in Will’s mind as he saw the rivulet of gasoline from the old truck’s tank snaking down toward the Goth puffers. Sharon Mitchell and her cheerleader friends were still going on about decorating the float and yammering about who they thought was cute and how they were going to have their hair styled for the fall dance. They were clueless.
The Goth alpha prick now sensed Will and as he opened his mouth in a lecherous smile Will saw the beast had, in place of teeth, rusty screws. Fury rose in Will like a storm and he felt his muscles tense and his jaw tighten as the violence struggled to be released. Will’s only chance to save the girl and her friends was to get the lighter from the monster and he took two powerful steps and went airborne, slamming into the Goth smoker punk . . . who barely yielded. This sucker’s strong! thought Will. The punk’s jaws were snapping, preventing Will from getting a good grip on him as he scrabbled with the lighter, creating sparks. Then came a flame and as he bit into Will’s arm with his rusty screw teeth he dropped to the ground and held the flame to the rivulet of gasoline. Will managed finally to snatch the lighter away but it was too late—the gas was aflame and snaking its way toward the truck. With time-bending speed Will threw himself forward, catching up to the streaking fire, overtaking it, and knocking into Sharon Mitchell, their bodies colliding full on. Will’s powerful anger immediately evaporated. He was totally relieved to feel it depart. After all, he was lying on top of the head cheerleader.
“What are you doing?” shouted Sharon, “Get off of me!”
Will shoved himself off and then rolled toward the flame river, snuffing it out just a couple of feet from the float. His jacket was soaked in gas and burst into flames and as the girls screamed he shrugged it off his body and stomped it out. Sharon and the other cheerleaders stood gaping at the crazy New Kid standing in front of them with his shirt half ripped off, chest heaving. He looked like some sort of character from a comic book. But was he good or evil? They were still too shocked to notice the Goth punks laughing as they drove off, their van backfiring. Will, though, had no time to appreciate their stares as he shoved Sharon and her pack of cheerleaders away from the old truck. Another tendril of gas was aflame and shooting toward its target.
“Go! MOVE! NOW!”
They shrieked indignantly but did as he commanded.
“GET DOWN!”
They hit the dirt and then the old truck and the float erupted in a fireball. The girls were terrified. The smoke billowed. Will turned and faced Sharon, still holding the lighter in his clenched hand.
“They were. . . .”
Will gestured to where the Goth punks had been, but his voice trailed off—of course the creeps were long gone. He wondered if the girls had even seen them in the first place. Will knew he looked like some insane petty arsonist. He wanted to explain that the scummy Goths were infected souls, servants, but he knew the girls would never believe him. No one ever did. All Sharon and the other cheerleaders saw was some lunatic kid. Great, thought Will, I’ve met two cute girls today and managed to alienate them both. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d saved the butts of kids who’d ostracized him. And it most likely wouldn’t be the last.
What Will didn’t know was that secretly Sharon had been totally electrified by her brief physical contact with him. She thought his hair was the bomb, his eyes were rock and roll, and as he walked away from the scene, she checked out his butt and gave him a 10 on her cheek scale. But of course she couldn’t let on that she felt that way. No, she had to make sure the New Kid thought she held him in callous disregard. So those were the signals she sent out.
An hour later, after the Harrisburg fire department had completely doused the flaming float, Will sat across from Principal Steadman, who tapped a pencil tip on one of his crooked teeth and stared at Will with irritation.
“We’re not getting off to a very good start, are we, William?”
It was of course a rhetorical question but Will nonetheless gave his stock answer, the same answer he’d given over and over whenever he’d found himself in similar situations.
“I made a mistake. I’ll try and do better.”
“A MISTAKE? You call burning down a homecoming float a mistake ?” The veins in Steadman’s forehead looked like they were about to pop. He took several deep calming breaths, closing his eyes and touching his fingertips to do some Yoga thing, acting like Will wasn’t even in the room. Will wished he wasn’t. Steadman opened his eyes and forced a smile onto his lips.
“Forgive my outburst. I’m working on that. It’s good, William. What you said was good. All is good. Admitting our mistakes, our . . . weaknesses, admitting who we really are is the first step to improving our lives.” Principal Steadman smiled. “I’m going to have to assume this was, as you say, an accident. I promised you a clean slate and that’s just what you’re going to get. So even though you have a history of this sort of thing, I’m going to let this slide and let you off with a warning this time. But please remember, if you cross the line again, the consequences could be . . . severe.”
Will nodded, his nostrils flaring, not out of anger but because he smelled something coming off of Principal Steadman. Slowly Will lifted his head and met Steadman’s eyes. For a split second Steadman’s eyes darkened. Then he smiled and shook Will’s hand.
“William, I’m a good judge of people. And I happen to think that even though you have a pretty damn dodgy past, I believe in my heart that deep down you’re a good boy. I hope you don’t prove me wrong.”
As Will left the office and made his way toward the bus loading area, kids stared at him and whispered to each other and pointed. There he goes, Torch Boy the fire freak. The New Kid. Will boarded the bus. His first day at his new school was finally over. But his adventure in Harrisburg was just beginning. The hail and the crows might have been a coincidence but the Goth punks were real. As Will rode the bus home he could think of only one thing: He’s here.
Chapter Three: Will’s Sanctum
Will got off the bus with Natalie and a few of the other kids but didn’t look back at her as he walked toward home. He knew that just being in her orbit was a bad idea; he was pulled toward her like the planets to the sun. He wasn’t sure exactly how he was going to handle the feelings he was beginning to have for this stranger but he knew he would have to keep his distance. Even if she did have a smile that cut right through him.
His house was two stories and constructed of brick with ivy crawling up the front and had a large porch jutting out like a big strong jaw. It had green shutters and a gray slate roof and an attached two-car garage. Will anticipated his mother’s singsong voice asking him how his first day of school had been. Well, gosh, Mom, let’s see, the bus was attacked by demonic crows, I made the toilet in the boys’ room flood while saving some skinny kid I don’t even know, I inadvertently blew up the homecoming float, forever alienating myself from the head cheerleader and her gang of pretty faces, and now the whole school thinks I’m some kind of whacked out arsonist. How was your day? Of course Will would say none of that, he would smile and nod or grunt some monosyllable answers like all teenagers. Sometimes being sixteen came in handy—you could gloss over tons of bizarre behavior and have it all chalked up to being a teen and going through “those awkward years.”
He called out as he entered the house, “I’m home.”
No answer. Good. Will slouched off his backpack, made a quick raid of the refrigerator and scarfed down a couple of brownies with a cold glass of milk, and then, after locking the front door, went down into
