Read Online The Tightrope Walkers by David Almond - Free Book Online

that blended with the sky, the glow of fires beyond the hill, to see rockets screeching up into the night, the cascades of Roman candles, the whiz of Catherine wheels, to hear the snap and crack of bangers, to leap away when a jumping jack came snapping at your feet. To be with a crowd of adults and kids, all with faces shining in the light, all of them amazed, all of them excited and alive.

Vincent’s wasteland turned to war zone. He patrolled with a stick through his belt like a sword. He wore his sheath knife at his hip. He put warnings on the fire itself. Keep Off. Property of the McAlindens. Get Lost. Danjer of Death! He had a snarling dog on a bright steel chain. He had Bernard at his side. He sat by one of his holes in the far corner, from where he could scan it all. He had a little fire burning there. He cooked sausages on sticks, beans in billy cans, potatoes in the embers. He smoked little cigarettes, No. 6. He coughed and spat and glared at anyone who dared come near. He and Bernard took turns in the hiding place within the bonfire, ready to leap out and scare any plunderer.
    It was on a Saturday afternoon, when the light was quickly falling, that the burners came. How did Vincent not see them? Perhaps he just wasn’t as perceptive as he thought. Perhaps he was asleep and dreaming. Perhaps he had become complacent: surely nobody would ever truly dare to trespass against the McAlindens. Perhaps it was simply the lack of light. But why did the dog not bark? Because it was sleeping, too? But the dogs of the McAlindens had never been known to sleep, had never been known to miss a chance to slaver and howl and bark.
    The intruders didn’t come to steal. They simply came to burn, to set the bonfire alight days before its proper date, and to quickly disappear into the gathering night. What a lark! Just a joke. Just a way of getting a one-up on Vincent McAlinden. They must have been silent as death as they approached, as they crawled through the shadows to trickle their fuel, to empty their can, to strike a match, to slip away.
    How were they to know that poor Bernard was inside?
    I was in the kitchen with Mam. There was a sudden shudder in the air. There was a sudden glare above the wasteland. Flames leapt towards the stars. We didn’t know what it was, but we ran, and as we ran others were running at our side. The air raged and crackled. There was the stench of blazing petrol. We found the fire roaring.
    Vincent danced at the edges of the flames, screaming the name of Bernard, his only pal. A dog howled at his side. Vincent’s mother stood further back, holding her arm against the heat, yelling for Vincent to retreat.
    Bill Stroud phoned the fire service. Minutes later the fire engine could be heard roaring through town with its bells ringing, minutes after that here it came into the estate, and here came the firemen running, unrolling great hosepipes, then unleashing streams of water onto the flames.
    Holly came, and we stood there useless, holding hands.
    “He was in there?” she said.
    “He must have been.”
    “I saw him just yesterday.”
    “Get back!” the firemen called to all of us. “Go home.”
    The fire became a soaked and sunken hissing, smouldering thing. The firemen began carefully lifting ashes and half-burnt stuff away. We were told again to leave. This was not a thing that children should see.
    “Come on,” said Mam. “There’s nothing we can do.”
    She crossed herself and turned her eyes to Heaven.
    “Who’d do such a thing?”
    “Kids,” said Dad. “Just bliddy kids doing kids’ daft bliddy stuff.”
    Then Vincent was beside us.
    “I’ll get them,” he told us through his tears and snot. “I’ll catch the buggers and I’ll make them pay.”
    He ran away towards the flames, ran back again.
    “Is this what it’ll be like in Hell?” he said. He glared at Holly: wild eyes, bared teeth, skin blotched with soot and tears. “Draw me now! Draw me now! Draw