Standing in the Rainbow - Fannie Flagg [6]
The Water Tower
MAYBE IT’S BECAUSE they are still short and close to the ground or maybe their senses have not yet been dulled by the years but to children days seem longer, smells stronger, colors brighter, noises louder, fun more fun. Bobby was no exception. He viewed the world each day through brand-new eyes, almost vibrating with excitement. If you could have plugged him into the wall he would have lit up like a 500-watt bulb. This was all very well and wonderful for him but for his family it was like living with a sixty-eight-pound puppy running in and out of the house all day. And this day, as usual, he and Monroe were up to something they shouldn’t be.
They had walked almost a mile outside of town, to the water tower that had ELMWOOD SPRINGS written on it in huge black letters, with the express intention of climbing all the way to the top. An idea that if his mother knew anything about would have caused her to have a heart attack or worse. Years before, a high school senior had fallen off and killed himself. But when you’re young facts do not concern you. You are convinced that nothing will ever happen to you. Besides, he and Monroe had double-dog-dared each other to climb it, so there was no turning back.
Secretly both of them were a little nervous. Scared that they might chicken out at the last minute. But overriding any fear of being called a sissy by the other was the lure of being able to brag to everyone they knew, except their parents, that they had climbed it. And just to make sure that everybody would know for certain they really had done it, Bobby had come up with a plan.
That morning he had gone over to Warren’s Hardware and bought a large ball of heavy string. Monroe had a pocketful of red balloons that they were going to blow up and tie to the top of the tower to prove to any nonbelievers that they had been there. But when they finally arrived at the base of the tower and looked up, what had appeared from a distance to be just a round silver ball hanging up in the sky now seemed as big as a football field. It was so high it hurt their necks to look up at it. People said that from the top if you turned around in a circle you could see six states and on a clear day you could see all the way to Iowa . . . at least that’s what they said. Bobby and Monroe hemmed and hawed and kicked the ground a little and discussed the balloon plan.
“Do you think we should blow them up before we go?” asked Monroe, stalling for time.
“No. Don’t you remember what we said? If we blow them up first, somebody might see them while we’re climbing up.”
“Oh, that’s right.”
“When we get to the top, we blow them up and tie them to the side, then get down as fast as we can.”
Monroe, a chunky, carrot-topped boy with pinkish skin, suddenly looked a little pale. He glanced back up at the top. “Who’s gonna go first?”
Bobby thought about it for a minute but made no move. Then Monroe said, “This was your idea. I think you should get to go first.”
“No, it’s O.K., you can go first if you want to. I don’t care.”
“No, fair is fair. You’re the one who thought it up—you go.”
Monroe had him there, so Bobby could not very well back down now. “O.K., if you’re scared, I’ll go first if you want me to.”
“I’m not scared, it was just your idea, that’s all.”
“Then you go first if you want to.”
Monroe looked back up at the top. That settled it. “I don’t want to.”
Bobby assumed a nonchalant attitude. “All right, I’ll go first, but remember—Macky Warren said the trick is not to look down until you get up there.”
“O.K.”
“All