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platform near the top of the tent, holding on with one hand and waving down at the crowd, smiling widely—his eyes still vacant—glittering in spangly tights that caught light from the lights aimed at him and only looked a little bit tacky and worn; there bigger than life, there what seemed hundreds of feet above the ground …
    There stood Amos.
    “Oh,” Dunc said—whispered to himself. “Oh no. Amos. Not really. Don’t do this, Amos.” He’d have to get Amos down, get him down without hurting him, but even as he thought it, he saw how impossible it would be.
    Amos was near the top of the center pole on the small stand, his head up close to the canvas of the roof, and the only way up to himwas right up the center of the pole on a small ladder.
    Dunc would have to get to the center of the tent and climb the ladder and somehow drag Amos back down against his will.
    Just impossible.
    Still, Dunc thought, they were best friends for life. He had to try.
    Dunc made his way through the crowds, which were already taking their seats while the small band—Willy and Billy with trumpets—finished the fanfare. Willy jumped from the bandstand out into the middle of the ring and took a microphone from a stand.
    “Ladeeees and gentlemen! Welcome to the Classic Grand Old Circus! Before the grand entrance parade, hold on to your hats and watch the top of the tent—”
    Dunc was at the pole. He grabbed the metal rungs of the ladder and started climbing.
    “—for our first act. The death-defying high-bar trapeze performed by the bravest of the brave, a young man from your own home town. His name is Am—”
    The microphone cut out. Willy kept talkingand hit it with his hand, but Amos’s name was lost.
    Dunc was at the platform.
Don’t look down
, he thought—
just don’t look down
. His hand was reaching up on the platform, was an inch from Amos’s ankle.
    “Amos!” Dunc yelled. “Amos, don’t do this!”
    Billy ran back to the bandstand and picked up his trumpet and joined Willy, and the music swelled higher and higher, and Amos nodded, grabbed the bar with both hands.
    “No! Amos, don’t! You don’t know what you’re doing!”
    Amos stepped off into space.

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    Dunc scrambled up onto the platform, still not looking down, just in time to see Amos swinging, growing smaller as he swung away.
    Maybe
, Dunc thought,
if I don’t look, maybe it won’t happen
.
    But he had to look, and Dunc was stunned to find Amos doing everything perfectly. He acted as if he’d been doing trapeze acts all his life.
    Amos swung away with almost perfect rhythm, arching his back and kicking to make the bar go higher.
    Dunc stole a quick look down at the crowd, and they had gone silent and all had theirfaces up, hundreds of silent faces watching Amos. Just in back of the bandstand, Dunc thought he could see Melissa.
    Amos finished the swing out, kicked up at the canvas of the top of the tent, and started back. On the way back toward Dunc he curled up and stuck his legs through and hung by his knees.
    The crowd oohed.
    Amos’s swing brought him close to Dunc, and Dunc made a grab but missed. For a moment Amos hung at the top of the swing, upside down, facing Dunc, and his eyes were still glazed.
    He started the swing back, the speed picking up rapidly, and halfway through the swing he suddenly straightened his legs and dropped to hang by his ankles and feet wrapped around the ropes.
    The crowd gasped.
    Dunc looked down and saw that Melissa was standing, one hand to her mouth. Well, he thought, Amos had gotten her attention.
    It was on the fourth swing back that things began to go wrong.
    Perhaps because of the wind rushing pasthis face, or just the passage of time—whatever the reason, the dazed condition wore off.
    Amos swung back toward Dunc, hanging by his heels, and as he came up to Dunc, his eyes cleared and he recognized his friend.
    “Dunc, what’s happening?”
    He looked down.
    His eyes came back to Dunc, wide with fear