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Authors: David Lubar

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W
hen I heard the kid shout, “FIRE!” my brain said,
Get out of here
, but my feet said,
Freeze.
My feet won.
Suddenly, kids were running all over the place. Along both sides of the hall, doors flew open and kids popped out, almost like they were throwing a giant surprise party. Far down at the end of the hall, smoke drifted from a room. There wasn’t a lot of smoke—just a trickle—but any smoke is bad if it isn’t supposed to be there. At least the fire wasn’t between me and the stairs. I relaxed when I realized I wasn’t trapped.
“It’s Torchie’s room,” one kid said. “He did it again.”
Principal Davis sighed. “I told them to make sure he didn’t get any matches,” he said. “Can’t anyone around here carry out a simple order? Do I have to do everything myself?”
“Coming through,” someone shouted from behind us.
A guy raced up the stairs carrying a fire extinguisher. He sprinted past us and hurried toward the room. I followed, trying to slip my way through the crowd that had gathered at the edge of the smoke. I managed to squeeze next to the doorway and catch a glimpse inside the room. A small fire smoldered on a desk. It looked like a bunch of papers were burning. A kid stood pressed against the far wall, staring at the fire. I figured that must be Torchie.
“I didn’t do it,” he said. “Honest, I didn’t do nuthin’.” He raised his hands in a display of innocence. A trickle of sweat ran down his forehead, past his right eye. It stopped, finally, at his pudgy cheek. Red hair, also damp, drooped in clumps from a wandering part that ran along the center of his scalp. It was the sort of face a ventriloquist would have loved. “I didn’t do it,” he repeated.
Yeah, right
, I thought.
And I’m Abe Lincoln.
In the room, the guy with the fire extinguisher let fly with a stream of foamy spray, knocking out the blaze pretty quickly. He spun toward the crowd of kids and spouted out words I never would have expected. “Quick, what have we learned here?”
Nobody said anything. I sure didn’t.
“Come on,” the man said. “This is easy. What three things are required for a fire?”
“Heat, fuel …” a small kid at the back of the crowd said. I couldn’t believe the guy was turning this into a science lesson. He had to be a teacher, though he sure wasn’t dressed like one. He wore a T-shirt with PRINCETON on it in big orange letters hanging above a picture of a tiger. The shirt was tucked into a pair of jeans. The frayed jeans cuffs hung over scuffed shoes, the same way his ragged mustache hung over his upper lip.
“Right! Heat and fuel. That’s two. Come on, one more,” the man urged. He took a real deep breath.
“Oxygen,” someone else said.
“Exactly!” The guy held up the extinguisher. “So we smother the fire to deprive it of oxygen. We can also stop a fire by lowering the temperature or removing the fuel. Remember that.” He gave the desktop another short blast. Then he turned his attention to Torchie. I wondered if he was going to blast the kid with a stream of words the way he’d blasted the fire with a stream of foam, but he just sighed and said, “Philip, we need to work a bit harder on this problem of yours.” He tucked the extinguisher under his left arm and held his right hand out, palm up.
Torchie—I guess his real name was Philip—opened his mouth as if he was going to protest. Then he shrugged, reached into his pants pocket, and pulled out a disposable lighter. “I really didn’t do nuthin’,” he said as he dropped the lighter in the man’s hand. “Honest.”
What a loser.
The man didn’t say anything more to Torchie. He put the lighter in his own pocket, then turned back to the crowd and said, “Okay, guys, it’s all over. Nothing else to see. Move along.” He sounded like a city cop trying to get people away from an accident, but I sort of liked that.
“Well,” Principal Davis said, coming up behind me, “this works out rather nicely. Now that you’re together, allow me to introduce you to your roommate. Martin Anderson, meet Philip Grieg.”
My roommate?
Oh crap. This had to be a joke.
Torchie looked at the principal and spewed out the double-negative denial yet again. “I didn’t do nuthin’.” His eyes shifted over toward me as if he hoped I could leap to his defense.
Keep dreaming, fireboy.
“We’ll deal with that issue later, Philip. For now, why don’t you be a good lad and show Martin around the school. I have to get back to my office.”
With that, Principal Davis marched off, leaving me alone in the company of Philip or Torchie or whatever his flaming name was. I stared after the principal. That was it? Hi. Bye. Rip me from my home and shove me here. I had no choice except to turn back to my new roommate.
Now that it was just the two of us, I figured Torchie would find a different song. No such luck. “I really didn’t do it,” he said.
Sheesh—he needed a sign with that printed on it. Or one of those big pin-on buttons. Then he could just point whenever he wanted to claim he was innocent. I waited for him to change the subject. He wiped his face with his sleeve. It didn’t do much for his face, and it left a big wet blotch on his shirt.
“Didn’t do nuthin’,” he said.
“So I heard.” This was just great. They’d put me in a room with a kid
who liked to start fires. Fantastic. If I’d known ahead of time, I’d at least have brought some marshmallows. We could have toasted them. Hot dogs would be nice, too. As it was, I hoped I didn’t end up getting toasted myself. Man, we’d be a great pair if that happened. Torchie and Toastie.
I glanced at the window to make sure it was big enough for me to squeeze through in an emergency. As far as I could see, there wasn’t a fire escape. At least there weren’t any bars. On the other hand, this was the third floor, so I hoped I’d never have to use the window as an exit.
One of the two beds in the room was under the window. From the rumpled look, and a couple of burn marks on the sheets, I figured it was Torchie’s. The other bed, along the opposite wall, was unmade, but a pile of sheets and blankets were stacked on it, along with a photocopied booklet that said
Welcome to Edgeview
on the cover. I took a quick glance through the booklet, saw nothing important, then tossed it into the small garbage can next to the bed. There wasn’t much else in the room, just two old wooden desks, two small dressers, also made of wood, a pair of lamps, and a closet. A picture of Mars, torn from a magazine, was taped to one wall near the foot of Torchie’s bed. Great. Except for the lamps and garbage can, everything in the room looked flammable. To top it off, the place already smelled like the inside of a fireplace. I tossed my bag to the floor by the closet.
“What are you here for?” Torchie asked.
“What do you care?” I asked back.
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Just wondering. Figured, being roommates and all, I should get to know you. And maybe you’d want to know about me. Some of the people here aren’t too friendly. Not me. I like people.”
I held up my hand to shut him off. “I’m here because I seem to have a bit of a problem respecting authority. That’s how they put it. Well, that’s how the polite ones put it. I’ve also been called a major pain in the butt, a disturbing influence, a smart mouth, and a snotty-nosed little puke, among other things.” I didn’t bother adding some of Dad’s
more colorful phrases. There was no point telling this fire freak my life’s story. Not that he’d care.
I stared at the charred pieces of papers scattered around the desk and the bits of extinguisher foam dripping slowly onto the rug. What a mess. It looked like a giant cow had let loose with one monster of a sneeze. “And you’re here because you have a hard time with math, right?”
“Huh?” Poor Torchie seemed a bit puzzled.
“Just kidding.” I could see this was going to be a lot of fun. I reached down toward my bag. But I didn’t want to unpack yet. That would make it real. “So, you feel like showing me around? Principal Davis didn’t exactly give me a detailed introduction to the place.”
“Yeah. Sure.” Torchie led me into the hall and started giving me the tour of Edgeview Alternative School.
MEMO PAD ON PRINCIPAL DAVIS’S DESK
FROM DALE BRIGGS’S NOTEBOOK
“
L
ip and Bloodbath live in that room,” Torchie told me, pointing to a door near the stairs. “Lip’s no problem by himself. Heck, he’s almost a midget. But Bloodbath likes to beat on people. He’s in our grade, but he’s almost sixteen. Keep out of his way.”
“Thanks.” This was useful information. It was nice knowing where the toilets were and stuff like that, but I was a lot more interested in learning who could hurt me. “Why do they call him
Bloodbath
?”
“That’s his last name.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope,” Torchie said. His voice dropped to a whisper. “He’s Lester Bloodbath.”
“Anyone call him Lester?” I asked.
“Nobody who’s still alive.” Torchie shrugged, then led me around the rest of the hall, telling me who was in most of the rooms. There were a lot of nicknames, none of which I’d be proud to own. One kid was called Goober Gobble, for reasons I wouldn’t want to think about on an empty stomach. And there was the unfortunate Patrick Pardeau, who had to go through every day of his life being greeted with his initials. “Hi, PeePee.”
“That’s Waylon,” Torchie whispered, pointing to a small kid who was walking down the hall away from us. “But we call him Hindenburg.”
“Why?” I asked.
Torchie grinned. “You know what the Hindenburg was?”
“An airship. Like a blimp, except it’s rigid,” I said, remembering a picture I’d seen. “It’s a bag full of gas.”
“Yup,” Torchie said. “And so’s Waylon.”
“That little guy?”
Torchie nodded. “He’s deadly. Don’t ever get in a small space near him. Especially when they serve cabbage or beans at lunch.” He stuck out his tongue and made a farting sound.
Call me weak—I laughed. I also felt relieved. With Hindenburg labeled as the school’s gas man, there’s no way I’d get stuck with a nickname like
Fartin’ Martin
. Not that I had any problem in that area, but the easy rhyme made that sort of thing a danger.
Torchie introduced me to several kids, but my brain was already getting overloaded with names and faces, so none of it really stuck right away. I’d guess most of them didn’t remember my name, either. Not that I’d expect them to. All in all, it was kind of a relief actually meeting some of the students. I’d figured I was getting dumped on an island filled with nothing but ax murderers and cannibals. So far, I hadn’t seen either. Just seventh, eighth, and ninth graders.
“What are the classes like?” I asked as we headed down from the dorm rooms to the second floor.
“Depends,” Torchie said. “Some of the teachers are big-time strict. I think one or two of them should be locked up somewhere themselves. Miss Nomad is nice. She’s the English teacher. Once we get her talking, she’ll chatter for the whole period, so we really don’t have to do much work. Just say
Shakespeare
and she’s good for an hour. Mr. Briggs, the science teacher, is pretty cool. He’s the one who came in with the fire extinguisher.”
I didn’t care about the teachers right now. I wanted to find out more about discipline, since I seemed to get a major dose of it wherever I went. “So, are you in trouble for that fire?”
Torchie nodded. I noticed that some of his hair was singed at the tips. “Yup, I’m in trouble,” he said.
“What’ll they do to you?”
He shook his head. “That’s the scary part. You never know what they’ll think up. They keep trying different stuff on us. It’s like we’re some kind of rats in a lab. Honest. They try something different every time.”
“Does it work?” As I asked him that, I realized it was a stupid question. If the punishment had worked, Torchie wouldn’t have been barbecuing papers in his room.
He spread his arms out in a gesture of total innocence. “How can it work? I didn’t do nuthin’. They keep trying to cure me, but I didn’t start the fire. That lighter was empty. Just like these.” He reached into his right pocket and pulled out a handful of disposable lighters. He flicked one a couple of times, throwing a shower of sparks. “See? No flames. I just like the sparks.”
Oh boy. I could tell there was no point trying to get Torchie to face reality. I’d known kids like that before. You could stand there and watch them do something—hit another kid, break a window, steal from a store. And then, if you accused them, they’d look right at you and say, “I didn’t do it.” I’d known all kinds of liars. Some enjoyed it. Some couldn’t help it. And a few poor losers didn’t even know they were lying.
But that was his problem. I wanted more details about what might happen to me. I imagined dozens of kids locked in dungeons, dangling from chains while a huge, sweaty guy wearing a leather apron heated up torture tools. The image made me shudder and laugh at the same time. I could just picture what would happen if they went near Hindenburg with a red-hot poker. Kaboom. Lots of little Hinden-bits flying through the air. “What sort of stuff do they try for punishment?” I asked. “They ever hit you?”
Torchie shook his head. “Not too much. They might take away privileges, or make you watch some stupid old video on how to behave, or force you to listen to a lecture. You’ll find out.”
“Guess I will. Come on, show me the rest of the place.”
I followed Torchie down to the second floor. He pointed to one room at the end of the hall. “Teachers take turns staying there
overnight and on weekends. I don’t know why they bother having someone else around, since Principal Davis almost never goes home. Past that side of the stairs is more dorm rooms. The rest of the floor is classrooms.” He opened a couple of the doors so I could see for myself.
The classrooms were pretty much the same as any other classrooms I’d ever been in. Poorly erased blackboards and uneven rows of chairs and desks left no mistake what went on during the week. Most of the stuff didn’t match. I noticed at least three different kinds of desks in the first room, and lots of different chairs. I guess even the furniture was stuff nobody else wanted. Edgeview seemed to be a final rest stop on the way to the scrap yard. One classroom didn’t have any desks or chairs. All I saw was a rug spread out on the floor.
“That’s Mr. Briggs’s room,” Torchie said as we looked in. “He brought the rug himself. He keeps experimenting with different learning environments. It’s a good place to catch a nap.”
I was about to turn around when I got this feeling someone was staring at the back of my neck. Then I turned around and found that the feeling was a fact. For an instant, I thought I was about to meet a teacher. That’s how big the guy behind me was. When reality sunk in, I checked the hall for a quick escape route.
“I’m Bloodbath,” the guy said, stepping close enough to cut off any hope I had of sprinting away. He looked about half the size of the bus driver, which was still a lot bigger than any kid had a right to be. No fat—alt the weight was muscle. The way Torchie had talked about him, I expected him to be some kind of troll. But he could have passed for one of those actors who makes a couple of movies, gets real popular with the girls for a year or two, and then vanishes from sight. He had that kind of face.
He wasn’t alone. There was another kid with him. He barely came up to my shoulders. I was pretty sure, based on Torchie’s description, that the other kid was Lip. Lip was so ugly I had a hard time taking my eyes from his face—it was like staring at a traffic accident.
Bloodbath glanced over at Torchie, then tilted his head slightly. He didn’t say a word. But Torchie got the message. He swallowed, blinked
a couple of times like a puzzled turtle, and took off. He started out walking, but broke into a jog as soon as he got a few steps away. I had the impression he couldn’t wait to leave. What a pai. Yup—we roommates sure stick together.
Bloodbath turned his attention back to me. “Welcome to Edgeview,” he said, putting a large hand on the doorframe next to my shoulder. A small silver ring dangled from his left nostril. I had this crazy urge to reach out and yank the ring off, but I knew if I did, it would be my last act on planet Earth.
I waited, figuring that, just like Principal Davis, Bloodbath had plenty more to talk about.
“Ding dong,” Bloodbath said. “You hear that? That’s the school bell.”
As he said
school bell
, he gave me a shove, pushing me into the empty classroom. “And guess what?” he added as the two of them followed me in and closed the door. “It’s time for your first lesson.”
NOTE RECENTLY ADDED TO LESTER BLOODBATH’S PERMANENT FILE
The top of Lester Bloodbath’s desk

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