That popping sound I’d heard on the roller coaster—it hadn’t been someone opening a can. It had been a bullet.
Skip’s eyes widened. The terror in them mirrored mine. I could tell he was having the same thought. While we were leaning over the bar, the bullet had skimmed right over our heads.
People around us were screaming. They started running away, shoving at each other in their desperation to get out. There were all kinds of people, all ages, shapes and sizes, all scared out of their minds.
The stocky woman caught the fear too. Changing her mind about helping the old man, she used her big purse to push people aside. Behind her was a lean guy with a blue and white Vancouver Canadians baseball cap. He said something to the woman and pointed over the crowd. She kept bashing her way through.
“There’s a shooter around here,” Skip said in my ear. His voice was choked. It was the first time I’d ever heard Skip sound frightened. Usually he was so confident, so sunny. Nothing fazed him.
“Let’s get outta here,” he urged.
The attendant looked like he wanted to run too. He bit his lower lip. His freckles stood out against his skin like Frisbees.
I didn’t want to leave the attendant alone. It didn’t seem right.
Skip gripped my elbow. “Have you forgotten, Joe? You’re breaking curfew. You’re not supposed to be here.”
I was supposed to be home studying. I had a math test tomorrow. But my parents were visiting friends in Whistler over the next two days, and my kid sister Ellie was at a sleepover.
Plus, in the morning Skip was heading out with his folks to their cottage in the Okanagan. The PNE would be over when he got back. Tonight had been our last chance to ride the big dip together until next year.
Skip had free passes to the whole fair. We could take all the rides we wanted. His dad was on the PNE board of directors.
So, I’d snuck out.
Skip was going to tutor me when we got back to my place. Skip sailed through math. He sailed through everything. In September, he was going into an advanced class. Regular schoolwork didn’t challenge him enough.
Mr. Too-Perfect, I called him sometimes, and he’d laugh. Privately I wasn’t sure I was joking. Skip’s being a whiz kind of got to me. I had to sweat most of my subjects just to pass.
I should listen to Skip now, I thought. But my eyes were glued to the old man. Why would anyone want to kill a harmless guy like him?
PNE security guards were rushing onto the platform. The attendant started to cry. I wasn’t feeling too good myself.
The attendant could only point a shaky hand at the dead man. The guards shoved Skip and me aside.
Sirens sounded—ambulances and police were coming.
Skip dragged me to the exit. He urged, “We gotta get outta here. What happens when the police see you? What if somebody from the newspaper takes your picture? Your dad will know you went to the PNE.”
Dad had threatened to pull me out of track if I didn’t improve my grades. This summer course is it, he’d said. This is your last chance.
Still, I hesitated. The old man’s face swam up before me again. I heard him mumble his last strange words. I told Skip, “The old guy said something about a rose, the Margaret rose. He wanted me to give it to the police.”
“What?” Skip said. “The guy was dying, Joe. He wasn’t in his right mind. C’mon. Once we’re away from here, you can send the cops a dozen roses if it makes you feel better.”
I didn’t think the old man had been talking about bouquets. But there was no time to think. The sirens screamed closer, ripping our eardrums. Feet pounded up the entrance ramp. Police officers ran over to the dead man.
“You can’t do anything for him,” Skip said.
I nodded numbly. He was right. The old guy was beyond my help. He’d taken the biggest dip of all—the one that you never come up from.
We bolted down the exit ramp.
Skip came home with me and coached me for the test the next day. “C’mon, dude. I know you can concentrate. I’ve seen you on the racetrack. Your mind is one hundred percent on the finish line.”
But Skip didn’t know there was a third person sitting at the table—the ghost of the old man. He was clear to me, even if Skip couldn’t see him. One minute the old man was grinning at me—the next, he was slumping sideways.
Finally, after wrestling with the math for ages, I started to get it.
“You can do anything if you just concentrate,” Skip encouraged. He was so sure I could do it, it kind of infected me. I started believing that, yeah, I could pass the math test.
The next morning, the heat wave that the weather people had warned about finally rolled in—just in time for my math exam.
With no air conditioning in the pre– World War II school, the humidity was thick enough to cut through.
The teacher switched off the lights. “At least we can make it shady in here,” she said, wiping a tissue across her forehead. “Now, good luck with your exam.”
I stared at the first question. The words wriggled in the heat. If X is…what would Y…But I thought I could figure it out.
I unstuck my sweaty arm from the page and started my calculations. X equals, Y equals…
X…Y…
Why would somebody want to kill a harmless oldster?
There’d been a story about the shooting in the morning Sun. Man Shot on Roller Coaster. Ride Closed While Police Investigate. The story said the man’s name was Jake Grissom. It didn’t say anything else about him.
There’d been a quote from the police, asking anyone who had been on the ride to contact them.
I thought of the woman sitting behind Skip and me—the stocky woman with the big purse. Had she been in touch with the police? Maybe she told them about the two boys behind the old man. Maybe the police were on the lookout for us.
I pushed these thoughts out of my mind, or at least to one side of it, and kept slaving away in the heat.
When I looked up after the final question, I was the only student left.
The teacher smiled at me. She was holding a battery-powered mini-fan that blew her hair away from her face. “Are you done?”
“Yeah.” I handed in the test. “Thanks for waiting,” I added. I bet she wanted to escape this hothouse as much as I did.
“It’s okay. See you next class, then.” The teacher put my test in her briefcase.
She headed out and down the hall.
The outside doors in this school locked behind you, so I could leave on my own. I decided to go splash some water on my face before I left.
I headed to the basement where the restrooms were. It was cool down here, and the lights were off. Only a dim gray light filtered through the frosted windows. The basement felt like a cavern. Every squeak my runners made echoed back, amplified.
Leaning over the sink, I ran the cold water full blast. I peeled off my T-shirt and doused my upper body with water. I washed away the sweat, the Xs and Ys from the test buzzing around in my head, the face of the dying old man…
Nope. Him, I couldn’t wash him away.
Should I have stayed till the cops arrived?
What is with this rose?
Good and soaked, I looked in the mirror and pursed my lips into a fish face. I ran my forefinger over them and made loud blubbering noises. They echoed back. Mojo Lumby, the one-man entertainment show.
I didn’t bother toweling off, just pulled the T-shirt back over my wet skin. Out in that egg-frying weather, I’d dry off right away.
I walked past some lockers. I knocked on the doors, one after another, to hear the hollow echoes.
The locker at the end of the hall was open. I hadn’t noticed that when I came through before.
As I got closer, I reached out to pull the door closed. Then I’d knock on it too. I liked making all these echoes.
Mojo Lumby, the one-man entertain—
The locker door slammed against me, smashing my nose.
Then the door swung back for round two. Smash. This time it punched the air clean out of my chest.
I fell sideways. The crash of my body inside the locker created the loudest echo of all.