Mirette works daily in her mother's boardinghouse doing laundry, cleaning, assisting in the kitchen and running errands. Most of the guests came from the entertainment world, so someone finally recognized the man who had wanted to take his meals alone in his secluded room. After seeing the lodger balance himself on the clothesline, Mirette had already become acquainted with the retired high-wire walker and begged him to teach her that skill. "Once you start, your feet are never happy again on the ground," he told the child who then practiced in secret. Nineteenth-century Paris is the setting for this story of about overcoming fear, taking risks and establishing trust that is illustrated with full-color paintings. (Ages 6-9)

One day, a mysterious stranger arrives at a boardinghouse of the widow Gateau- a sad-faced stranger, who keeps to himself. When the widow's daughter, Mirette, discovers him crossing the courtyard on air, she begs him to teach her how he does it.

But Mirette doesn't know that the stranger was once the Great Bellini- master wire-walker. Or that Bellini has been stopped by a terrible fear. And it is she who must teach him courage once again.

Emily Arnold McCully's sweeping watercolor paintings carry the reader over the rooftops of nineteenth-century Paris and into an elegant, beautiful world of acrobats, jugglers, mimes, actors, and one gallant, resourceful little girl.