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By Root 1730 0

right then, let’s go.” Bobby took a deep breath and put his foot on the first rung of the ladder and started up the long, thin steel stairs that led to the top. As they both soon found out, it was a long and steep climb. What they had not counted on was how hot the sun would be the higher they got or how hard it was to hold on to the slippery rails with sweaty hands, not to mention the wind that almost blew them off the ladder. After what seemed an hour of climbing, they finally made it, both of them out of breath, dripping wet with perspiration, hot, and thirsty. When they stepped off the ladder onto the small, round corrugated-steel platform at the very top, their legs were so shaky from the climb that they had to sit down and rest. Monroe’s face was now about as bright red as the balloons in his pocket.

After a while they mustered the strength and the courage to stand up and look over the side. The first thing Monroe said when he looked over was: “Whoa! . . . We must be ten thousand hundred feet up in the air . . . higher than an airplane or the Empire State Building even!”

They weren’t, of course, but you sure could have fooled them. Bobby and Monroe had never seen the world from anything higher than a tree or the top of a garage. They could see for miles around, and when Monroe spotted a cornfield way off in the distance he was positive he had seen all the way up to Iowa.

Bobby was so overwhelmed at the sight he was speechless. He stood there stunned. He had not known what the world would look like from this far up. He had thought maybe it would look round, like the world globe in his father’s den, but to his surprise it was all flat! Nothing before him but big flat brown and green squares as far as the eye could see. It looked just like a map! But when Monroe spotted their town off to the right and pointed it out, Bobby was in for the second shock of his young life. “Look,” Monroe said, “there’s the church and the school—see it?”

Bobby’s mouth hung open in total disbelief. Elmwood Springs, which an hour ago had seemed to him to be such an enormous place, was now nothing more than a block of buildings, houses, and streets no bigger than an inch, just stuck sitting out there in the middle of nowhere. He could see where downtown was, the church on one end and the Masonic Hall on the other. The small black specks walking back and forth were no bigger than ants, and the cars looked like Matchbox toys; the buildings were the same size as the ones in a Monopoly set.

Monroe said, “Look, there’s your house . . . see the radio tower in the backyard?”

Bobby peered over to where Monroe was pointing. It was his house all right. He could see the red light on top of the radio tower and if he squinted he could just make out a black speck moving around in the backyard, hanging clothes on a clothesline. Then it struck him: that speck was his mother! At once another thought hit him, scaring him half to death. What if he were at home right now and out in the yard and somebody else was up here looking down at him? Then he would be no bigger than an ant. No, half an ant . . . no bigger than a flea! From up here he would no longer be the huge center of his huge universe, the apple of his parents’ eyes; from up here he would be nothing and nobody special, just another black dot. Suddenly he broke out in a cold sweat.

“I’ve got to go home, my mother’s calling me,” he said. He started back down, leaving a startled Monroe calling after him: “Wait. You can’t go . . . we haven’t done the balloons yet. Wait!”

But Bobby did not hear him. All he could hear was the sound of his own heart pounding in his ears and his only thought was to get on the ground as fast as he could. He had to get back home, where he was the right size.

But Monroe, who had been deserted, abandoned, was not going to leave. He was determined. If he had climbed all the way to the top, people were going to know about it. The heck with Bobby Smith; he would just blow up the balloons himself. As he pulled one out of his pocket and started to blow, he suddenly remembered.