If Only Every Moment Was Black and White (4 page)

I suddenly felt like a rat in a trap. I was such a third wheel. I wanted to get out from between them. Still, I was siding with Carrie. For many reasons.
 

“You’ve been over there four times tonight,” she said, pointing a finger.
 

I knew the next answer was it. Either Larry was going to apologize and make things right with his date, or keep ramping things up. I looked at him carefully.
 

In slow motion, at least for me, he started to raise one pointing finger of his own, mouth starting to curl in anger. I couldn’t take it. I wouldn’t. I really liked Carrie. Despite the fact that she should have gone to the Prom with me, I didn’t want her night to be ruined.
 

So, yes, I admit it. I pushed.
 

Don’t, Larry. Apologize to your date.
 

Larry dropped his hand and stood up straight, like ice water had been poured on him. A heartbeat passed. Then another. “I’m sorry, Carrie. I’ve been rude. I should have been here with you. Can you forgive me?”

Wow, I pushed too hard
, I thought.
That was awfully convincing.
 

Carrie blushed, and even smiled. “Well… okay,” she said.
 

“I should be the one asking you to dance,” Larry said. God, he even seemed charming to
me.
I needed my head examined.
 

At that point, I really felt I’d had enough. Without a word, I stepped back, folded into the mob of dancers and flashing lights, then turned toward my own table. I figured Steve and Tom would razz me for talking to Carrie, but that was nothing new.

Only, when I got to my table, no one was there.
 

Not wanting to sit by myself, I figured I’d head to the bathroom. Mr. Julian (just
Julian
?) was monitoring the hall doors. Well, more like he was half asleep, sitting in a plastic chair next to the hall doors. I gave him a little wave, but he didn’t even see it. Whatever.

Tom and Steve weren’t in the bathroom either, so after I took care of what needed to be taken care of, I left, the industrial wooden door thudding against its frame as it closed. A sound I will always equate with
school
.
 

To my right was all the booming sound of the dance. To my left, a gate of crisscrossing metal — the kind schools roll out to block hallways they don’t want kids going into. It wasn’t a barrier so much as a warning:
If you know what’s good for you, don’t go past this gate.

I went past the gate. I wanted to take a walk, down the dark halls, be alone for a few minutes. I sure as hell didn’t want to go back and watch Larry and Carrie dancing together. Besides, Mr. Julian likely had no idea I even went past him, so probably no one would miss me for a little while. I walked down the dark halls, wistfully thinking of how my night might have been if Carrie had come to the Prom with me instead.

Day/evening dreaming, I realized that someone nearby was smoking. This, in general, is not a pleasant thing for me. Smoking makes me think about the kind of kids who smoke. The kind of kids who bully kids like me. The kind who smoke behind warehouses.
Bad
things.
 

But, damn, it
really
smelled like smoke. Whoever it was, they were going to town. They were probably gonna get in trouble, making such a stink inside the school.

Then I saw a flicker of light and noticed wisps of smoke, coming from the crack at the top of a door marked SUPPLY.
 

This isn’t some bunch of knucklehead bullies smoking
, I thought.
This is a fire. Oh crap.

I pushed open the heavy door to the supply room. That was probably
not
a smart idea. Fire covered almost the entire floor, and was licking at things on shelves — paper, books, chemicals of some sort. In places, the fire was nearly touching the ceiling. I had heard about what fire can do in ceilings — travel throughout a building quickly — and I knew things were bad. Very bad.
 

I ran back into the hall, scanned left and right until I found a fire alarm, then rushed over and pulled it. Instantly, a loud, blaring alarm began sounding in the dark hallway.
Everybody’s got to get out of the building
, I thought.

But… the music. It didn’t stop. I couldn’t figure out why.

Then I realized the problem, a problem that I thought might get a lot of kids killed. Friends of mine. Carrie.
If the music is so loud that I can hear it over the alarm, maybe they can’t hear the alarm at all…

I remembered a story I’d heard, about some concert hall catching fire. The people had plenty of time to get out, but they panicked. People got hurt. Some got stranded and died. If I ran back and yelled “Fire!” would that happen here?

Something clicked in my head. Something about my powers, maybe. All I know is that I had to do something about the fire myself.
 

Come on, John, that’s stupid talk. Sure, you’ve put your hand above a lighter a few times, but do you really think you can dive into a raging fire and not get hurt?

Through the open door of the supply room, I saw two things that made me act: fire, catching on the ceiling tiles, and a fire extinguisher at the back of the room.
Oh, good, the fire extinguisher is
behind
the fire. That helps.

I had to go through the fire.

I knew it was going to hurt. I just didn’t realize how much.

I dove in. A pain of previously unknown proportions consumed me. Every inch of my body
hurt
. My clothes were on fire, my skin evading the flames but sending messages of pain to my brain. I held my head in my hands, both as a semi-useless attempt at protection, and an even more useless attempt at filtering smoke out of the air. The fire was dense. I was daunted. I couldn’t push through.

I looked around, seeking something else to put out the fire.
 

There was nothing.

I mean, I could throw a few packs of printer paper on it. That should help, right?
 

There was no time. Stuff was burning, no one else was around, and it was getting
bad.
I tried to think.

The only thing that came to mind was this:
stop, drop, and roll
.

Let me tell you. That might be useful when
you
are on fire. It’s not so useful when you want to
put out
a fire.

But, it was my only idea, so I did it.
 

I flopped down on the fire, still holding my head in my hands, wincing and shouting from the pain, rolling back and forth. And, although the fire did not go out, it diminished.
 

My clothes were in shambles by then, like rags I had thrown over my shoulders and around my waist. Thankfully, my underwear stayed pretty much intact. Looking back, I think this might have been because my skin protected it. I don’t know. Regardless, it was a tiny blessing in an evening of otherwise gigantic catastrophes. Somehow my hair mostly remained as well. I guess the alien thorn things inside me don’t want a person to go around without a nice coif.

Anyway, I flailed and rolled and put out enough fire that I could move into the room farther. But there was still a huge amount of flame between me and the fire extinguisher. I stood and shuffled through the supplies nearest me. On the floor, I noticed two huge tubs, both beginning to melt from the heat. Their labels read “liquid detergent.”
 

That's not flammable, right?
I thought. It was worth the gamble. I toppled the two tubs and out spilled the soapy bluish liquid. Fires hissed out all around me.

While the biggest threat was gone, the shelves and some of the ceiling remained on fire, so I knew I still needed the extinguisher. I pushed through the dense smoke, coughing.
 

The extinguisher was maybe half a dozen feet in front of me, but it might as well have been on the moon. The smoke was too thick. I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t see more than a few inches in front of me. In search of a mask or something to cover my head, I slammed into the shelves. And there, at about eye height, I saw a plastic pouch labeled “blanket.” A symbol caught my eye — a graphic of a flame with a circle around it and a line through it.
Fire retardant
. Good. I tore open the package and wrapped the blanket around myself.
 

Coughing and staggering, I pushed through the smoke and past the still-climbing flames, extending one hand ahead. It touched on something rounded, metal. The fire extinguisher. I lifted it off the wall and fumbled with the control.
How the hell does this thing work?
I thought. But there was no way I could read instructions through the smoke.
Forget it, just try anything
. I squeezed, pointing the business end toward the burning shelves.
 

And, miraculously, it worked.

The white, fluffy mess coming from the extinguisher smothered the fire completely.
 

When the last of the flames were doused, I released the extinguisher and let it fall, clanging, to the ground. I sighed, deeply. Bad idea. My deep breath brought on a coughing fit of epic proportions. I had to get out of the room, needed air.

Staggering, with the blanket wrapped around me, I stepped into the hallway, a place of blessedly smoke-free air. I heaved, bent over, hands on knees.

Then I heard the rapid footsteps of someone approaching at a dead run.
 

My lungs were thick. I had to keep sucking in air. Couldn’t even look up.

“John! John Black! Oh my God — are you all right?”
 

The voice seemed familiar, but at a strange pitch from the exertion of running. Or maybe it was fear.
 

“Vice Principal Gellar?” I asked, head coming up to confirm it was indeed her. She was about my mom’s age, pretty, in an adult sort of way. Always wearing a smart business skirt, high heels. Must have been hard, running in those.

“John, what happened?” She eyed the open door to the Supply Room, the billows of smoke slowly dissipating. And she eyed me. In a really weird way.

“Vice Principal Gellar, look.” I huffed the words out, still trying to get fresh air in my lungs. “I know I’m not supposed to be in this part of this school tonight, but I needed to take a walk by myself for a minute. And that’s when I realized the Supply Room was on fire. I tried to pull the alarm, but no one could hear me over the music. And I didn’t want it to catch the whole school on fire, so I…”

Her eyes went wide. “You
what
?”

“I put it out.” My head fell again. For some reason, I almost felt ashamed. Like I was going to be in trouble.
 

“You
put it out
? It looks like that whole room was on fire,” she said, looking around the door jamb to the incredible mess that was the remains of the Supply Room.

“It was,” I said.

“John…” Vice Principal Gellar’s voice changed from scared to something else. Awed. “You’re a hero.” She even laughed.

A hero?

Wow. I hadn’t really thought of that. I was just trying to not get a bunch of people I knew hurt or killed. But… I guess that’s what a hero does, right?
 

I was a hero.
 

Suddenly I was awash with a feeling, like pride. I had done something good, really good. People would commend me. People would like me.
 

Girls
might like me.

Carrie
might like me.
 

I cracked a little smile.
 

It was, just for a second, the most amazing feeling. The most amazing moment.
 

Then Vice Principal Gellar spoke again. “You’re even dressed for it.”

“Huh?” I said, smile falling. I looked down at myself.
 

Oh no
.

Then my head swiveled and I caught my reflection in the door window to Mrs. Felgar’s math class. I was standing in the hallway of my middle school in my underwear. With a blanket wrapped around my shoulders like a cape.

“You’re like a superhero!” she said, a kind of glee coming over her.

Oh my God.
I gaped at my reflection.
A superhero
. No no no no no.

I had to get rid of the blanket. And let me tell you, I almost — right then and there — tossed the blanket to the ground. But at the last millisecond, I realized that if I did that, I would be standing in my middle school wearing nothing but my underwear. I couldn’t do it.
 

My throat seized. I couldn’t breathe or speak. People — kids my age, my friends, my enemies, and worst of all, Carrie — were going to see me dressed like a low-budget superhero. I wanted to throw up.
 

I had to get out. Get out before anyone else saw me.
 

There were footsteps. People were coming. A lot of people. They must have finally heard the alarm, probably between songs.

“Vice Principal Gellar?” I said, voice barely audible.

“Yes, John?”

“I need, um… a glass of water. Could I ask you to get me one? I’m, I don’t know, feeling a little dizzy from the smoke.” I feigned a swoon. It couldn’t have looked very realistic, but she snapped to attention.

“Absolutely, John. Just a second. Stay right here.” Then Vice Principal Gellar rushed into a nearby classroom.

I waited the obligatory heartbeat.
 

And then I ran. Down the hall, around a corner, down another hall to the great double doors that lead outside.

They’ll be locked. They’ll be locked. There’s no way out.

But they weren’t locked. I guess the custodial staff planned to fully lock up after the dance. God bless them, each and every one.

I pushed through the doors and into the cool, dark night, running toward my house with a fire retardant blanket streaming behind me like a cape.

Author's Note