There was silence in the room for a moment as that sunk in.
“You really want to stop Bloodbath, don’t you, Martin?” Torchie asked.
“Yeah.”
Torchie nodded. “Then I guess that’s what we want, too.”
“But who knows what they might try?” Flinch asked.
“Right,” Lucky said. “Who knows?”
At that moment, all the rest of us turned toward Cheater. “Who knows?” we all said. Then we all shouted the answer. “Cheater knows!”
“What?” Cheater said.
“You can find out their plans,” I told him. “Then we can stop them.”
“It sounds kind of dangerous,” Cheater said. “How can we stop Bloodbath and his gang? They’re too tough.”
“We’re smarter.”
I looked over at the source of those words.
Trash spoke quietly from his seat on the floor. “Between us, we’ve got a lot more brains than those thugs. And we have a few secrets. Watch this.”
WHY I LIKE BEING ME
EDDIE THALMAYER
LOST AND FOUND
Trash stared at Torchie’s desk, one corner of his mouth still turned up in a grin. Torchie’s notebook rose slowly and gracefully into the air. Then it opened and the pages started to turn, one by one. Three pencils floated up to join the book, each drifting in a different pattern. All three pencils moved to the paper and began drawing. My jaw dropped as I watched. The demonstration only lasted for about twenty seconds. Then the notebook shot straight up, slamming into the ceiling so hard that little chips of paint dropped down. The pencils spun across the room. Two of them bounced off the wall while the third stuck point-first, quivering in the plaster. Everything else ended up on the floor.
“Oops,” Trash said. “Still a bit rough at all of this. Guess I need more practice.”
“Looks like you’ve been practicing a lot,” I said. This went far beyond just throwing stuff.
Trash shrugged and grinned.
“So you think we can do it?” Flinch asked me. “Do you really think we can beat Bloodbath?”
“Sure. We’ll figure something out.” I realized that the others were looking toward me as the leader. That was a mistake. But I’d step aside as soon as I figured out who should really take charge. “We have less than a week. The inspection is on Friday.”
The rest of the day passed quietly. We spent most of the time in the room. With all of us urging him to find out what he could, Cheater looked for a way to get close to Bloodbath, but he didn’t come up with anything. Trash worked so hard on his talents he reminded me of a warrior training for combat. Torchie practiced his fire control. Flinch killed time describing various ways he could use his cast to rearrange Bloodbath’s face. Lucky didn’t say much, but he did wander into the halls once in a while, usually returning with an object or two he’d found. I watched the five of them and wished I was really part of the group.
Sunday afternoon, when Lucky didn’t come to the room, I went down the hall to see him.
“What’s up?” I asked.
He was sitting on his bed, staring at something. He raised his hand to show me what he had.
“Oh no.” I took the wallet from him and flipped it open. My gut tightened as I recognized the picture on the driver’s license. I didn’t even have to read the name. “Where’d you get this?” I asked, handing it back to him.
“I found it on the steps,” he said.
I remembered how Lucky had gone out while we were waiting for Flinch to come back from the hospital. The wallet must have fallen from Mr. Briggs’s pocket when he was kneeling down to help Flinch. “You have to return it,” I said as I handed it back to him.
Lucky shook his head. “They’ll nail me,” he said. “Or throw me in jail.”
I’d figured there was something he hadn’t told us about his power. “You hear stuff, right? That’s how you find things.”
“I’m not crazy,” Lucky said.
“I never said you were. Tell me about it. Do you hear the things you find?”
Lucky nodded. “Lost objects, mostly. Sometimes hidden things, too. They whisper to me. If I pick them up, the voices stop. If I don’t, they get louder.”
“Well, just put the wallet where he’ll find it,” I said.
Lucky shook his head. “If I do that, the voices will drive me crazy. Once I pick something up, I can’t put it back or toss it away. I’ve tried. When I do, it starts screaming at me. All I can do is keep it or give it to someone.”
“Give it to me.” I held my hand out.
“You going to give it back to Mr. Briggs?” he asked.