.

I inhaled deeply. I set my shoulders back. I flexed my arm and chest muscles. I extended my arms sideways to transfer my weight away from my chest, my center of being. The secret to high-wire walking is to place your weight at your sides. It takes a lot of practice and many falls into the safety net to get it right. By nature, people bend their weight forward when they move.

I stepped on the wire. I placed each leather-slippered foot sideways, penguin style. I curved each sole to fit the line.

The audience was dead quiet. Without realizing it, people suck in their breath during a risk act. It's instinctive. They're afraid of making the slightest noise. Of disturbing the walker.

They don't get that nothing else exists when you're on the line. It's just you above the world. You make your deal with gravity, and you and the air are one.

I thought of Philippe Petit, the most famous wire walker in history. New York City, 1974, Petit crossed a steel cable stretched between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, a quarter of a mile up. For forty-five minutes, he walked that wire back and forth
eight times
.

As I walked forward, I imagined how Petit must have felt. The sun above, the sky all around. The clean, sweet air. For the minutes it took him to cross, he'd been alone, hassle-free.

That was the appeal of high wire for me. I liked being on my own.

A couple of years ago, my folks died in a plane crash. I moved from our ranch in Alberta to Maple Ridge, near Vancouver, to live with my Aunt Ellie. My aunt wasn't used to having a kid around. She thought I needed fussing over. I knew she meant well, but it got annoying.

Luckily, she was busy much of the time running her organic-foods store.

I hung around the community center. I'd always been into fitness, anyway. I liked pressing weights and pacing the treadmill.

I noticed there was a juggling class. I had nothing better to do, so I signed up.

The teacher, a retired circus performer named Shecky, grunted at my balance, my self-control. It took me a while to realize grunting was Shecky's way of showing wild enthusiasm.

One day he fastened a wire, three feet off the ground, between two metal height-adjustable ladders.

If you can juggle, you can walk the
line. A lot of high-wire walkers start out
as jugglers. Philippe Petit did.

That got my attention.
Philippe who?

Shecky grunted and loaned me a
DVD
about Petit's Twin Tower walk. Shecky explained,
You'll see that he uses
the same principles of balance on the
wire as in juggling: weight to the sides.

At first, every time I walked the wire, Shecky danced around me, making weird faces and waving his arms. He wanted to see if he could distract me. He even did cartwheels.

But he never got to me.
Huh
, he grunted.

After a while he gave up and just kept raising the wire.

One day he told me Circus Sorelli, the summer youth troupe, was looking for a new wire walker. I auditioned, and I got the job.

And now, here I was, seventy-five feet above the ground, on my first night as a Circus Sorelli performer.

Someday I'd be a quarter mile up, like Philippe Petit.

Because nothing got to me. I never wavered. I had complete self-control. It was just me and the line.

The spotlight tracked me across the high wire. I heard people letting their breaths out. They realized I knew what I was doing. They sensed I was comfortable on the wire.

The spotlight crept to the opposite ledge. Five more steps and I'd be there.

This was the most dangerous part of a high-wire walk. You see the opposite ledge, your finish line. You could so easily let down your guard. You could relax and let some of your weight go forward, instead of at your sides.

And you'd fall,
whissssh!
, into the safety net. Into failure. Into humiliation.

Not me. I kept my bargain with gravity. I stepped onto the ledge.

The crowd roared their approval. They stood up, clapped and whistled.

I climbed down the ladder. The spotlight was already swooping down to high-beam the Circus Sorelli clowns.

One by one, the three clowns made their entrance on tiny bicycles. Their routine was to throw water-filled balloons at each other, crash into the ringside wall and do other goofy stuff.

In the shadows, crew members hurried into the ring to fold up the safety net. They moved lightning-fast.

Keeping out of their way, I walked toward change rooms behind the ring so I could switch my leather slippers for runners. I didn't want to wear the slippers down by walking too much on ground.

“That's your act, Freedman? Your mommy and daddy bribe the ringmaster?”

It was the third clown, Cubby Donnell, who was waiting in the shadows for his cue.

I shared a trailer with Cubby. From day one, he'd been giving me a hard time. I was so busy practicing and working out that I'd pretty much ignored him. Till now.

He probably didn't know about my folks being dead. It didn't matter. This time he'd got to me.

I wheeled round and glared into his painted face. I grabbed his floppy collar. “Maybe you'd like to try being up in the air too,” I invited.

Twisting the collar, I lifted Cubby off the ground.

In the spotlight, the second clown smashed his tiny bike into a tub of yellow paint. He dived headfirst into the tub. The crowd screamed with laughter.

This was Cubby's cue to bike into the ring. I didn't let go. I'd been feeling good about the standing O, and he'd tried to wreck that.

He thrashed around, but I kept my grip on his collar. I smiled into his neon red grin.

“What's your problem with me, Cub?”

The spotlight beamed, empty, into the ring. Cubby was supposed to be there. The crowd murmured. People knew something was wrong.

Cubby was sweating through his clown makeup. “Lemme go. I'm sorry for hassling you…
Zen
.”

Zen was the nickname I had at Circus Sorelli for being so calm on the wire.

I dropped Cubby. He staggered sideways. He was too stunned to climb on his bike. Instead, holding it by the handle-bars, he stumbled into the spotlight.

The crowd thought this weaving-around entrance was part of Cubby's act, and applauded.

I didn't know what Cubby's problem was.

As he biked around the edge of the spotlight, he passed close to me and hissed, “I'm not through with you, Freedman. Not by a long shot.”

Chapter Two

I pushed through the black curtain. Usually the next performers were lined up behind it. They did stretching exercises or watched the ring act on closed-circuit
TV
.

This time they stood in a huddle. At the sight of me, they stepped aside. One of the gymnasts, Whitney Boothroyd, was holding a bundle of blankets.

“Hey, Zack,” Whitney greeted me. Her dark eyes shone. “Congratulations. Your aunt dropped off a present. Someone to keep you company, she said.”

Whimpering came from the blankets.

Oh
no
, I thought.

Aunt Ellie had been saying she wished we had more family. More relatives to keep me company.

I could only gape at the bundle, which was struggling inside the blanket. I couldn't believe it. Aunt Ellie had gone and adopted a baby. I thought that was crazy for a woman in her mid-fifties.

“Don't you want to hold him?” Whitney urged.

“No,” I said. “He's got to be returned.” Vague images of bundling the kid into a courier package flashed through my mind.

Okay, I might have to rethink the method of transportation. But there was no way I wanted a baby brother.

I realized the bundle wasn't a baby when it stopped whimpering and started barking.

The dog poked its face out of the blanket and looked around.

“Sooo cute!” Whitney cooed.

“Are you kidding?” I said distastefully. The pooch's face was a bunch of flabby rolls. His mouth was turned down like he was sulking. His body was too small for his head.

On my parents' ranch, I'd had a border collie named Thelma. She was strong and energetic, able to run for miles. Thelma lived with another rancher now. I missed her a lot.

That's what busybody Aunt Ellie had been thinking. She would replace Thelma…with this little yapper. Why couldn't she leave me alone?

“He's a French bulldog cross,” Whitney was saying. “Some terrier in him, I'm guessing. Just adorable.”

The kids laughed at my sour expression.

Somebody asked, “Hey, Zack. What's his name?”

I shook my head. “I dunno.” I didn't want to name the thing. Giving it a name might make me responsible for him.

“He's just some pooch,” I said.

“Hi, Pooch,” Whitney crooned.

The ringmaster and circus owner, Mr. Sorelli, stomped into the room, his black eyebrows smashed into a scowl. This was more or less his permanent expression. He wore a glittery red ducktail-type jacket with matching jodhpurs and a top hat.