“You’re mean.” She let out a loud whistle, then turned and ran off.
As she disappeared around the school, Bowdler pulled his hand from his pocket. He wouldn’t need any weapons tonight.
showdown
“OKAY, I DID it,” Torchie said when he got back to us. “Now give me my pants.”
“What pants?” Martin asked.
“You had my pants,” Torchie said.
Martin shrugged. He looked at Cheater. Cheater shrugged.
“Knock it off and give him his pants.” I liked kidding Torchie as much as anyone else, but it would be beyond cruel to leave him in a skirt.
Flinch handed over the pants. Torchie pulled them on under the skirt, then slipped the skirt off.
“Are you sure you got close enough?” I asked.
“I hope so,” Torchie said.
We’d find out soon enough. When we reached the back of the school, I saw two people standing near the bleachers at the opposite side of the ball field. Even from a distance, I could tell it was Bowdler and Lucky. The field lights were off, but the back of the school was lit up enough so we weren’t in total darkness.
When we were about ten yards away from Bowdler, I reached out and plucked some grass at his feet to test my powers. It worked. The disrupter was disabled. Bowdler was at my mercy. I could rip his heart out right now, and we could all walk away.
“You got your power?” Martin whispered.
I nodded.
“Take him out.”
Bowdler walked toward us with Lucky in front of him. Bowdler’s hands gripped Lucky’s shoulders, as if he was steering him. He stopped a couple of yards from me.
“You okay?” I asked.
Lucky’s eyes seemed foggy, but he nodded.
“It’s over,” I said. “Let him go.”
I plucked a button from Bowdler’s jacket, just to let him know he’d lost. I couldn’t wait to see the look of fear on his face when he realized he didn’t have any way to stop me.
“Very clever,” Bowdler said. He didn’t seem ready to accept defeat. I guess an ego that large needs time to react—sort of like a super tanker.
I plucked a second button from his jacket, floated it up in the air, then bounced it off his forehead.
He didn’t even blink. “You’re quite a smart boy, Eddie.” He took his right hand off Lucky’s shoulder.
I plucked the last button and chucked it toward the school.
Bowdler took his left hand off Lucky’s shoulder. “It looks like you’ve outsmarted me. Sadly for you, looks are deceiving.”
He draped his hands back over Lucky’s shoulders. I was ready to react if he had a gun. My stomach tightened as I saw what he was holding. In one fist, he had a hand grenade. In the other, he had the pin. He tossed the pin to the side, and then laughed.
“Here’s the thing,” Bowdler said. “With a normal grenade, you’ve got five seconds. Plenty of time for you to deal with it. Of course, I’d be a fool to bring a normal grenade. I’ve got the detonator rigged to explode the instant I let go. You can pull it away as fast as you want, but I don’t think you can pull it away fast enough to keep from getting turned into Swiss cheese by the shrapnel. Remember, I am the world’s greatest, and only, expert on the limits of your powers. I don’t think you’re fast enough. Want to find out?”
“You’re crazy.”
He slipped the hand with the grenade inside the neck of Lucky’s shirt. “Oh, look. It just got even tougher. Maybe you had a slight chance before. But you really can’t pull it away fast enough now.”
“You’d die, too,” I said.
He shrugged. “We’d all die. You, me, your parents. Your friends’ parents.”
“What?” I felt the whole meeting was spinning out of control. We’d already won. How could we be losing now?
“If I don’t make a phone call in fifteen minutes, a chain of events will be set in motion, ending with quite a few tragic accidents.”
“What do you want?” I asked.
“You. I want to finish what I started. I want to turn you into the perfect weapon. Of course, I’ll need you to take your medicine again, just for the ride back. Happily, I brought a bottle of it with me. Unwatered, of course.”
I thought about yanking the grenade from his hand. But I wasn’t sure I could get it away in time. Especially now that it was under Lucky’s shirt. When I pictured it in my mind, I saw it exploding instantly, right in my face—tearing all of us into shreds, like one of those horrible videos they show on the evening news.
“If I come with you, you’ll leave the others alone?”
“You have my word,” Bowdler said.