Page 102 of The Summer Show
I gave him a smile of gratitude and wiggled into the gloves.
Then I started to climb.
Fear had me by the throat for the whole climb. Rung after rung, the feeling of a nearby boogeyman refused to let up. Fear was seductive, I’ll give it that. Stay on the ground, it whispered. Let gravity take care of you, or gravity will really take care of you. Do you want to be a stain on these ancient stones?
Of course I didn’t.
But I wanted to rescue Nick more.
Not looking down helped. Out of sight, almost out mind.
The closer I got to the top, the more I could piece together what was happening on Nick’s end. He was good and pissed off, and I knew the mic attached to his clothing was picking up every curse word in two languages. Possibly three. I definitely caught a speck of Spanish as it whizzed past.
I debated calling out to him.
The thing was, all my energy was focused on climbing from one rung to the next. Adding chatter—even reassuring chatter—into the mix would only deplete my dwindling reserves faster. Really, this tower was too damn tall, and I was horribly unequipped for this kind of physical labor.
Silent perseverance was in my best interest.
What felt like a month later, I hauled my body over the edge of the platform. I immediately flopped down, spreadeagled, trying to persuade my muscles to stop screaming. There was enough energy left in my reserves to lift my head and inspect Nick.
Fortunately the tower’s platform had a railing that would stop a blindfolded, hand-tied man from sailing over the edge. Nick was using the railing to scrape off the blindfold, but wasn’t having much luck. He paused as I scrambled—cautiously, slowly—to my feet.
“Hi. Fancy meeting you here. Is this a coincidence, do you think?”
“I told you to get out,” he barked. With half his face covered, he still managed to look completely furious.
To add some levity I wasn’t feeling to the situation, I said, “You’re not my real dad, you can’t tell me what to do.”
I didn’t waste time waiting to see how that would affect his expression. With confidence I didn’t feel, I moved behind him and untied the blindfold. “When this comes off, I want you to sit down, okay?”
“What are you doing?”
“Ignoring your orders and untying this blindfold. After that, I plan to improvise.”
“I don’t want your help.”
“Maybe not, but you need it.”
One final tug and the blindfold fell away from his eyes. He stood stock still, staring at me like I was a problem he couldn’t solve.
“What did I tell you? Sit.”
To his credit, he sat. Clearly he was better at taking orders than me.
“Get out of here. This is my final event.”
“Yes, and you were rubbing your face on a smooth metal railing and going nowhere. Nobody wants to watch that for hours.” I sat down behind him and inspected his wrists. At Bush Lake I had access to a whole library full of non-fiction books that taught kids about the world in an age-friendly way. More than one of them, I was sure, was about knots.
Had I read those books?
No, I had not. A dad might say I had knot.
Hoping for the best, I located one loose end of the thin rope and began pushing it back the way it came. “How did they get you up here?”
“Boom lift.”
The cruelty of the whole thing make my hands shake. The rope slipped in my hands. I took a deep breath and tried again. This thing had been tied by King Kong.