"It's been seven days," Kipp said with satisfaction, "and lightening hasn't struck yet. I tell you, the Caretaker was bluffing."
Four of them, Tony, Neil, Brenda, and Kipp, were hanging out in the school parking lot next to Kipp's car. The early summer was showing no sign of an early departure. Heat radiated off the asphalt in rippling waves. A film of sweat had Tony's shirt glued to his chest and he was having a hard time imagining that in less than fifteen minutes he would have to start working out on the track.
The week-old event to which Kipp was referring was the appearance of the second command in the Times. It had employed initials rather than a name but otherwise it had been like the first, brief and to the point.
K.C. Flunk Next Calculus Exam
Kipp had gone right ahead and gotten an A on the test.
"No time limit was put on when you would be hurt," Neil said, brushing brown hairs off his shoulders. The diabetes or the stress or simply bad genes had him shedding like crazy. Tony was worried about him. Neil had been out of school all last week and he'd dropped five pounds from his already famished frame. He'd had the flu, he said, and was having trouble sleeping.
Kipp laughed. "It was a joke, isn't that obvious?"
"I hope all this blows over before the play opens," Brenda said. "Neil, I saw you at our rehearsal this morning. What did you think?"
Neil beamed. "I thought you were wonderful. I left laughing."
Brenda fairly lit up. "Thank you. How sweet."
"I really like Alison as Alice," Kipp had to go and say. "That girl's got talent. You can see it just in the way she walks across the stage." He patted Brenda on the back. "I think you're great, too."
Brenda's lightbulb dimmed. "But not as great as Alison."
"Now I didn't say that."
"She has better lines than me! She's the star! What am I supposed to do? It isn't my fault that fat phony teacher thought I didn't look the part."
"Please," Kipp said, "let's not start this again. You're a fine actress. Alison is a fine actress. You're both fine actresses. In fact, you are probably the finer actress."
"You mean my style is not dramatic enough. That's what you mean, I know."
Kipp groaned, wiping the sweat from his forehead. "Look, let's fight about it on the way home. I'm tired of standing in this oven."
Brenda folded her arms across her chest. "I'm not going home with you. Who said I was?"
"I give you a ride home every day. I assumed . . ."
"Well, you assumed wrong, porpoise nose!" Brenda whirled and stalked away.
"I love you, too!" Kipp called. He shook his head. "I sort of hope the Caretaker is for real. Maybe he could scare her out of a few personality quirks." He climbed in his car, fastening his seat belt.
"Can I have a ride?" Neil asked. He usually walked home. His leg must be bothering him.
"Just don't ask me to comment on your talents," Kipp said, starting the car. Neil got in the front seat.
Tony leaned on the open window. "I notice you're buckled up. Since when did that start? Last week, maybe?"
Kipp was not amused. "I've always worn a seat belt." H e put the car in reverse. "Have fun killing yourself in practice."
"Thanks," Tony nurtured, not sure if he was being insulted. The care heaved back and charged forward, jumping the first speed bump, heading toward the steep exit at the reer of campus.
"Take care!" Neil called out his window.
Tony was crossing the parking lot, aiming for the boys' locker room, when Joan popped out of the metal shop. She was fond of making heavy brass necklaces and stainless steel arm bands. Wearing an assortment of the metal armor, tight red shorts and a loose purple blouse, she looked ready for fun and games. Tony was not happy to see her.
His lunch last week with Alison had gone great. She'd been so interesting to talk with. He had been surprised. He had gone out with a number of girls and had always viewed them as people---not necessarily an inferior class, you understand---who were there to have fun with. The thing was, they always treated him as a celebrity. Joan, for all her bizzare quirks, was not an exception. Indeed, more than any girl he'd known, she saw him as some kind of sex god; that was beginning to annoy him.
On the drive to the mall, Alison had seemed to fit the standard mode. She told him she had seen every touchdown he had ever thrown, how he would undoubtedly be drafted by the NFL in his freshman year in college and how Steven Spielberg would probably be looking to use his face in a movie sometime soon. Then she must have sensed his lack of interest for she settled down and started to talk like a real person who had not been preprogrammed by MTV and People magazine. She was so funny! Every bit as witty as Kipp and a hell of a lot better looking. They had talked about everything except football and the Caretaker, and after taking her back to school, he had found himself replaying in his head over and over again their time together. He'd read the literature--he had the classical symptoms of infatuation.
He hadn't spoken to Alison since. Neil might get upset. Joan might kill him.
"Tony!" Joan said, kissing him on the lips before he could defend himself. "Have you been avoiding me?"
"Of course not."
"Liar." She poked him in the gut. "Tell me why and tell me straight."
"I'm in love with Kipp."
"So you're gay?" She asked slyly, leaning close. "Can you prove that you're not? Say, in about two hours? My parents . . ."
Lightening hasn't struck yet.
Something large and loud crashed.
The explosion came from the direction of the steep exit his friends had just used.
Tony forgot about Joan. He was running the sprint of his life. No tumbleweeds obstructed his path. The sun was out and he knew where he was going. No sharp edge of the road tried to catch him looking. Still, he was on that road again, feeling the sane time-warping panic.
At the crest of the hill that fell beneath his feet at a forty-five degree angle, he ground to a halt. The car had plowed into the fifteen-foot brick wall that theoretically sheilded a neighboring residential area from the noisy antics of the student body. The front end was an accordion, and cracked bricks ruined the littered roof. The windshield was gone. Tony covered the rest of the way at a slow walk, afraid of what he would find.
Neil was picking glass out of his hair. Kipp was changing the station on the silent radio. "Do you want a ride home, too?" he asked casually.
Tony discovered he had been holding his breath and released the stagnant air. No, this was not that night. This was only a warning. "What happened?" he asked.
"My brakes took a holiday on the hill," Kipp said, demonstrating the mechanical failure by pushing the unresisting brake pedal to the floor.
"Coincidence?"
"I don't think so," Neil said, putting his hand to a bloody spot on his forehead.
"Are you OK?" Tony asked.
Neil nodded. "Just banged my head. I should have had my seatbelt on. I'll be all right."
Kipp and Neil carefully extricated themselves from the front seat and sat on the curb. Tony could see others approaching in the distance--Joan included--and wanted to make a quick inspection before he had an audience. Crouching to the ground, wary of the glass shards, he scooted under the back wheels. The front tires were totaled but he would be able to see if the rear brakes had been tampered with. At first he was confused-relieved in a sense-to see that the screws that bled the breaks had not been loosened. Then he noticed the dark red fluid smeared over the lines themselves. A closer inspection revealed that they had been minutely punctured. The saboteur had been clever. Had the screws simply been loosened, the fluid would have run out the first time Kipp had pumped his brakes and he would have become suspicious. As it was, with the tiny diameter of the holes, he had to hit the brakes four or five times--about the same number of speed bumps between where Kipp always parked and the hill--before losing them altogether.
"Were they fixed?" Kipp called.
"Yeah." Tony pulled himself back into daylight. From the expression on his face, Kipp could have just finished tea with his mother. Neil, on the other hand, looked like he was about to be sick. "The lines were punctured--a nail, maybe even a pin. Didn't you notice them slipping?"
"Nope. My favorite song was on the radio."
"For heaven's sake," Tony said, "you both could've been killed. And look at the mess your car is in."
"I can see," Kipp replied calmly. "But neither of us was killed, and I have insurance. Don't musunderstand me, I'm not taking this lightly. I have another calculus exam tomorrow, and I think I'll flunk it." He stood, brushed off his pants. "Now if you will excuse me, I have to go to the bathroom. Hitting walls at forty miles an hour always does that to me."
Tony watched him leave with a mixture of admiration and exasperation. He helped Neil to his feet. Neil's head had stopped bleeding but he must have banged his leg. His limp was much worse. "You should just rest here," Tony said. "Somebody has probably called the parametics."
Neil shook his head, his arms trembling. "I hate doctors, i don't want to see them. I only want to get to a bathroom."
"Neil . . ."
"Tony, please?" he pleaded, adding quietly, "I think I peed in my pants."
Tony tore off his shirt and wrapped it around his friend's waist. "I'll help you, don't worry. I have extra sweats in my locker that are too small. You'll be OK."
"Thank you," Neil whispered, his eyes moist.
They huddled across the street. An ambulance could be heard wailing in the distance. Half the track team was pouring down from the stadium and Joan was leading a contingent of teachers and students out of the parking lot. "You both got off lucky," Tony said. "Your face could have gone through the windshield. Kipp could have cracked his skull on the steering wheel. It's a good thing he started wearing his seat belt."
Neil nodded weakly. "It's a good thing Brenda refused to get in the car."
At the foot of the hill, they stopped and stared at each other.
You are reading the story above: TeenFic.Net