He took an apple out of his pocket, bit into it, and then tossed it over the edge. There was no sound for
a long time. Then, a faint and sickening plop. Cressner chuckled.
He had broken my concentration, and I could feel panic nibbling at the edges of my mind with steel
teeth. A torrent of terror wanted to rush in and drown me. I turned my head away from him and did
deep-breathing, flushing the panic away. I was looking at the lighted bank sign, which now said: 8.46,
Time to Save at Mutual!
By the time the lighted numbers read 8.49, I felt that I had myself under control again. I think Cressner
must have decided I’d frozen, and I heard a sardonic patter of applause when I began to shuffle towards
the corner of the building again.
I began to feel the cold. The lake had whetted the edge of the wind; its clammy dampness bit at my
skin like an auger. My thin jacket billowed out behind me as I shuffled along. I moved slowly, cold or
not. If I was going to do this, I would have to do it slowly and deliberately. If I rushed, I would fall.
The bank clock read 8.52 when I reached the corner. It didn’t appear to be a problem – the ledge went
right around, making a square corner – but my right hand told me that there was a crosswind. If I got
caught leaning the wrong way, I would take a long ride very quickly.
I waited for the wind to drop, but for a long time it refused to, almost as though it were Cressner’s
willing ally. It slapped against me with vicious, invisible fingers, praying and poking and tickling. At
last, after a particularly strong gust had made me rock on my toes, I knew that I could wait for ever and
the wind would never drop all the way off.
So the next time it sank a little, I slipped my right foot around and, clutching both walls with my hands,
made the turn. The crosswind pushed me two ways at once, and I tottered. For a second I was
sickeningly sure that Cressner had won his wager. Then I slid a step further along and pressed myself
tightly against the wall, a held breath slipping out of my dry throat.
That was when the raspberry went off, almost in my ear.
Startled, I jerked back to the very edge of balance. My hands lost the wall and pinwheeled crazily for balance. I think that if one of them had hit the stone face of the building, I would have been gone. But
after what seemed an eternity, gravity decided to let me return to the wall instead of sending down to
the pavement forty-three stories below.
My breath sobbed out of my lungs in a pained whistle. My legs were rubbery. The tendons in my
ankles were humming like high-voltage wires. I had never felt so mortal. The man with the sickle was
close enough to read over my shoulder.
I twisted my neck, looked up, and there was Cressner, leaning out of his bedroom window four feet
above me. He was smiling, in his right hand he held a New Year’s Eve noisemaker.
‘Just keeping you on your toes,’ he said.
I didn’t waste my breath. I couldn’t have spoken above a croak anyway. My heart was thudding crazily
in my chest. I sidled five or six feet along, just in case he was thinking about leaning out and giving me
a good shove. Then I stopped and closed my eyes and deep-breathed until I had my act back together
again.
I was on the short side of the building now. On my right only the highest towers of the city bulked
above me. On the left, only the dark circle of the lake, with a few pinpricks of light which floated on it.
The wind whooped and moaned.
The crosswind at the second corner was not so tricky, and I made it around with no trouble. And then
something bit me.
I gasped and jerked. The shift of balance scared me, and I pressed tightly against the building. I was