Chapter Eight
From Brewer’s The Dictionary of Phrase and Fable:
"Right Foot Foremost: In Rome a boy was
stationed at the door of a mansion to
caution visitors not to cross the threshold
with their left foot, which would have
been an ill omen."
For almost three weeks Mikhael Staffiev had coached Freddy Wales on stilt-walking. In that short time, with only an hour a day to practice she had gotten to be very good at it. She had been sure that should could master the art, even though her earliest attempts had proven to be awkward and dangerous. After her fifth fall, a topple that took her over a small embankment in the park near Mikhael’s apartment, he had taken her off the long stilts, which kept her two feet above the ground and put her on the lower ones which only allowed her to rise twelve inches. She did much better on those, but after a few days she was dying to try the higher ones again.
"I’m ready for them now," she told Mikhael who agreed with her. Her balance had improved quickly on the lower pair and her confidence level had risen with her success. He switched her back to the two-foot high foot rests and watched her wend her way around the park on them. He definitely felt the pride that any parent or teacher experiences with the success of an effort by a youngster.
"You have mastered the art," he said to her midway through the third week.
"Thanks. It’s not so hard." She smiled at him and from the way she smiled he knew there was a question coming and he already knew what it was. Before she could continue he answered her unspoken query.
"Yes, Freddy, I have higher ones. And yes, Freddy, you can try them tomorrow." She hugged him hard and was laughing with anticipation when she finally let him go.
"You’re wonderful," she said as she stepped back a step. "Wonderful. A wonderful friend!"
"And you too are wonderful, Fredericka," he responded. "You are more wonderful because you have done so much so quickly."
"But it’s easy," she laughed.
"Is it?" He looked just a tiny bit crestfallen. "I took much longer to master this art."
"You’re a boy," she said, "and boys always take longer. Girls are quick studies and are naturally graceful. Boys are awkward."
"I am not awkward," he said trying to contain his annoyance at her pronouncement.
"No, not especially, awkward," she admitted.
"Then why did you say that?"
"I don’t know, Mikhael." She paused. "It’s what girls say, I guess."
"Well boys say things too."
"Don’t I know it? They say a lot of them about me, I guess."
"You still worry about ‘them?’ You are being foolish. You don’t need ‘them.’ You are better than them."
"Oh, Mikhael, you sometimes say the nicest things."
"You’re welcome, Freddy."
"I didn’t say thank you."
"You did, though," he told her. "In your way, you did."
He took the stilts from her and before she could say anything more, he was off, on his way home, the stilts balanced on his shoulder.
The next afternoon he met her with two pairs of stilts, their foot rests set considerably higher than any Freddy had managed thus far. They kissed once briefly as he greeted her before leading her by the hand to a nearby park bench. He climbed onto the seat, pulling her up alongside him. They faced the upright crossbeams of the bench’s back. Mikhael handed her a pair of stilts, keeping one for himself. These he planted on the ground behind the bench. Freddy followed his lead.
Mikhael climbed up on the back of the park bench, his arms held high on the upright beams of his stilts. He had chosen a position that would give him extra support, his feet flanking the two side of the cement that formed the brace arch for both seat and back support.
"Come on, do the same," he said to Freddy who was trying to pull herself up to his position. She was having a harder time than she had previously had when following his lead.
"I can’t get my balance," she said.
"Here, watch me," he said clambering down to the seat again. "Do what I am doing. You hold both of the stilts in your right hand and to the right of the upright, see?"
She nodded and followed suit.
"Then you place your left foot at the top of the seatback, like this." He did it and she did also. "Then you use your weight to balance as you pull yourself up there. Come on, do it. See, see how your right foot comes up to meet its mate?"
She did, actually, and she told him so.
"Now you put down your right and you are home free."
Freddy did as she was told and found it worked.
"Now what?" she asked, but she already knew what came next.
"Now separate the stilts and put one on each side of your feet, on the outside, Freddy. OK. Move one foot to the foot rest. Good. Now the other. You have it. Come. Let’s walk together."
Awkwardly they moved away from the park bench, Freddy a bit unsteady standing on the small wooden beams which were an extrusion from the stilts themselves. Mikhael moved naturally, but Freddy, at this new height, seemed to be unsure of herself. The boy kept reassuring her about her skills, her abilities, telling her how well she was doing, but he had no way to help her in case of emergency. This had worried him but he was sure she could manage the taller stilts and still manage to add the purchase of an ice cream cone if they were lucky enough to find a vendor.
They walked on their three-footers for almost a half mile, their steps lengthy, giving them the opportunity to cover four times as much ground in the same time. As they walked Freddy would shout questions at him, but he could easily let them pass if he wanted too because he could feign an interest in his, or her, difficulties in passage. She only made two attempts to ask him about his father this time before dropping the topic for the day. It no longer mattered as much to her as it had a few weeks earlier. Now her thoughts were devoted to Mikhael and the stilts. She loved the stilts.
Unable to locate an ice cream vendor, Mikhael turned his steps in the direction of the Central Park Zoo; Freddy followed him instantly, thrilled at her sudden sharp turn not bringing her down to the ground.
"I’m much steadier today," she shouted after his retreating back.
"I know." His call came from very far away, it seemed. "Come on, catch up."
"I will, too," she called back to him. She increased her pace, lifting her legs as best she could while holding on to her stilts at the top. She saw him veer off to the left and she decided to do the same thing, only sooner, to possibly head him off by so-doing. Using her hands to steer herself she moved to the left, lifting her left stilt and turning her leg in that same direction, pulling her right foot and stilt after her. It was a long, hard pull, much moreso than she had considered while making this drastic turn. Her miscalculation had obvious results: she tripped herself forward, lost her balance and fell in the direction of the large granite stones that piles up the hillside on this side of the park. They loomed up quickly, heading right for her face. She swivelled her hips, hoping to break her fall and possibly even avoid the slabs of stone altogether. Instead she landed on her side, her hip protected from the natural obstruction by her stilt, but without anything to cushion her arm. She knew, before she even heard the sound, that she was about to break her bones. She was right.
The pain was intense. It was all she could do to not scream and carry on. She wasn’t going to be the prim and proper "girl" in this situation. She was going to tough it out like a boy, like a prince of a boy would. Several people, witnessing her fall and probably even hearing her body connect with the rocks, rushed to her side to offer what help they could. Mikhael was nowhere in sight, certainly not there among them.
"My stilts," she muttered. "Did I break my stilts?"
"No, not really," someone said, someone young she thought from the sound of his voice. "Are you an acrobat?"
"No." She grunted out her response to the question.
"Ok. Sorry," came the voice in reply.
"What did you mean, not really?" she asked, gasping for air, still not screaming her pain.
"One of them looks chipped, is all," said the boy, she knew now it was a boy.
"Help me, please, someone," she said and she began to cry. Her pain was suddenly overwhelming now that her lungs were providing her with the proper amount of air. "I’m hurt, I think."
"Can I help you stand?" the boy asked.
"Leave her alone, boy," said an older a person, a woman Freddy thought. "You never move an accident victim."
"Here’s a cop," someone else shouted. "Hey, officer, over here. This little acrobat girl has hurt herself."
Freddy heard, rather than saw, the crowd parting a bit to let the policeman through. She saw the brim of his hat, then his face, then his uniform with its dark uniform blue hues. He held out his hands and gently touched her arm and she shouted out words she hadn’t known she remembered, none of them what people associated with young girls. A few of the by-standers stood back a bit. Not the boy, however.
"We need an ambulance, I think. Can someone go and call an ambulance?"
"Yeah, I will," said a man somewhere in the crowd.
"No need," the cop called after him. "I’m radioing now." He held up his walkie-talkie. "It’s a done deal. Folks, please step back a bit. Give the kid a chance to breathe."
Officer Cathcart asked her a few questions, her name, her age, her phone number so they could call her mother. She responded to everything as she normally would but with each question, or rather each answer, she was more and more in pain. When he was done, she asked about Mikhael, about her friend.
No one remembered seeing him. No one knew where he might be. She called out his name, but there was no response.
"I’ll be your friend for now," the boy said, the one who talked to her already, the one who had called in the police.
"I don’t need another friend," Freddy said.
"I think you do," the boy replied. "I think you must because your other friend seems to have disappeared somewhere."
The logic of his reasoning made sense, but Freddy wasn’t eager to accept it or to accept him. She called out to Mikhael again and again got no answer.
"He doesn’t seem to be anywhere," the boy said.
"He must be close by. I was following him when I fell."
"He’s gone now," someone else told her.
"What does he look like?" a woman asked.
"He looks like... well, he’s on stilts like mine," she said suddenly unsure how to describe Mikhael. She could see his face and even his clothing, but she couldn’t quite describe them out loud.
Two people removed themselves from the rocks where Freddy lay in pain. They were back quickly to report on their findings. "No one on stilts out there," they both said, almost simultaneously.
"He must be," Freddy insisted, but she knew they were right. She knew that Mikhael had gone on without her for some reason.
"I’m here," the boy said. "Let me help, please."
She thought about this for minute, a long, long actual minute, before she spoke.
"Okay. My name is ...."
"Yes, I heard you tell the cop," he said. "My name is Maxwell Draper."
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