The Elephant of Surprise (The Russel Middlebrook Series Book 4) (15 page)

"Maybe you did," I said. "But I just sealed it up. You're trapped."

"We cut it
open
," Matthew said, but as he said this, he glanced over toward the little door they'd made in the fence.

It was gone. Or at least it looked like it was.

I'd been lucky that the twist-ties had been white and were now almost invisible against the light metal of the chain-link. But even if they hadn't been, I'd twisted them on really tight. I knew they could untwist them eventually, or maybe just kick their way through. They could also cut open a new hole with the bolt-cutters. But all that would take time—time they wouldn't have in the forty-five seconds they'd have once they lit the fuse on a cluster of dynamite.

The match in Venus' hand burned down to her fingers, but she didn't notice. When it burned her, she started in surprise, dropping the match, and it went out.

Somewhere nearby, maybe even at the base of the hill, sirens wailed. I smiled. If Venus and Matthew climbed or kicked their way through the fence right now, and if they were careful where they ran, they might get away. But there was no way they'd have time to fight their way through the fence
and
go back and light the dynamite, not before the police arrived.

They had to know this. My plan had worked perfectly.

"You idiot," Matthew said to me. But then he picked up the bolt-cutter lying next to him in the grass and walked over to an access door on the far side of the water tower. It was a door I hadn't even noticed. With absolutely no effort at all, he snapped the padlock with his cutter. Then he kicked the door wide open.

He looked back at Venus. "Light the dynamite," he said to her.

And she did.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

"No!" I said, but it was too late. The fuse to the dynamite was sizzling in the darkness, and Venus and Matthew were running—out the door in the fence, away from their bikes, off into the trees.

I stared at that sparkling fuse. Wade and I had exactly forty-five seconds to get away from the water tower, or we'd be killed by a raging wall of water.

No. It was more like thirty seconds now, since that's how long it had taken Venus and Matthew to light it and leave.

You know how I keep referring back that conversation Min, Gunnar, and I had at the zoo, the start of that whole Elephant of Surprise thing? (Good theme, huh?)

This is the part where I even surprised myself.

The fuse kept burning, hissing in the night as the fire snaked its way closer to the explosives. As the light flickered ever closer to its destination, I saw the dynamite itself for the first time—a whole stack of sticks duct-taped to the side of the water tower, all of them somehow connected to a single fuse. I expected them to be red, but they weren't: they looked beige, at least in the darkness.

"Go!" I said to Wade. "Before the police get here!"

And then I ran toward the dynamite. I didn't consciously think: I need to save that homeless family down below. I don't remember making any kind of decision at all. If I'd
had
an actual choice, I think I might have chosen the cowardly option—or the
sane
one, depending on how you look at it. But instead, I found myself running, past the chain-link fence, through the open door, and into the fenced-off area.

The fuse to the dynamite was still a snake, and I knew it could strike at any second. By the time I was near enough to see it up close, the spark was only inches from the explosive. I hadn't really seen how long the fuse was to begin with, so I didn't know how much time I had left, but I knew it wasn't much.

Even now, I didn't think, didn't hesitate: I just reached out and wrapped my hand around the fuse.

What the hell was I doing? Why wasn't I running away? I said I was liking all the adventure in my life lately, but this was insane!

The snake-like fuse stopped hissing at last. I could also smell the scent of burning flesh, but at least I didn't
feel
it burn.

But I did feel something else. The fuse wasn't dead: the spark was still alive in my hand, crawling out of my clenched fist like a hard-shelled insect, impossible to crush. The fuse was made of gunpowder, I knew, and gunpowder was made to burn.

I squeezed harder, but it still skittered forward against my skin.

Finally realizing I couldn't squeeze the fuse dead —duh!—I jerked on it, yanking it out, pulling it free. For a second, the gun powder kept sizzling in my hand, but now it didn't have any way to get to the dynamite. The explosives were dead. (In my defense, all this happened in about an eighth of a second.)

At the same time, flashlight beams sliced the misty undergrowth, and voices barked out in the dark. The police had arrived.

Only now did I feel the burn.

Boy
, did I feel the burn! My hand throbbed like nothing I'd ever felt before, like I'd just jammed my hand in the toaster.

As the police got closer, I looked around the grass for Wade, but he was gone.

*   *   *

It was very complicated trying to explain to the police that I wasn't the one who had set and lit the dynamite: I was the one who had
stopped
it. But I had the burn-mark on my hand to prove it. And it wasn't long before Min and Gunnar arrived, both out of breath from running through the woods and up the hill, and Min was able to say that she was the one who had called 9-1-1, and Gunnar was able to explain that he was the one who'd suspected the freegans were planning to blow something up in the first place. It helped that he had the evidence on his phone—although he had to explain it about six times before anyone even had a clue what he was talking about (not Gunnar's fault for once: these police officers seemed unusually dim).

At one point, an officer said, "The metal in that tower is pretty thick. I doubt that dynamite would've been strong enough to blow a hole in the water tower anyway."

And I didn't say anything, but what I wanted to say was: "Is that right? Well, fuck you, you fucking fuck fuck!" Because even if it hadn't blown a hole in that water tower, I was pretty damn sure it would have blown a hole in me!

Eventually, the police took me to the police station, and my parents, who I'd already called, joined me there. Min, Gunnar, and I had to answer a whole bunch more questions, and by then the local media had arrived, so we did interviews with the newspaper and even one of the television stations from a nearby city.

At one point, Gunnar pulled me aside and said, "By the way, I think I'm finally done chronicling my whole life online. But aren't you glad I did?"

I couldn’t deny it.

Finally, well after midnight, after all the excitement had died down, my parents took me home. It was easy enough to convince them the freegans were people I hardly knew (which was true), that I'd met them at school with Min and Gunnar (which was also true), and that I'd only been to their house very briefly one single time (which, unfortunately, wasn't true at all).

But I didn't stay at home. Once I was sure my parents were in bed, I crawled out my bedroom window and used my own bike to ride off into the night. There was somewhere I still needed to be, someone I really needed to talk to. And I knew exactly where I'd find him.

*   *   *

I found Wade's bike parked in the bushes outside the abandoned warehouse, the same place where we'd left our bikes once before. I'd been sure he'd be waiting for me here, and I'd been right. I knew he couldn't go back to the freegan house, not now, and the only other place where he'd think to wait for me—the abandoned streetcar in the woods—was too close to the water tower and the police.

It was dark outside. I took the light from my bike, then fumbled my way over to the boarded-up door in the side of the building. The gravel in the parking lot skittered under my feet.

Wade had left the boards undone: he was waiting for me inside. I put my light to one side, then crawled in through the opening—and of course, I forgot all about the pigeon poop and/or bat guano dried onto the floor, so I put my hands right in it all over again.

Once inside, I stood up again. I cleaned my hands on my pants—my one hand still hurt from the burn of the fuse—and shone my light around in the dark. The rusted cans and plastic sheets strewn around the warehouse floor seemed different now, blended in with the pigeon poop and/or bat guano, looking like ripples and waves on a frozen sea. The air smelled different now too, colder and wetter, already filled with a hint of morning dew.

"Wade?" I called, a loud whisper.

The floor creaked, and a shadow stepped out of the little office on the far side of the room. I aimed my light his way, and caught a flash of the crisp white t-shirt peeking out from under his jacket.

I crossed over to him, the dried pigeon poop and/or bat guano crunching under my feet.

I stopped about ten feet in front of the office. I didn't shine the light in his face, but off to one side, so as not to blind him. He stood in the doorway, silently watching me.

"There's one thing I really need to know," I said. "And I need you to be totally honest. Did you really not know about any of this? I don't mean about the water tower. I mean about E.L.F. and eco-terrorism and all the rest."

It was a fair question, and he knew it.

"I didn't," he said. "I'd never do anything like that."

He started toward me, out of the office, but I immediately backed away, so he stopped. I just stared at him. The burn on my hand throbbed.

"No," he said. "I swear to God!" When I kept staring at him, he said, "Russel, you know me. You know I'd never do anything like that."

I finally decided he was telling the complete truth. Relief flooded through me. How could I have ever believed otherwise?

Wade turned away. He walked back to the doorway of the office, leaned against the frame as if for support.

"But," he said.

Great, I thought. Another "but." The beam of light quivered in my hand.

He looked back at me. "Russel, I
should
have known. Gunnar picked it up just from a bunch of pictures he took! I mean, I knew they were planning things, had done things, but I thought it was, like, graffiti on an overpass. They knew I don't go for stuff like that, so that's why I thought they were keeping it from me. I had no idea they'd do anything like this. But I guess part of me didn't
want
to believe it. So I looked the other way. I was so stupid."

"It's not your fault that you look for the best in people," I said. "That you give people the benefit of the doubt." I took a couple of crunchy steps toward him.

But Wade backed away again, all the way into the office.

"Russel, you don't understand. This is all my fault."

Now I was confused. "But you just said you didn't know anything about the plan."

"But all the stupid things Venus heard me say. You don't think that had an impact? What if you hadn't caught them? People could have died. I'm so, so sorry!"

I didn't say anything. He had a point. He wasn't responsible for her actions, but maybe he should've seen it coming. Even so, I couldn't blame him. How could he know what someone else would do? And we all make mistakes. He wasn't perfect just like I wasn't perfect. In a way, this all made my feelings for him that much stronger. It was like, well, a busted water tower, flooding my heart.

"I'm sorry I suspected you," I said. "That was wrong."

Now he didn't say anything. He started pacing back and forth in that little office. There was no pigeon poop and/or bat guano in there, but the floor creaked again.

I stepped into the doorway of the office, watching him. "What is it?"

"Russel, I've been lying to you."

I stiffened. "Wait. What? Are you saying you
were
involved?"

He shook his head. "No, no, not about that. I'm telling the truth about that. It's about something else entirely."

I didn't say anything, just watched him and listened.

"I'm not in love with you."

"Hold on. Who said anything about love? We just met two weeks ago." I was moony-eyed, but even I wasn't that much of a twelve-year-old girl.

"That's not what I mean. I'm not gay." And before I could even think it, he added, "Or bisexual. I'm straight."

I wasn't sure what to think about this. It was a surprise for sure. This conversation wasn't going how I thought it would.

"When did you realize this?" I said.

"I didn't have to realize it. I've always known it."

Now I was really confused. I just stared at him from that doorway. My hand burned with heat.

"I knew you were gay, almost from the beginning," he said. "And I figured you were into me."

"It's okay," I said. "I mean, you met someone you had a connection with, and you were confused. It happens. It's all right." In a way, it even made sense. I mean, if some guys are "questioning" when it comes to being gay, it stood to reason that at least a few of them would decide: well, no, I'm not. Feelings could be confusing, and "questioning" meant just that. It really, really sucked that Wade wasn't into me the way I was into him, but what was I going to do about it? I wouldn't want him to be with me if he didn't love me back. (My heart didn’t believe those words, and probably never would, but my head did.)

"Russel, you still don't understand. I was never confused. I never wondered if I was gay."

I felt the light lower in my hand so the beam was pointed down, spilling out around my feet like my whole body was melting like a stick of butter. So much for things making sense.

"I don't get it," I said. "If you weren't confused, why did you say you were?"

"You were just so perfect," he said, pacing nervously again. "The other freegans? They're great people, some of them. But they're drop-outs—rebels or non-conformists. They do things just to shock people, to get a reaction, just like you said. Either that or they're anarchists, like Venus and Matthew—people who've given up on change and just want to blow things up. None of them are going to change the world, not the way it needs to be changed." He looked up at me. "But you were different. You and your friends, Min and Gunnar? You're exactly the kind of people freeganism needs."

"You were pretending to like me just because you wanted to recruit me to your cause?" That broken water tower spilling love into my heart? It had stopped flowing. And any of the love that happened to be still lying around, slowly soaking into my heart? It dried up pretty fast. Suddenly, it was a parched, cracked desert in my heart.

"I
do
like you!" Wade said. "I liked you from the first moment I met you. But…" He'd stopped pacing now, was just staring at me. "I never liked you the way you liked me."