True Talents(19)

“That’s all.”

I made my escape and headed off toward the stairs. One thing at Edgeview was no different from any other school I’d been to—I had homework. Not a lot, but I had some math problems to do and some reading for English. From what I’d seen, at least half the kids didn’t bother doing their homework, but I figured it would help kill some time. I decided to go back to the room and get started on it.

As I reached the top of the stairs, a door down the hall flew open with a bang. Nobody came out of the room. I glanced inside as I passed the open doorway. That kid Trash, the one I’d asked about in the cafeteria, was in the room, sitting at a desk, hunched over with a pencil in his hand.

Just after I turned my eyes away, I heard this fluttering whoosh, followed by a bang that made me duck and cover my head. Something had slammed into the wall right behind me, hitting hard enough to knock out a piece of plaster.





TORCHIE FLICKS AWAY

I spun and looked down at the math book lying on the floor. Talk about a deadly weapon. I picked it up and stared back into the room. Okay—I’d taken enough crap for one day. More than enough. I walked in. The kid glanced up, watching me with empty eyes.

“You trying to hit me?” I asked. “If you were, you’d better practice. Your aim sucks.” I held out the book, ready to jump back if he took a swing at me. He was about my size—hard to tell for sure, since he was sitting—maybe a couple inches taller and a few pounds heavier, but close enough so I figured I could take him if I had to.

“I wasn’t trying to hit you.” He reached up, took the book from me, and tossed it on the bed. I noticed there was just one bed in the room. Torchie had told me that some of the rooms were so small they didn’t try to cram two people inside.

I relaxed a bit and glanced around the room. Whoa—it looked like the inside of a rock tumbler. The window was boarded over with a sheet of plywood. There were chips of plaster missing from spots on all four walls. Most of the books in the room were piled in one corner. Tangled clothing covered the floor of the closet. The closet door was smashed through in a couple of spots and hanging from one hinge.

“You must be Trash,” I said.

“I must be.”

“I’m Martin,” I said, holding out my hand.

“Nice to meet you.”

We shook hands. His grip was a lot stronger than I expected. I took a step back. “Well, I’ve got homework. Better get to it.”

“Okay.” He turned back to his sketch pad.

I looked over his shoulder. It started out as a quick glance, but what I saw locked me in place. He was drawing this incredible scene of a rocket shooting across an alien landscape. I watched him for a few minutes, but he didn’t look back up, so I went out the door and down the hall to my room.

As I got close to the room, I heard voices from inside. It sounded like Torchie and Lucky. Torchie was saying, “We can trust him.”

“Maybe,” Lucky said. “But I don’t want to take any chances, so let’s not rush.”

“Okay,” Torchie said.

I waited to see if they would say anything else about me, but they didn’t. After a while, I felt funny standing out there listening. So I rattled the knob to make sure they heard me coming, and then went in.

“Hi,” Torchie said a little too quickly.

“Hi.” I sat at my desk and got started on my homework while Torchie and Lucky found another topic of conversation. It was okay if they had a secret. I was new, and it would take a while before they trusted me. I was pretty sure the secret had something to do with Friday nights, because they’d almost let something slip about that already.

A few minutes later, there was a knock on the door. Principal Davis stuck his head in and said to Torchie, “Come with me, please, Philip.”

Torchie sighed as he went past me and muttered, “Didn’t do nuthin’.” He followed the principal out into the hallway.

“What do you think will happen to him?” I asked Lucky.

He shrugged. “No way to guess.” He stared at me. I was afraid he’d start shouting again. Instead, he quietly said, “I look out for my friends. Understand? Torchie—he’s my friend. Same with Cheater and Flinch. They’re my friends. You treat them okay, we’ll get along.”





I nodded. “No problem.”

He stood up. “See you later.”

“Bye.”

About an hour later, Torchie came back. He smelled like smoke. Well, he always smelled like smoke, but right now it was stronger than ever. “What happened?” I asked.

“They made me light fires. Can you believe that? For a whole hour, they just kept making me burn pieces of paper.” He held up his right thumb. “Look. I got a blister from the lighter.”