CHIEF HAYES AND MR. Sarro looked as if they were competing for widest mouth of the year. They stared at us silently, jaws hanging open. I wished I had some popcorn for target practice.
“Fine, thanks, how are you?” I said.
Chief Hayes shook his head once, twice. He unlocked his jaw. “I will suspend disbelief. I will not ask questions. This is my vow. Now, what do we do with these?”
He pointed to the cases of cola, still poised at the edge of the abyss.
Ariana and I took deep breaths. The smoke was wisping upward now in grayish-black puffs. Pytho’s moans resounded.
“She’s weak,” I said.
“She’s been weak before,” Ariana replied. “I say go for it.”
“Hallelujah!” Mr. Sarro blurted.
All of Mr. Sarro’s rags were stuffed against the cardboard cases. Chief Hayes grimly spurted them with gasoline as we uncoiled the rope back through the basement.
It ended a few yards before the bookcase. Chief Hayes followed, dousing the rope itself with the fuel.
“Is the school empty?” Chief Hayes asked.
“Give me a few minutes,” Mr. Sarro said. “I’ll make sure.”
The few minutes seemed eternal. We waited silently.
When Mr. Sarro came down, he was out of breath. “Not a soul.”
Chief Hayes pulled a lighter out of his pocket. “You guys go up. I’ll meet you.”
“No,” I said. “We’ll do this together.”
Chief Hayes looked defiant for a moment. Then he sighed. “All right. But I get to light it. I’ve got the longest grudge.”
He flicked on the lighter and touched it to the rope.
The flame shot high. We bolted up the stairs and through the nearest exit. Mr. Sarro led us out of the school. Ariana grabbed my hand as we ran across the parking lot.
We were half a block away when the school blew for the first time.
The blast knocked us off our feet. I looked back. The first floor was crumbling, and the school tilted. The air filled with smoke, black and sooty but with the faint odor of chalk.
I covered my mouth.
“This wasn’t supposed to happen!” Ariana cried.
“Come on!” I shouted.
Holding her hand firmly, I ran for the hills on the south side of town. In the growing soot, Chief Hayes and Mr. Sarro were nowhere to be seen.
The sirens began immediately. Panic surrounded us. We wound our way through streets clogged with people.
Ariana was right. We had not planned to explode anything. The gasoline was used sparingly, to guide the flame. The burning rags were supposed to heat the bottles so the caps would shoot off. Pytho would be doused with the lethal liquid.
Pytho was supposed to decay to death. The school might sustain some damage — but not like this.
The soot was spreading over the town. Screams of “Fire!” rang out. As we ran up the hill, we heard sounds of smashing glass.
We didn’t stop. Unfortunately, neither of us knew the hill well. We found a path but lost it. Branches whipped against us, thorns ripped our clothes. We didn’t say a word until we got to a clearing. The ground was rocky, the trees thin.
Below us, Wetherby lay under a cloud — gray and dusty, but tinged with yellow and white.
“Mom,” I managed to say. “She’s down there.”
Ariana’s eyes were bloodshot and despairing. “What did we do?” she whispered.
Tears welled up in my eyes. The bump on my forehead throbbed, and I rubbed it. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s all a dream.”
We sat there in silence for a long time. I expected — wanted — “The End” to appear across my field of vision. Like a movie.
Ariana buried her head in my chest and began to sob. I was strangely numb. It hadn’t sunk in.
Still hasn’t.
I knew Ariana and I might be the only ones to survive this. Was it worth the price? And how long did we have to live? Pytho had warned us our sores would bind us to her. Did that mean we died when she did? Had we killed her? Had we done what thousands of years could not do?
As darkness began to fall, prematurely, Ariana sank onto the grass and fell asleep. But I couldn’t. I reached into my pack and pulled out my pack of legal pads.
And now I’m finished. I have included everything. Ariana has awakened and helped me remember. We’ll head down soon. The smoke is clearing, and there is movement. Sound. Life.
We will decide what to do when we get there. We’ll save this journal. I don’t know what we’ll do with it.
But whatever we do, well do it together.
That is the only thing in my life I’m sure of.