CHAPTER 24

                    
What Torren Planned

Torren heard the news from old Sal Ramirez, who came in the evening to have the doctor look at his infected eye.

“They’ve been ordered out,” said Sal as Dr. Hester stood over him, pulling his eyelid down. “The cave-people. They have to leave. Day after tomorrow.”

“That can’t be true,” said the doctor. She dipped a spoon into a small glass jar full of clear liquid. “Tip your head back,” she said. She dripped drops into Sal’s eye.

“It is true,” said Sal. “Ben told ’em to go.”

“But how can they?” said the doctor. “There’s no place for them to go.”

“Some of ’em refused,” said Sal. “They said they’d fight.” He wiped his eyes. “Ben said he’d bring out the Weapon if they did.”

“The Weapon!” The doctor set the jar down on the table and stared at Sal. “Has Ben gone out of his mind?”

“Don’t know,” said Sal.

Torren listened from his place on the window seat, shivering with excitement. There was going to be a war, right here in Sparks! And the terrible Weapon would be used at last—on the cavepeople! He had always wanted to know what it was. Now he’d find out.

Sal left, with a bandage pressed to his eye. The doctor sat down at the table and stared out the window at the flame-colored streak in the western sky. “How have we come to this?” she said, but she didn’t seem to be asking Torren.

The look on her face caused a little fear to mix with Torren’s excitement. He didn’t want to be in the war, he thought. He could get hurt. The Weapon might accidentally get him instead of the cavepeople. He just wanted to see the war, not fight in it.

“Where will the war be?” he asked the doctor.

“What?” She looked at him as if she’d forgotten he was there.

“The war,” he said. “Day after tomorrow. Where will it be?”

“You’re talking nonsense,” said the doctor. “If there’s a war, it will be everywhere.” She stood up slowly, hoisting herself with an arm on the table. Her face looked heavy, and she shuffled to her room without saying good night.

Torren went to bed and lay there a long time with his mind racing. He decided he would get up before anyone else the day after tomorrow, the day the war would begin. He would get dressed. He would take a hunk of cornbread from the kitchen and put it in his pocket. He would take a knife, too, in case the war came close to him. Then he would go down to the plaza and climb to the top of the big pine tree, so high up that he’d be hidden from below. From there, he would be able to see everything.