Excerpt from The Tightrope Walkers by David Almond, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Miss Fagan's face darkened, a rare occurrence.

"H o l l y," 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, Vincent seemed to lose interest in him. He turned his attentions to a boy of his own age called Bernard, who lived on the far side of our estate. Bernard wore knee-length shorts and battered plimsolls and glasses with one lens blocked by grimy Elastoplast. It was said that he was even simpler than Norman, that he couldn't read, couldn't write, that even the kindness of Miss Fagan and the cruelties of Miss O'Kane had been unable to change him.

Like many children, Vincent and Bernard left the premises at dinnertime. But they did not go home like others did, to lunch on egg and chips or tomato soup. They played games with fires and knives. They dug down into the ancient pit heap nearby. Vincent forced Bernard into tunnels in the earth, seeking the entrances to the ancient workings below. Sometimes Bernard encountered ghosts and came out screaming. The two boys had been seen swim-ming naked together in the filthy Tyne. They'd been seen strug-gling, grunting, wrestling, groaning. We even heard that Vincent drank Bernard's blood. And it was said that they committed sins so awful that they were beyond forgiveness, sins that would consign them both to Hell forevermore.

One sun-filled day I caught sight of them. I was alone, gazing through a fence towards Simpson's Shipyard. I was lost in thoughts of Dad. I tried to imagine him crawling through darkness and fumes. Tried to pinpoint the noise of the caulking hammers ham-mering on steel. Tried to imagine his own hammer jumping and rattling in his hands. To imagine the showers of sparks that arose around the welders' rods, the red-hot fragments of flying metal. I saw the goggles he wore, the oily cap, the battered knee pads, bat-tered boots, the cigarette that dangled at the corner of his mouth. I heard him wheezing, coughing, hawking, spitting. Imagined him grinning at his mates, snarling at the foremen, cursing the time-keepers, the gate controllers, the managers, the draughtsmen in their offices, the bliddy owners.

Then I saw Vincent. He was kneeling in the field outside, just where it slanted down towards the river. Bernard was at his side, on all fours in the long pale grass. He was very still and his head was hanging downward like a beast's. Vincent leaned close to him, as if in tenderness, as if softly whispering something into his friend's ear. A few seconds of this, then Vincent touched Bernard's neck, and Bernard slumped into the grass and out of sight, as if he'd died. Vincent gazed down and watched. Then turned, and it was as if he knew I'd been watching. I could see him grinning even from this distance. He raised his hand and beckoned me. I wanted to run, but couldn't turn. Tried to see some movement in the place where Bernard had gone. Vincent stood up and started to wade through the grass towards me. I couldn't move. Said a rapid prayer in fright, then saw Bernard rising, and I ran, and heard Vincent laughing, and calling out, "I'm comin! I'm just behind ye, Dom! Aaaaah!"

The Tightrope Walkers Copyright © 2014 by David Almond. Reproduced by permission of the publisher, Candlewick Press, Somerville, MA.