“Any idea what they’re thinking?” I asked Cheater.
“Not from this far away. But look at them. I get the feeling a couple of them are scared of us,” he said.
“Scared of us?” That idea surprised me. I knew the Edgies were frightened by our reputation, but those Edgies were just kids. These were adults. It never occurred to me that adults would be afraid of kids. I wondered how they’d feel if they knew some of the kids had amazing powers.
“Bloodbath is being pretty quiet,” Lucky said.
I glanced over toward Bloodbath’s table. Lucky was right. A gang of them was just sitting there eating breakfast. Nobody was wrestling or shouting. “I bet they’re saving their energy for something big,” I said.
Grunge came in late and joined Bloodbath. Then two more of the gang came strutting into the cafeteria and nodded at Bloodbath as they took their seats. He grinned and nodded back. A moment later, the bell rang for class.
“They’re planning something,” I said. “See if you can pick up anything,” I told Cheater.
I expected him to protest that it was too dangerous. But he surprised me. “I’ll try,” he said. He wove through the crowd and managed to slip behind Bloodbath for a moment. Then he had to back off as they got closer to the door. I guess Cheater didn’t want to get trapped next to him in a crush of kids.
“Well?” I asked Cheater when he’d worked his way back to me.
“Twenty candles,” he said. “I just got that thought in my mind. Twenty candles, all set to go.”
“Candles, again. Any idea what it means?” I asked.
Cheater shook his head. “Not a clue.”
“Hey, check this out,” Lucky called. He opened a closet door in the hallway just outside the cafeteria and pointed at something. “Look what I found.”
“What the heck … ?” Torchie asked.
I looked inside at the lit candle. It was stuck on a small square of wood—probably jammed onto a nail. A fuse was wrapped around the base of the candle. The other end of the fuse led to a shorter fuse coming out of a large cardboard tube.
“That’s an M-80,” Cheater said. “Big-time firecracker.”
I unwrapped the fuse from the candle. “They must have used the candle so it would go off later, when everyone was in class. That way there’d be no chance of getting caught.”
Torchie bent over and blew out the flame. “Don’t they know it’s dangerous to leave a fire going like that?”
Lucky grabbed the M-80 and put it in his pocket, then dashed down the hall to the next closet. He opened the door and waved for us.
“Oh man, that’s bad news,” I said. This one had two M-80s attached to a candle. But that wasn’t the worst part. The explosives were taped against the side of a water pipe. If they blew, the place would get flooded. Even for Bloodbath, that was an incredibly stupid and dangerous stunt.
“Bloodbath must have done this,” Lucky said. “At least we found it before it went off. Think there are any others?”
“Twenty candles!” Cheater shouted. “That’s what they were thinking. They must be spread all around the school. If even one goes off, it could do a lot of damage.”
“Can you find the rest of them?” Torchie asked Lucky.
“I don’t know,” Lucky said. “I don’t think I can search for something specific. I just find stuff. I can’t control what I find.”
“There’s no time, anyhow,” I said. I grabbed Torchie by the shoulder. “You’re our best bet. You’ve been learning how you start fires. Do you think you can put them out, too?”
“Uh … I don’t know.”
“You have to try,” I said. “That’s the only way. Do your best.”
Torchie nodded. Then he got this blank look on his face. I had a sudden horrible fear that he’d get it backwards and turn the whole school into a blazing bonfire instead of putting out all of the candles. I was struck by images of the walls around me bursting into flames. Talk about making a bad impression on the inspectors. Welcome to Edgeview. Watch us burn.
Torchie stared off into the distance. A drop of sweat ran down his forehead. I waited for something more dramatic. I expected him to at least grunt or groan or pass out. But finally, he grinned and said, “I think I did it.”
“How can we tell?” Lucky asked.
“If you don’t hear the place blowing up all around us, you’ll know it worked,” I said.
We hurried along the hall. As I sat in math, I kept bracing for an explosion. It never came. By the end of the period, I was pretty sure Torchie had succeeded.