Boasting of Humility: Part Five

This is kid climbing prodigy, Brooke Raboutou. She climbed her first 5.14 at only 11 years old!
Now 14 years old and under five feet tall, she's still breaking climbing records.
She served as part of the inspiration for my character, Paul Samson. 

Below are the final two pages of chapter one of Paul, Big and Small. Once you're finished reading, I would greatly appreciate it if you took a moment to give me some feedback.

I stepped up to the wall and the man who worked it started helping me buckle into the harness. After a moment he realized the harness was too big, and he had to switch it for a kid sized one that had pictures of monkeys on it. I felt my face heat up with embarrassment. This kind of stuff was always happening to me. The guy must have noticed my face because he whispered, “Don’t worry about it. No one can see that it’s a child’s harness.”

Right then Baldy’s youngest kid who was maybe five or six said, “Look, Mom! His has monkeys on it!”  

The kid didn’t mean it to be cruel. She seemed to really be excited about the monkeys, but then everyone within earshot started laughing, especially old Baldy himself. He burst out with this deep bellowing laugh that sounded like cannon fire and was aimed straight at me. Even my dad cracked the tiniest of smiles. 

The guy putting on my harness moved so that he was between me and the crowd and said, “Look, it’s really not that hard. Everyone thinks rock climbing is all about muscle and strength but it’s not. It’s about finesse and balance.” 

“What?” I said. I had no idea what “finesse” was. It sounded like a word you’d use to describe shampoo not rock climbing. 

“Never mind,” he said as he finished clipping me into the rope. “All you have to do is climb with your feet. Think foot holds not hand holds, think balance not strength, and…” he must have noticed I didn’t understand anything that he was saying because then he said, “Just enjoy yourself and forget about everyone else. Now go.” 

Easy for him to say. He was tall and lean. His tan face had a week’s worth of scruff and his long brown hair was sun bleached. He looked like he just got back from an Everest expedition or something. 

I stepped up to the wall and looked around. There seemed to be plenty of holds to choose from, so I just grabbed one with each hand, looked down and found a hold for each foot and stepped up. So far so good. I looked up and found two more handholds and repeated the process. This wasn’t so bad. In fact, this was pretty easy.  

I did the same thing again only this time, when I stepped up with my feet, I found an even higher foothold. It was bigger and I thought it would help me to make some extra progress. It seemed to work at first, but then I realized I was off balance. I couldn’t let go with either hand or I’d fall. Now what? The sun was beating down on me and my hands were starting to sweat. I had gotten myself into kind of a scrunched up position, and my muscles were starting to feel the strain. I looked down to find that I was only five feet off the ground. How pathetic.  

“Ha! See that? He’s barely off the ground, and he’s already about to fall. Just give up now, shrimp. It’s impossible anyway,” I heard Baldy say.  

A shot of anger coursed through me and I renewed my determination to hang on. I started looking from handhold to handhold but, I couldn’t make up my mind which one to go for. There were three of them only a foot or two from my face, easily within reach, but I just couldn’t let go long enough to grab any of them. 

I was just about to make a hopeless slap for a hold when I heard the guy working the wall say, “Think about your feet.” My feet? My feet weren’t the problem. My feet were fine. It was my hands I couldn’t move and they were starting to sweat off the holds.  

“He’s right, Son,” my dad said. “Your feet are so high up, you’ve gotten yourself off balance. Step back down and you’ll be fine.” 

“Hey!” The wife/girlfriend said. “You can’t help him.” 

“Oh, let ‘em. He’s not going anywhere,” said Baldy. 

Baldy was right. They weren’t helping. What did my dad know anyway? He’d never climbed in his life. He wasn’t the one stuck only five feet up wearing a child’s harness with cartoon monkeys on it in front of everyone. I looked at my handholds again. I rocked my butt to the right and then to the left trying to find a way to get enough weight off my hands to move them. Nothing.  

I finally figured that since I was about to fall anyway, I may as well look down at my feet. I could see an okay-looking hold not far below my right foot. It wasn’t as big as the hold I was on, and it didn’t make any sense to move from a great big nice foot hold up high to a significantly smaller one down low, but I didn’t see any other options.  

I pasted my cheek to the wall, removed my foot, and slowly let it slide down. Once it hit the hold I was shocked to find half my weight was off my hands. I was almost… comfortable. I had enough balance now that I could let go with one hand, wipe the sweat off on my pants, and move it to one of the higher holds. Wow, I didn’t expect that. Now what the guy running the wall said made sense: climb with your feet, use balance and not strength. I still didn’t know what in the world this “finesse” thing was, but at least I was moving again.  

“Nice work, son,” my dad said. 

“That’s it,” the guy running the wall said. “Just keep that up.” 

I started up the wall looking down at my feet more than I was looking up. I always made sure I was balanced before I even thought about moving my hands. Now I understood why the man running the wall had looked at my shoes. So much depended on your feet. If I was in flip-flops or something, there was no way I could have made it this far. 

As I neared the top I heard baldy say, “He just got lucky. He won’t get past my high point.” 

“He’s already higher than you got, Dad,” his son said.

The holds were getting smaller and further apart and I was getting tired. I wasn’t sure if I was going to make it, but I was really starting to enjoy myself. I found that as the holds got smaller I was able to focus more. I know it’s a little corny, but I started to imagine I was some kind of super precise machine like the ones that put cars together on assembly lines, everything exact with no wasted energy. I watched each foot until it landed exactly where I wanted it on each foothold. I found the best possible way to grip each handhold no matter how small. Each time I moved, it was as if the only thing that existed in the whole world was that one hold. I felt almost weightless. Everything disappeared from my mind. I was a single point in the universe. Then suddenly there was a shiny brass bell in my face. I was surprised to see it, and it broke my concentration.  

I heard Baldy and his wife/girlfriend chanting, “Fall! Fall! Fall! Fall!” I looked down at them confused. Why were they yelling at me to fall? Then the strange spell of the climbing lifted, and I remembered the bet and the insults. I smiled. My strength was draining fast and I couldn’t have lasted much longer, but I pretended to yawn and patted my mouth with one hand. 

Then, as casual as I could, I reached out and rang the bell. 

So there it is, chapter one. I hope you enjoyed it. Any input you readers might have would be extremely helpful. Here are a a few questions I have for you, but I'm open to any suggestions at all:

• The first chapter is vital for capturing the attention of readers (and agents and publishers!). So that brings me to the most important question of all: if you had this book in your hands, would you turn the page and keep reading? 
• When I wrote this, I was very tempted to make poor Paul fail on the climbing wall at the fair. I still might (sorry, Paul). What if it ended with him falling just as he was reaching out to ring the bell? Would that make you sympathize with him more and maybe laugh a little, too? Would it make you more or less likely to turn the page and keep reading?
• Does the character of Paul seem like a real person that you're interested in reading more about? 
• Any other comments or suggestions? Do you have any questions for me?