One day, the school supplies decided to go to the circus nearby so as to have fun. They got very impressed by what they saw, since the show was filled with all sorts of exotic animals, from elephants that could stand in their own two feet, to monkeys who climbed to the highest points of the stage. What really amazed them, though, was a girl that walked with stilts.

“How come she doesn’t lose balance?”, our good compass wondered. He then saw the girl coming down from the stilts, using a rope ladder to climb high till the ceiling of the circus tent and performing a balance feat on the tightrope. What puzzled him even more, was that at some point she even started swirling around herself, never to look at the crowds below, only to take out a handkerchief, fasten it around her eyes, and continue walking on the tightrope as if nothing had happened a few seconds later. As soon as she reached the other end, she had made such a good impression that everybody applauded her for skills. The compass got really curious.

“What I wanted to ask you, is how come you don’t get dizzy”, the compass asked the girl as soon as the show was over and she went to her dressing room.

“The trick is to never let your eyes look down, and to not stop, not even for a moment”, the girl told him, offering him her handkerchief. As soon as he tied it around his eyes, he placed his one foot on a sheet of paper and tried to make a perfect circle.

“How did I do?”, the compass asked as soon as he managed to connect the two ends of the circle. He then took the handkerchief from his eyes to see what he had painted, and, as always, lost his balance one more time and fell on the ground. Yet this time, he had completed the circle. “And one last word… don’t be impatient!”, the acrobat girl advised him and fare welled him for the night. He then kept rehearsing on his own, until at some point, not only did he learn how to draw perfect circles, but also how to make big strides so as to measure distance without losing his balance.

Rumor has it that many years later, and after he had mastered his sense of balance, our good compass even decided to start professional dancing....