Excerpt from The Tightrope Walkers by David Almond, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Vincent was in the class of the dreaded Miss O'Kane. Once we had left Miss Fagan's, all of us were taken to that room each Friday morning to be tested. We walked along a stone-paved corridor and up an iron stairway to the heavy wooden half-glazed classroom door. One of the clever ones would be told to knock. Miss O'Kane's cold voice would call upon us to enter. And so we entered.

Miss O'Kane waited, sitting on her high chair. The cane of Miss O'Kane waited also, resting before her on her desk.

It was so easy. Who made you? Why did God make you? Where is God? These were simple things to recollect. And there was even a degree of kindness in the asking, for it was only we clever few—myself, Holly Stroud, a handful of others—who were ever called upon to respond to the complicated questions. What were the chief sufferings of Christ? What is Hope? What does the Fifth Commandment forbid? In how many ways can we cause or share the guilt of another's sin?

Despite that, many failed, and kept on failing. Of course it was often nervousness as much as dullness, or the expectation of failure, or an acceptance of the habit of suffering. There were those who knew perfectly well one week what was meant by a Mystery, only to have totally forgotten just a few short days later. Those who did not know their answer, or who had forgotten, were called to stand before us at the front. And it was then that the cane of Miss O'Kane was lifted from the desk.

"Yes, it is important," she would say, "to know your letters and your numbers. But it is more important to understand why it is that you were placed upon this earth, and it is essential to know what will happen when you die. Put out your hand."

One day when the sky outside was all tormented she turned with spite to Norman Dobson.

"What," she asked him, "will Christ say to the wicked?"

I and many others caught our breath. Surely Norman shouldn't be given such a question, which came from deep within the cat-echism and which needed such a complex answer. The school by now saw him as beyond help, or as one beyond the need of help, destined to become a labourer in the yard, or a cleaner, the lowest of the low.

But Miss O'Kane decided that day that his faith must be tested. Maybe her impatience was at a peak that day. Maybe there were troubles in her own life, a life that we children had no notion of.

"Come along, Norman Dobson!" she snapped. "What will Christ say to the wicked?"

Someone hissed the beginning of an answer. A glare from Miss O'Kane stopped that. Norman stuttered, stumbled, did not know."Oh, Norman," sighed Miss O'Kane. "Have you forgotten? Perhaps it is a sign that you are indeed one of those to whom God will refer on the Day of Judgement, when He says to you these words. Listen to them closely. Are you ready? 'Go away from me, with your curse upon you, to the eternal fire prepared for the Devil and his angels.' Did you listen, Norman? Did you understand?"

"Y-y . . ."

"Good boy. If you do not learn these things and live according to God's will, you will spend a lifetime building your own fire, and in death you will walk straight into it. Do you understand that?"

"Y-y . . ."

"You do not. You are too dull. God's words must be beaten into you. Now repeat them after me."

She spoke them again, phrase by phrase. He stammered the answer, phrase by phrase.

"Go away from me . . ."

"G-go away f-from me . . ."

"Well done," she said when they reached the end. "Perhaps you will be saved after all, Norman. Would you like to be saved? Good boy. Now put out your hand and we will help you in that purpose."

And Norman presented his obedient outstretched palm to her. And she raised the cane so high and brought it down so fast, and she hit Norman's hand in time to her chanting of the true response.

The Tightrope Walkers Copyright © 2014 by David Almond. Reproduced by permission of the publisher, Candlewick Press, Somerville, MA.