Authors: Lauryn April
W
hen I walked out the west door at the end of the day, Brant was already waiting for me. There was a cool breeze that drifted the smoky smell of barbecue past my nostrils and in the distance I could hear a dog barking and children playing. Brant threw the butt of the cigarette he’d been smoking at the ground and stubbed it out with the toe of his boot. In that moment I wished that I could be at some family picnic instead of searching for an unbalanced teen. Then Brant looked up at me. The bright afternoon sun shone on his face and lit up his features. Not for the first time, I felt myself being pulled deep into his eyes as the sun made them shimmer. Just then the nearby picnic and are wannabe bomber were both forgotten.
Ivy
… His thoughts faded as if he were trying to keep them from me. He seemed to be trying to keep them private a lot lately. I didn’t think too much of it then. My mind wandered back to the situation at hand and I remembered that we were waiting to meet Charlie.
“Think I made a mistake telling another person about what I can do?” I asked.
He shrugged. “We need her help. If we could see who’s been looking into the fabulous art of bomb building, that right there narrows down our search. She might even be able to look at the searches on the computers and see if any one username pops up with the most Google hits for the
Anarchist Cookbook.
”
I nodded, and it was then that the door opened. Both Brant and I turned to see Charlie step outside. She eyed us warily, shifting the weight of her bag from one shoulder to the other.
“Okay, so you think you can read minds?” she asked.
Not that that’s possible or anything.
“It’s freaky, I know, but we need your help,” I said hoping that we could cut through her skepticism.
“So I’m just supposed to believe you and give out confidential information?”
“Oh come on now,” Brant cut in. “These aren’t medical records we’re talking about, just a list of who checked out what book and when. ‘Sides, why do you think we want them? What use would they be to us if we weren’t telling the truth?”
She pondered his words, worrying a lip between her teeth.
I don’t know what you’d really do with any of that information I guess. This can’t be real though, can it? Could she really read minds?
“Look, if you need some proof, I understand. I had to prove it to myself even. Just, um… think of a number, any number.”
“And you’re gonna guess it?”
“I’m going to tell you it, yeah.”
Okay fine, guess this. Purple. I’m thinking of purple.
That time I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. “Purple,” I said.
Brant turned to look at me with a confused expression. “Purple isn’t a number, Ivy.”
I shrugged, “It’s what she was thinking.”
“Holy shit,” Charlie said and we both turned back to face her.
There’s no way she could have gotten that right. She can really read minds
. “This is really real.”
I nodded, “Yup.”
“Alright great, now that we’re all on the same page, you can help us out yeah?”
Charlie seemed as though she hadn’t even heard Brant speak. She was staring off into the distance and her mind was a jumbled mess of thoughts questioning everything she ever thought was impossible. I watched her twist a strand of hair around her fingers. Then I took a step toward her and placed my hands on her shoulders. Her distracted eyes focused on me.
“Look, I know this is really bizarre and you probably want some time to wrap your head around it, but we kind of need to know if you can help us.”
Charlie nodded. “Yeah, well wait… you heard someone say… or think that they want to blow the school up? Why?”
God, this is crazy.
“I don’t know why, all I know is that we have less than three weeks to figure out who wants us all dead and to stop them.”
Brant let out a frustrated sigh. “Exactly, so can we go back inside and have you look up those book records up for us?”
Charlie frowned and twisted the hem of her red sweater between her fingers. “Oh I can’t right now. I will, but I have to do it on my shift. Mrs. Emmeric is working tonight and it’s against the rules to do something like that.”
“Okay, fine,” I said. I wished she could help us sooner, but I was glad that she was helping us at all. “So tomorrow?”
Charlie smiled. “Tomorrow, no problem, meet me in the library at lunch and I’ll do whatever I can to help you find this guy… just don’t tell anyone I’m doing this for you.”
“Yeah, no problem. Oh and if you could not tell anyone about… well, me, you know.”
“Oh, yeah no worries.”
We parted ways after that and as I left the parking lot headed home I felt good. It felt good to be back on track, felt good to know what we were doing next. I started to think that we would actually be able to find this person that wanted us all dead and maybe even be able to stop him. But it also felt good to have another person know about my gift.
I hadn’t realized how alone I’d been feeling until that moment. I recognized then why I’d gone to Brant’s house the night before when things with my parents started to weigh too heavily on my shoulders. He was all I had. I started to wonder if that was the only reason I’d subconsciously driven myself to his house. Memories of butterflies fluttering in my belly and the feel of his hot breath against my cheek rushed through my mind. I pushed those memories aside.
16
Down and Out
T
hat night, I only saw my father for a few hours before I went up to bed. He still wasn’t speaking to me, but I also still hadn’t apologized. It was hard to do when I felt like he was being more immature about things than I was. For a short while, I started to wonder if maybe he was giving me the silent treatment because he felt guilty. Maybe the things I’d said to him had hurt. I was too afraid to listen in on his thoughts though, too afraid to hear that that wasn’t the case.
Mom seemed to have softened up some. She was glad to see me when I got home and eager to hear about my day. She wanted to go shopping that weekend and was quite happy when I’d told her I was up for it. Spending more time with her, as it seemed, made her more eager to forgive me for skipping school.
The next morning, I slept through my alarm and ended up getting to school just as the first hour bell rang. I looked around for Brant as I hustled into the building but I didn’t see him. Knowing I had some catching up to do from my missed day of classes on Tuesday, I was wide eyed and ready to absorb everything my teachers had to say. I didn’t regret skipping class, but I wasn’t about to let it affect my grades either.
By lunch I felt like I had caught up on all my morning classes and that I could tackle my afternoon ones with ease. I was ready to get back to doing what I really cared about, and I felt like I could actually handle keeping up my grades along with searching for the bomber. For the first time, I felt like I had everything under control. At noon, I didn’t even bother walking toward the common. I went straight to the library. On my way there, I met up with Brant in the hallway.
“Hey,” he said and I grinned. “Where were you this morning? Playing hooky without me?”
“No, I just got here late… and I don’t
play hooky
, I excuse myself from classes to attend to far more important things.”
He laughed. “Keep telling yourself that.”
His response made me smile. We walked into the library and saw Charlie’s gaze fall on us, her eyebrows lifted in eagerness as she spotted us from behind the counter. She had a sympathetic smile on her face, and it was then that I noticed the other person behind the front desk. He was wearing a blue shirt and khakis and was doing something with her computer.
Sorry guys,
I heard her think and wondered what had happened. We made our way over to her and I watched as she bit her lip as we got close. She seemed almost nervous.
“What’s up?” I asked glancing at the older man in khakis who was currently running some kind of program on the computer screen.
“Not much,” she said.
Can I talk to you like this?
She thought.
“Yeah.”
Almost all our servers went down this morning. This guy’s been here apparently fixing them, but I don’t think he has any idea what he’s doing.
“Can I still check out a book?” I asked but the tone of my voice alluded to the alternate meaning of my words. I wanted to know if she could still look up the book records on the computer.
“Yeah, you can check out a book no problem… I just have to do it manually.” She held up a stamp. “Stamp the book, write it down.”
I can’t use the computer at all, can’t search for books, look up records, nothing.
“That sucks,” my voice held an incalculable amount of disappointment.
“Yeah, you’re telling me.”
Working here is crazy boring without the internet.
“How long will it be down for?” Brant asked.
“We should have ‘er back up real soon, kids,” the service man cut in, glancing back at us with a smile.
Not today,
Charlie thought,
maybe not for a couple days. I’m just hoping that nothing crashed and that when they get it back up, the records are still there.
“Thanks anyway, Charlie.” I offered her a wan smile. “Thanks for trying.”
I’m really sorry. I’ll try and look them up as soon as I can.
I nodded. “Well, I’ll see you later then,” I said.
“Bye Ivy… Brant.” She waved and we turned and started to walk out.
Wait,
she then thought and I stopped and glanced back at her over my shoulder.
Meet me after class, by the west entrance again. I’ve got an idea for something that might help.
I nodded then Brant and I left the library.
O
utside our Psych room, Brant and I paused to talk in the hallway. He glanced around as if worried that someone were planning to listen in on our conversation then he turned his eyes back to me. I knew I had to fill him in on a few things. He hadn’t heard what Charlie had been thinking. For an instant, his face was taut with frustration and possibly annoyance. I realized that standing there while Charlie talked to me through her thoughts, to him, must have felt like listening in on a conversation in another language.
“So, what’s the rest of the story?” he asked.
“Computers are going to be down for a while.”
Brant shook his head. “We’re running low on time. Two weeks from Monday we need to have this all figured out or our graduating classes are going to get a lot smaller.”
“Yeah, I know… Charlie thinks she has an idea though. We’re supposed to meet her after class.”
He nodded. “Well, let’s hope it’s a good one then.”
17
How to Make a Bomb
A
fter class, Brant and I walked out of the west entrance to find Charlotte waiting for us. Her fingers were picking at her nails, chipping away the cracked blue polish. She smiled at us as we walked out the door, her expression bright with nervous excitement. I watched as she shifted her weight from one hip to the other, turning out her blue Chuck Taylors so I could see the corners of a big star on the high-tops peeking out from beneath her jeans. Her enthusiasm was like the bubbles in a boiling pot of water, ready to spill over onto the stovetop at any moment.
“Hey guys.”
“Hey… so, what’s this idea you’ve got?”
Charlie seemed to suddenly flush with confidence. “Okay, so I was thinking… gasoline, bleach, gun powder… all common bomb building ingredients, right? None of them hard to get one’s hands on… but if this guy wants to blow up the whole school, he’s gonna need a lot of them.”
“You wanna try and figure out if anyone’s been buying bomb building ingredients in bulk?” Brant asked.
“That’s a good idea,” I said, “but where do we start? I mean no place is just going to give us their credit card receipts and say ‘here you go’.”
Charlie was smiling, a large self-assured grin stretched across her face. “Not unless you have access to them yourself.”
O
lsen Hardware
was the only hardware store in town, and it just so happened that Charlotte Olsen’s father owned it. It was possible that whoever was planning to blow up the school had gone to the
Wal-Mart
just outside of town, but Olsen’s would have been the closest and most convenient place to get any bomb building ingredients. As we all drove there in my Scion, I hoped that this would give us the lead we so desperately needed. I hoped, whoever this person was, that he had already bought what he needed to build this bomb, and that he had done so at Olsen’s.
Brant and I stood behind Charlie as she typed away on her father’s computer. We were all huddled in his small windowless office at the back of the store. It was hot in the small space, and smelled like sawdust and fresh cut wood. I cast a nervous glance at the door. Its green paint was chipping and exposed the silvery metal underneath. I was worried that someone would walk in before we had the information we needed.
“So what if they paid in cash?” Brant asked.
“Then we’re out of luck,” Charlie responded. The tapping of her typing reverberated in the room, becoming an obnoxious and relentless sound. It made me nervous.
“Let’s just hope they didn’t do that… although there aren’t too many kids at our school with credit cards.”
“More than you’d think” Charlie said, “and it wouldn’t have to be a credit card. Lots of kids have check cards or debit cards.”
I nodded in agreement because I had a debit card. After that I just hoped that whoever this person was that they were stupid enough to leave a paper trail.
“Okay, found one.”
“What is it?”
“Mrs. Pople apparently bought six large gas cans last week.”
“There’s a Nick Pople at our school, he’s a senior.” Brant said.
“Oh and Robert Maclin, Robb M, bought three containers of bleach less than a week ago. That’s a lot of bleach for a high school kid.”
“My mom’s had the same container sitting under our kitchen sink for over a year,” I said.
Charlie kept scrolling through the files on her dad’s computer. Every time she found something that sounded suspicious, I wrote down the name. Anyone who either went to our school or was the parent of someone at our school that bought something like propane or fertilizer was written down, especially if they bought such items in large amounts. The only problem was that we had no idea what kind of bomb this person was planning to build, and we had no idea if the propane tanks that Mr. Davis bought were for his son’s explosive endeavor or for a backyard barbeque this weekend. In the end, we had a list of about ten people that seemed most suspicious. Ten was an easier number than what we were dealing with before, but it still didn’t seem small enough. Especially since it was possible that whoever was planning this wasn’t even on our list.
“Sorry, guys,” Charlie said as we exited the hardware store, “I thought that would be a little more telling.”
“It was a good idea,” I said, squinting into the afternoon sun. “And it does help. At least it gives us ten people that we should look at before anyone else.”
“We need to get a look at those book rentals,” Brant added.
Charlie dug her hands deep into the pockets of her zip up. “The school flags all Internet searches on stuff like bombs too, I can look at those. I just need the servers to come back up.”
“Why don’t they just block sites like that?” I asked.
“In case someone’s doing a report or a speech on that stuff.”
“That makes sense.”
“So, what now?” Brant asked.
Charlie shrugged. “Food?”