Breaking Point (16 page)

Our group was one of the few who left for lunch. “You think we should?” Meat said, staring out at the parking lot deluge. But Charlie said he'd rather get wet than eat cafeteria swill, and of course, I agreed. I always agreed with Charlie.

But on the way back, the rain strengthened. The road was flooded, and our invading tires sent fountains of water back to the clouds. The car ahead was license plate deep.

“We shouldn't have gone,” Meat moaned. “We're gonna be late. I've got a quiz in Sheridan.”

“You wanted to go too,” Charlie snapped.

“I didn't.” Meat looked at Charlie, then the rain. “Forget it.”

We plowed through another puddle. A child's plastic basketball hoop floated by.

“We should stop,” I said suddenly.

“Stop?” Meat stared like I was nuts.

“Yeah. Pull over. We're already late, already in trouble.” I had a hiccuppy feeling, like when we went out nights. “Just not go back.”

“And do what?” But Charlie stopped the car, turned to me.

“Just not go back. Stay here. Go swimming.” I pulled my polo over my head and kicked off my shoes. Before anyone could speak, I shoved open the door. The water and wind pushed against it, but I slid by.

“Hey!” Meat yelled. “What are you—?” I slammed the door. Charlie pulled over in an arc of puddle water. I lunged through it, a wet wall slamming my hair and face. It felt good. I ran, blinking, to meet them. Charlie put the window halfway down and stared at me.

For a minute, I stood, dripping, caught in passing cars' headlights, Charlie's incredulous eyes. What was he thinking? Was I nuts? Too immature? But I crossed my eyes at him, and he grinned.

“Tell them the car stalled out,” I yelled.

In the backseat, Meat was still urging Charlie to go, leave without me. Charlie said, “You're crazy, Richmond.” And I knew I looked it, water dripping off my hair into my eyes. “And you look like a drowned giraffe.”

But he was laughing, peeling off his shirt. He lit from the car with a whoop, his legs meeting knee-deep water. He grabbed my arm, and we stumbled to the roadside, through the spattering, dancing rain. Meat joined us seconds later. We found high ground and jumped up and down, begging cars to splash us. Most obeyed, sending torrents, monsoons over our heads and down. The water knocked us back, hard. We surged forward again, again, wiping rain from our eyes, spitting liquid from laughing lips. It was a baptism. A new life where I had all the fun, the laughter, all the friends I'd ever wanted.

“What if someone sees us?” Meat yelled after a bus's wake knocked us to the ground. “Someone from school?”

“Who cares?” Charlie and I shouted in unison. Another wave swamped us. We fought up, laughing. Meat laughed too. It was okay.

We stayed there over an hour, then drove to Meat's house because he lived closest and his mom was home. We told her the car had stalled, and she served us cocoa and sympathy and provided extra pairs of Meat's enormous pants for Charlie and me to wear while ours tumbled in the kitchen clothes dryer. I even called Mom to let her know where I was. Near dinnertime, Charlie drove me home.

“Pretty wild today, Einstein,” Charlie said, pulling into a visitor's spot at our building. I'd long since stopped being ashamed of our apartment. Sure, Charlie had never come upstairs, but it didn't matter to him that I lived there.

“You may be ready for some serious fun,” he continued.

I didn't have time to ask what he meant. Mom, who'd probably been watching from upstairs, waded down with her red-and-white striped golf umbrella. “Better go,” Charlie said, laughing. “Wouldn't want to get wet.”

But the next afternoon, when we were alone in Charlie's room fooling around on his computer, Charlie turned to me.

“We may need to plant a bomb in Old Lady Zaller's classroom.”

“What?” I stared at Charlie across the monitor. Outside, a Weed Eater buzzed. Charlie smiled, and I laughed. “You really had me going there, man.”

“I'm completely serious.” Still smiling. “We've done the research, got the info.” He took a disc from the holder and inserted it into the drive. Pressed a button. The hard drive swallowed it like a snake on a mouse. A few clicks of Charlie's fingers. The file opened, screaming purple and orange letters.

TEEN ANARCHY!!!

“Charlie…”

But he was scrolling, face still frozen in a half-smile. My eyes shifted back to the screen.

We are teens sick of adults screwing with our world! If we want change, we need to change it even if it means blowing every school away!

Purple skulls and distorted smiley faces framed the text. I knew the page. We'd found it weeks ago, the day Charlie told me about his father. We'd visited it dozens of times, downloading recipes for all sorts of explosives, fantasizing about how it would be to blow the school sky-high. But that was what it was, fantasizing. At least for me. I hadn't thought Charlie was serious.

Charlie was still scrolling.

Incendiaries. Fun ways to piss people off with fire
.

Scrolling…

Needless to say, this information is “for educational purposes only.” But if you want to use it some other way, what can I do? I mean, who am I, your mother?

Underneath, set off by more skulls, were instructions for a bomb. A bomb that went into a school light fixture.

A bomb.

The Weed Eater went dead. The room was silent, except for the hum of the hard drive. And Charlie's breathing, soft, beside me.

I touched his shoulder. “You crazy, man?” I tried to meet his eyes.

He turned, met mine easily. “Who? Me?” He grinned.

“It's not funny, Charlie.” I wanted to shake him but, of course, I didn't. “It's not funny.”

“Then go home, Paul. Why not go home to Mother?” He turned away.

I stood, walked around to him, needing to explain. “It's a bomb, a f—” Maybe I should go. “I never thought you were violent.”

“That's what you're worried about?” He eased his chair back. I smelled grass through the open window. “You know me all this time, better than anyone, and you think I want to hurt people? Me? I could never hurt anyone. I'm a total pacifist, Paul.”

I looked in his eyes. It seemed impossible. I turned away, shaking my head. “Then why are you saying all this shit?”

“I thought you understood, Paul. Shit. I thought you were my friend, the one person who really knew me.” He stopped.

The Weed Eater resumed. I didn't want to leave. I wanted to be okay with him, okay like it was before he'd opened his mouth two minutes before. “But a bomb, Charlie…” I could barely say the word. “It's serious.”

“I know it is.” Charlie's eyes reproached me. “No one would have to get hurt. There are lots of ways we could do this so no one would have to get hurt.”

“But someone might.”

“No. You've seen the website. We can do stuff with fuses, with time-delay so no one is even there when it goes off.” He met my eyes. “Don't you trust me, Paul?”

“Of course I do,” I said, way too quickly. But I wanted to agree with him. He'd done so much for me. He'd practically saved my life. “I don't know, Charlie. I mean, it says…” The phrase
blowing every school away
jumped out at me. This was real. No way could Charlie talk me out of my knowing that.

“We could rig it to go off while everyone is at chapel,” he said. So I knew he'd thought this out. “It'll start a fire, that's all. A harmless little fire where everyone will have fun in the sprinklers.” Charlie clicked
Exit
. “A harmless fire that might, incidentally, destroy poor Mrs. Zaller's file cabinet.”

Oh, that was it. He was still worried about the D. And his father. He'd mentioned it before, the trouble we'd be in if anyone noticed the grade change. And what would Big Chuck do if he knew about the D? It was too scary to consider. The cabinet held Zaller's hard files with all Charlie's test grades. With that gone, no one would ever find out.

Still, I said, “I don't know, Charlie. I mean, someone could still get hurt in a fire. It would scare the crap out of them, at least.”

But the thought hit me. So what?
So what?
They were a bunch of spoiled brats who'd never paid for anything. Maybe they deserved to pay. Or, at least, to get scared shitless. I thought about everything they'd done, everything that had happened to me.

Until Charlie. My loyalty was to Charlie. How could I let him down?

Ask Charlie who killed the dog
. Why had his request made me think of the note again?

I put the thought from my mind. It was crazy, thinking like that. “I don't think so. Maybe we can think of some other way to get rid of the test papers.”

“No problem.” Charlie took the disc from the hard drive, flipping it into his hand. “But think about it. You have time.” He reached for his backpack and buried the disc deep inside. “It would be fun, though, wouldn't it?”

I nodded, imagining it, imagining all of them, scurrying like ants. It made me smile. “Yeah, it would be.”

That week in chapel, the sermon was “The Terror of Temptations.” I squirmed in my seat and tried not to listen. Why did I even care?

“I want you to stop seeing that boy.”

Mom stood between me and the television. I'd just been flipping through the channels. But now, I bobbed and wove to see it, avoiding Mom's eyes. I didn't answer.

I hadn't gone to Charlie's after school that day. He had practice. At least, that's what he'd said, though his practices seldom ran that late. I tried not to consider the other possibility, that he was so angry I'd refused to plant the bomb, that he didn't want to be friends anymore. He'd said that wasn't it. “Relax, Einie, I have practice. Duty calls.” And no one picked on me at school, so it was probably true.

Now, Mom snapped off the televison. “Did you hear me?”

“Yes.” Between my teeth.

“Good, then we're agreed.” She turned the television back on, started to walk away.

“You have to be nuts if you think I'm listening to you.”

She turned back and stood there a moment. I watched her. She was imploding. Silently. Trying to decide whether to scream or cry, which type of emotional blackmail to use. She chose her weapon.

She yanked a hair.

“Quit it,” I snapped. I wanted to pull every hair from her head. I grabbed the remote and turned the sound louder. The room filled with the sounds of World Wrestling Federation.

“Why are you behaving like this?” she shrieked over the noise. She walked to the edge of the room, pivoted, and turned back. “Since you've met him, you barely spend an hour at home. You won't talk to me. You're only home for dinner and bed.” She sank onto the sofa. “We used to mean so much to each other.”

“I never meant anything to you. Not really. Not as your son. As your servant, maybe, or some kind of surrogate husband you didn't have to f—sleep with. Why don't you get a boyfriend? Or any friend and get the hell out of my life!”

I stopped. The words hung there.

“How dare you…?” She was crying now, burying head in hands. The old Paul would have held her, comforted her. This Paul didn't care. “I love you,” she sobbed. “I gave up everything for you. Everything.”

“What did you give up?”

“You may as well know, I suppose. When your father and I divided our property in the divorce, I told him he could have everything as long as he didn't contest my custody of you.”

She looked up at me, triumphant.

I stepped back. “Dad wanted custody?”

“Oh, he said he did.” She stopped, stifling leftover sobs with her palm. “He said lots of things, but it was all about money, all about trying to work a good settlement. A good deal. He never loved you like I did.”

The meaning soaked in. “So, you
bought
me from him.”

“Don't say that. He sold more than I bought. He had a million reasons why I shouldn't have you.” She laughed, a high cough. “But the second I said I'd forget the money, I became the perfect mother in his eyes. He told the judge so. So, we agreed. I'd come here with barely a penny to my name. And he'd leave us alone, no matter what.”

She kept talking, saying other things, but I wasn't listening. I felt dizzy, sick. All those calls. All those soul-killing calls to my father. He hadn't answered because he loved money. Loved money enough to shut me out forever. And worse. Dad had known all along what a leech Mom was, yet he'd abandoned me to her. And Mom gloried in it. I buried my head in my hands and sat there, willing her to disappear.

The next best thing. The phone rang. I reached for it.

“Don't get that,” Mom snapped. She lunged for the end table, but I was faster.