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BOOM!

Methane,” Mr. Hernandez had said—yep, the very same Mr. Hernandez whose mustache I yanked on all those pages ago—“is a very combustible gas.”

When he was covering science one day, he showed us a film about methane that had been trapped underground and was the cause of a terrible mining disaster. Methane, Mr. Hernandez told us, was produced by rotting vegetation, the underground release of gas from coal mines and rice fields, the digestion systems of cows… and the poop of human beings. We all laughed at that, which is probably why I remembered it.

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A row of portable outdoor toilets was more or less a collecting station for methane, and we had a flaming bunyip on a collision course with one right now.

It was too late for Sal’s fire extinguisher.

It was too late to try to fix the remote control.

It was too late to do anything except get out of the way and do it now.

As the bunyip finally reached the row of toilets, we turned and ran for our lives. I had no idea how big a methane explosion could be, so I ran about as fast as I have ever run in my life. Every step would take me a little closer to saf—

The universe exploded behind me in a blast of orange light, and I was thrown headfirst through the air.