For the first time, then, he climbed the narrow, jiggling rope ladder to the high platform. Even this first time he climbed it as he had seen other flyers do; not like an ordinary ladder, grasping the side ropes and placing the feet on the rungs, but holding only one of the side ropes, keeping his body on the outside and using the rungs only as toeholds for leverage upward. He had never done it before, but it seemed as natural as breathing. The platform joggled and swayed as Mario stepped off beside him.
"Heights don't bother you, I see. How tall is your father?"
"About five feet seven, I guess. Maybe not quite."
"And your mother?"
"About my size. Why?"
"Because if you're going to grow up to be six feet tall, forget it. I'm supposed to be too tall for a flyer, and I'm only about five feet eight. Chances are you won't be that tall, though. How old are you? About ten?"
"I was fourteen in May," Tommy said coldly.
"Small for your age, then. No, I'm not insulting you, because that's good; it means you're old enough to start. The only thing is, you have to be tall enough to reach the bar from the platform. Here. " He reached up and pulled down the trapeze from the hook where it was anchored. "Can you reach it?"
He could, and it was with a sort of held-breath wonder that he first closed his fingers around the rough taped surface of the bar. Mario said, "You know how to fall in the net, don't you?"
"Sure," Tommy said, his voice only a thread. "You have to land on your back, is all."
"Well, how about it? Want to try a swing?"
Tommy had not been sure the flyer was serious. "Honest? Can I?"
"You'll never learn any younger. Go ahead."
It suddenly seemed a very long way down, and the net looked much too small and flimsy way down there.
"Go ahead," Mario said. "The worst you can do is fall in the net. Now."
Tommy got a firm grip on the bar and jumped off the platform. Remembering what he had seen them do when they started a swing, he kicked out with both feet, arching his body. He managed to get the trapeze into a long forward swing, but at the end of the arc the ropes buckled and his hands began to slip -- later he learned how performers coated them with resin -- and he twisted frantically, kicked out hard, and managed to get up enough momentum to swing back. He missed the platform, and the returning trapeze swung him out again.
"Don't panic," Mario shouted. "Can you change hands and face around this way? If you can't, wait till the swing dies and drop into the net."
He had done this kind of midair turn a dozen times on a single trapeze ten feet high. The forward swing carried him to the end of the arc, and he somehow managed to shift his slippery hands around so he faced the platform. As the momentum of the bar carried him back, he jumped for the platform and scrambled off beside Mario, knocking the trapeze wildly sidewise and grabbing with clumsy haste at the side ropes.
"Easy! Easy!" Mario caught and steadied him. "You'll wind up in the net yet! But anyway, you got back. I thought you'd have to drop off -- most everybody does, the first time. I know I did. Lost my grip, too, and hung by one arm -- nearly pulled my arm out at the shoulder. " He grinned at the memory. "Tell you what. You come around -- oh, four, five times a week after we get the rigs set is the morning -- and I'll get you started. But don't get in a hurry."
That had been several months ago, and it hadn't been quite as simple as that. His mother had gone dead white when Tommy burst into the Zane trailer and exploded with the news. He'd met the new flyers, and one of them said he would teach him to fly, had even let him up on the rigging.
"I'll have something to say to that young man," she snapped, hustling the lunch dishes into the kitchen sink. Tom Zane, lighting his after-dinner pipe, had taken it more calmly.
"Calm down, Beth. You've known since he was a kid that he was nuts about flying, and he's learned as much as Margot can teach him. I was going to ask Tonio Santelli to take him on--"
"Now look, Tom. I let him learn tumbling, work swinging ladders, aerial ballet, but the flying rig? Tom, that's sixty feet in the air! One slip--"
"Mother... " Tommy said, feeling the knot closing tight inside him again. "They use a forty-foot rigging. The people up at the top of the bleachers are almost that high. And there's a net."
"Look, Beth, I know the Santellis. Tonio was flying before you and I were born. None of them would let Tommy within a mile of the rig unless they were willing to look after him. I'm surprised they want to bother with the kid -- they usually work with the family, and don't let any outsiders in. Who was it, Tommy? The old man -- Antonio?"
"No, the kid. The one they call Mario."
)
