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coins.’
    ‘But I can’t do any tricks,’ I said, frightened of diminishing his enthusiasm, but unable to restrain my anxiety.
    ‘Bea can you do any tricks? At all?’
    Bea shook her head. ‘I can do a handstand.’
    Bilal was undeterred. ‘I train you. We start today. Very soon you will be doing this.’ He demonstrated with a backward somersault right there in the kitchen.
    That afternoon we dressed in shorts and T-shirts and spread a blanket over the paving-stones. ‘Soon,’ Bilal said, ‘you won’t be needing any carpet.’
    We started with roly-polies. Head over heels. The names made Bilal laugh. Our attempts to perfect this simple trick did not. My version of a roly-poly was a slow tumble which culminated in a star, as I lay flat on my back, my legs and arms stretched in different directions, staring up at the sky. The best part of it, I thought.
    ‘You must end up on your feet.’ Bilal frowned. ‘Watch me.’ From a standing position Bilal took a couple of quick steps, then, tucking in his head, rolled through the air, his bent back barely touching the ground, and he was upright again. ‘You see,’ he said. ‘A flying rolly-polly.’
    We kept working at it, Bilal was patient and encouraging. As part of our training he took us regularly to the square, where we sat and watched the acrobats. For me they had taken on a new majesty. They were tiny and fluid and without fear. They cartwheeled through hoops, formed themselves into pyramids and triple-somersaulted off the top, their bodies bending in half as they flew through the air. I imagined Bea and myself dressed in silk, our hair plaited out of the way, dextrous and skilful, taking a bow to the applauding crowd. We would have so many coins to collect that when we sent enough to Bilal’s family in the mountains so that he didn’t have to work on the building site any more, there would still be some left over. I took hold of Bilal’s hand. ‘I promise to practise every day, because…’ And I felt a rush of excitement as the beginnings of a great plan unravelled in my mind. ‘Because I’ve decided that when I grow up I want to be a tightrope walker. You won’t tell anyone, will you?’ Bilal nodded. Bilal was someone I could trust.
    That afternoon we walked home through the busy streets. I sat on Bilal’s shoulders high up above the crowd and from time to time I asked him to let go of my legs so that I could practise balance.
    We began going to the park for our training. Mum thought it would be better to practise acrobatic tricks on grass. As the weeks went by, our bodies didn’t turn into the fearless, weightless ones Bilal had hoped they would. Or at least Bea’s did a little more than mine, but not enough. We began to spend more and more time playing leapfrog, which anyone could do, or lying on the grass telling stories.
    Bilal continued to work on the building site. I realized that in order to be a tightrope walker I didn’t necessarily have to be an acrobat. So I kept to my own secret plan and practised balancing whenever I got the chance.

CHAPTER SIX
    As promised, Bilal took us to visit his family in the mountains. We travelled through a whole day on a bus packed with people and then shared a taxi with a man Bilal knew and was happy to see. We had presents of a large packet of meat and three cones of white sugar for Bilal’s mother.
    The whole village was waiting to greet us at the end of a narrow track that joined the road. ‘They welcome you like a wife,’ Bilal whispered as Mum stepped out of the taxi. She was dressed in a swirling blue cloak of material that covered her hair and swathed her body in folds that reached the floor. When she walked she drew up the cloth and let it hang over her shoulder.
    Bilal introduced us to his mother. She was a large lady with a throaty voice that billowed out from under her veil. Bilal’s father was really an old man and half her size.
    The women threw flower petals into the air and sang a low