And just as I’m standing up again, drawing breath to yell once more for the girl who’s been calling me for help, I feel two hands in the small of my back, and the next second they give me an enormous push that sends me hurtling forward.
It’s such a shock that I can’t get my footing. I’m catapulted ahead, tumbling over my feet, and another blow hits me, this time on the front of my body, a shockingly painful thwack across my hipbones. I double over again, but the momentum of that shove in the back means I’m still shooting forward.
The stairs! I think frantically, realizing what’s happening much too late. I slammed into the railing with my hips and when I doubled up, I went flying over it!
I’ll never know whether the person who pushed me came up behind me and gave me a final tip over the rail. I think they did. I couldn’t possibly—even with the speed at which I was moving—have hit that balustrade fast enough for the impact to spin me and send me somersaulting over it into space.
Which is what happened. One moment I’m stumbling forward, in total shock at having been pushed so savagely; the next, I’m flying through the air headfirst, down a stairwell three stories high, with so much smoke in my lungs that I can’t even scream.
four
THERE’S ALWAYS A PLAN B
I’m spinning through the air, so dazed and stunned by what just happened that I don’t even have time to be furious. I pivoted over that rail on my hips just as if I were doing the uneven bars in a gymnastics competition, but, having no control, I flipped head over heels. Thank God the stairwell’s wide enough that I don’t crack my legs on the far side and break something, but the lack of contact with anything solid means that I’m completely disoriented; I’m falling like Alice down the rabbit hole.
My back’s arched, my hands are outstretched, my legs are flailing. Terror is screaming in my brain like a burst of white lightning, a firework exploding inside my head. If I don’t do something fast—really fast—I’m going to crash to the hall floor far below. I’ll be lucky if I just break a leg.
I could break my back.
I could die.
In a spasm of utter panic, I jackknife as if I were doing a flip between two bars. That gives me a little more momentum, a little more control, because as I come out of it my back is stretched to its full length, my arms reaching almost out of their sockets. It feels like Ricky, my old gymnastics coach, has his feet jammed into my upper thighs, and is leaning back, grabbing onto my wrists, pulling my back so long I have to bite my lip not to yell in pain.
My fingers are flexing frantically, reaching for anything they can find as I hurtle down the stairwell in an ugly, crooked swan dive. This is my one chance, this mad lunge across empty space, and if I don’t make it, the consequences could be lethal—
Yes! My fingers slam into something and immediately, frantically, grip onto it as if I were drowning and it were a life preserver. The edge of the staircase. Has to be. It’s a ninety-degree angle: my fingers are flat on the surface, my palms squeezing against the vertical face of the wall below, my hands clamping with everything I have as they take the weight of my entire body, which slams into the wall a second later.
Owww!—my nose—I brace my arms, desperately trying to hold myself far enough away so I don’t smash it full force into the wall. The tip does smoosh against the wall, but I manage to jerk my chin up and lock my arms to give me a half inch or so. Barely adequate, but although I whack my nose, the cartilage doesn’t break, thank God. I’ve seen girls break their noses before in gymnastics practice, taking headers onto the beam, and I know how bad it is. No way would I be able to keep clinging to the stair rung with that sort of pain in my face and pints of blood gushing out of my nostrils.
I’m flailing with my legs, but there’s nothing below me; the stair wall ends about midthigh. I can feel it cutting into me. I could try to swing my lower body enough to propel me forward onto the staircase below, but that’s so high-risk the thought terrifies me immediately; if I don’t make it, I’ll land on my back or neck on the railing. And even if I do make it, I could still turn an ankle, break a leg, or worse, tumbling down the staircase.
No. Can’t do it.
And my fingers are starting to slip.
Okay. Stay calm. Find a Plan B. There’s always a Plan B.
Taylor and I have been doing a lot of oblique curl-ups recently. Trying to get into our waistlines, narrow them in. Neither of us has much in the way of a waist naturally, so this is something we’ve been working on hard: hanging off the bars at the school gym, pulling our knees to our chests, twisting from one side to the other.
Normally I would take a deep breath before I try this, but the heavy gray smoke surrounding me isn’t going to help much with that. I cock my right hip, heaving it up as far as I can, using my abdominal muscles, curling into them to get my hip even higher so that my right leg can kick out sideways onto a stair edge.
My bare foot connects with two poles. Banisters, I think in triumph a second before I stub my toe painfully, unable to control how hard I sent my leg up and into them.
Ow! But I can’t flinch. I need that banister to keep me alive. I push through the pain, driving my foot between the two banisters, jamming it there, my sole flat to the stair below, giving me enough purchase to take one hand off the stair it’s on and reach for the stair rail above. I make it just as the other hand slips off, so sweaty by now it can’t maintain its death clamp.
But I’m safe. One hand on a stair rail, one foot wedged between two banisters: that, to an ex-gymnast, is total security. My left foot snakes up to find the stair wall, walking up it vertically till my toes curl round the stair edge; my right hand comes up to grip the same banister as my left hand; like a monkey, I climb up it, swinging myself over the rail and landing on the concrete staircase.
I’ve never been more grateful to feel cold concrete beneath my feet in my life.
Cold! I think instantly, relief exploding in my brain. If the fire were really dangerous, it’d be warm by now—which means it’s okay to go downstairs—
I dash down the stairs, smoke surrounding me, one hand on the stair rail to keep me oriented. I’m very aware that someone just pushed me—lured me into that stairwell and tried to kill me, or at least hurt me badly. I don’t think she can have been watching my struggle to save myself, because the smoke is just too thick; but she could be lurking on the staircase, waiting in ambush.
She won’t hear me though—bare feet make no sound on concrete. And I’d like to see her try to catch me. I’m down two flights in thirty seconds, flying on the pads of my feet, swinging round each turn of the stairs, pivoting round my hand on the stair rail like a dancer.
I usually hate fire doors; they’re everywhere, they weigh a ton, you can’t prop them open. But now I get the point of them for the first time in my life. Because at the bottom of the staircase is a fire door, and when I drag it open and dash through it, the smoke abates almost immediately.
Oh my God! I can breathe! And straightaway I start coughing in relief, the smoke that’s been tearing at the lining of my lungs coming out now in a series of spasms as I stand for a moment, catching my breath, getting my bearings.
Hooray for fire doors! Ahead of me is a bright red Exit sign, and I lunge toward it, my hands slamming into the horizontal metal rail, pushing it down and away, an alarm wail going off as I slam the door open, adding an extra layer of cacophony to the siren of the fire alarm, which is still ringing madly overhead.
Fresh air. Cold white moonlight pouring through tree branches. Even colder stone beneath my feet.
And a group of screaming St. Tabby’s and Wakefield Hall girls farther down the length of the school building, by the main entrance, clustered together on the grass.
More sirens are blaring in the distance. Still coughing, trying to catch my breath, I walk toward the girls, the damp night grass easier on my soles than the hard freezing stone, and as I get closer I see a struggle going on that resolves itself into Taylor at i
ts center. She’s wrestling to get free of Miss Carter, who’s grabbing one of her arms while Jane, Miss Carter’s girlfriend, holds on to the other. Taylor’s in her red pajamas; Miss Carter is in pj’s too, white with blue stripes, and Jane is wearing some sort of gray nightie with a lace trim. It’s really weird to see teachers in their nightclothes. As if the universe got tipped on its head.
“You can’t go back in there!” Aunt Gwen is shouting.
“Scarlett’s in there!” Taylor yells. “I have to go! I thought she was right behind me!”
“Taylor”—Miss Carter sounds really distressed—“we can’t let anyone back into the building—”
“I know where she was! I have to go back to find her!” Taylor’s hair is falling in her face as she tries to shrug off the two women holding her.
Flashing lights, red and blue, appear suddenly as fire engines come past the high stone wall that encircles the Fetters grounds, turning in to the drive. The sirens’ roar grows louder and louder, till everyone’s screaming to be heard over it.
“Look, the firemen are here!” Miss Carter yells at Taylor. “They’ll go in and find her! That’s their job!”
“No! I have to! I have to go! She’s my friend and I left her behind!”
I try to yell to Taylor that I’m okay, but my throat is still so sore I can’t make a sound above a croak. Aunt Gwen, I see as I get closer, has her arms around Lizzie and Sophia, who are equally hysterical. I’d be amazed, if I had any time to process that sight. I’ve never seen Aunt Gwen willingly touch anyone. Emergencies obviously bring out sides of people’s characters you never knew existed.
Just then, Taylor raises her arms and then wrenches them down so viciously that she loosens Miss Carter’s and Jane’s hold on her; they stagger back, crashing into Alison and Luce, who are in the group of St. Tabby’s girls directly behind them. Shaking them free, Taylor takes off running. She’s going straight for the front door. I can’t shout, but I’ve got enough breath by now to take to my heels: I start running immediately, aiming to cut her off.
I can’t let her go back in there.
Taylor’s got better stamina than me, and she’s much stronger. But gymnasts are sprinters. We have to be able to build up tons of momentum from a standing start. Also, we’re used to taking really, really long strides to lengthen our bodies as much as possible.
She doesn’t stand a chance. By the time I reach her I’m practically airborne. I lunge from my right foot and launch myself into what Ricky called Supergirl, almost horizontal in the air, my arms stretching out in front of me as if I’m flying, my legs stretching out behind me in parallel. Because this is how you go into a front handspring, my hands are intended to hit the ground first. And when you do floor work, you have to know exactly where your hands and feet are going to land—if you go outside the line, the judges deduct barrowfuls of points. It’s been months and months since I did gymnastics, but my aim is still perfect.
My hands aren’t aiming for the ground. They’re targeted on Taylor’s waist. A second later I barrel into her, my arms wrapping round her, my body rolling to the left, and there are huge “Ooofs!” of expelled air from both of us as we smash into the ground.
I was fast enough to grab her while she was still on the grass, thank goodness; otherwise the landing would have been even more painful. Red and blue lights flash across us as we roll over, elbows poking into each other. Taylor accidentally knees me in the tummy, and I groan.
“It’s me! Scarlett!” I manage to pant.
“Scarlett?”
We’ve come to rest now, still tangled up in each other on the damp grass. Taylor drags an arm out from under me and uses it to prop herself up enough to see my face.
“I thought you were back in there!” she yells at me angrily. “What happened?”
Firefighters are jumping down from the engines now, huge bulky bodies in their dark blue uniforms, unrolling gigantic hoses, the yellow reflective strips on their jackets and trousers catching the light and bouncing it back. They’re shouting things to each other. I see two of them stride over to the group of girls and teachers.
“Someone tricked me!” I say, still panting. I wriggle free of Taylor and roll onto all fours; it’s easier to breathe not lying flat on my back. “Some girl called my name, and when I went she pushed me down the back staircase—”
“What?”
I can’t see Taylor’s expression; the flashing lights are behind her, and they’re layering red and blue over her face like something out of a music video. It’s strangely hypnotic. I sink back to my heels, the shock of what just happened to me beginning to sink in, suddenly feeling totally drained.
“It’s true,” I say defensively, hearing the exhaustion in my voice. I know it sounds insane, like I have some sort of persecution mania. “She pushed me and I went over the stair rail.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know—I thought it was a girl, but the smoke was so thick—”
“Are you two all right?”
A fireman is bending over us, and we look up at him; he seems gigantic from this angle, larger than life, his voice distorted by his helmet. It’s hard to believe there’s a human being inside that shell.
“Yes,” I say, as Taylor adds:
“She was in there longer than anyone—all that smoke—”
“I’m fine,” I say as the fireman hooks one enormous yellow-gloved hand under my armpit and hauls me to my feet.
“Let’s take a look at you, then, lassie,” he says, pulling off his helmet, as behind him a loud voice yells authoritatively:
“Hold off, lads! Hold off!”
The sirens have stopped, though the lights are still flashing madly. The firefighters who were unrolling the hoses have stopped. The fireman is walking me over to the front steps, where he sits me down, yanks off one of his gloves, and checks my pulse. Two more firefighters pound heavily up the steps and in through the front doors, one of them saying to the other:
“I’m telling you, Stewart, sometimes there is smoke without fire—”
The fireman beside me hoists a huge yellow torch off his belt, turns it on, and points it into my face. I yelp feebly, raising one hand to shield my eyes.
“How’s she doing?” asks another fireman, coming over.
“No facial burns, no singed nostril hairs,” says the first one, directing the torch up my nose.
“Eeew!” I say indignantly, putting a hand up over it.
“You cough up any nasty black stuff, lassie?” the second one asks.
I shake my head.
“I’ve stopped coughing now, anyway,” I say.
“No more coughing, no vomiting. Feel dizzy at all? Confused?” the first one asks.
I think this over.
“Just, you know, normal confusion,” I say. “It’s all been quite a shock.”
Nice understatement, I think.
“Ach, she’s fine. This is your chum, right?” He nods at Taylor, who’s followed us and is standing behind him. “Keep an eye on her for the next hour or so, lassie. Ian, get me some water, will you?”
“Who’s in charge here?” bellows one of the firefighters who entered the school building, emerging back outside, walking so heavily in his big boots that it looks as if he’s wading through a river.
“I am!” Miss Carter, Aunt Gwen, and Ms. Burton-Race all chorus.
“Well, ladies,” he says, waddling over to them, “I’ve got good news and bad news. The good news is that you never had much of a fire here. Just a lot of smoke. The bad news is that you’ve got some naughty girls playing silly buggers. Someone’s been putting firelighters into those metal bins you have and setting them on fire.”
He rolls his rs so heavily that girls comes out as gurrrls, and the word fire seems to last forever.
“Not just firelighters, Stew,” says the other one, coming through the doors, waving a couple of long tubes in one yellow-gloved hand. “Some eejit’s been playing around with smoke bombs.”
“What?” Aunt Gwen and Miss Carter exclaim in shock.
“Smoke bombs?” Ms. Burton-Race echoes.
“They’re smoke sticks,” the second fireman informs us all. “Set off a few of these at once, you’ll get a roomful of smoke. And if all the windows are closed, as they would be on a nasty damp night like this, you’ll find that smoke hangs around for a long time.”
“I can’t believe this!” Ms. Burton-Race mutters furiously as the firefighter jumps down from the cab of one of the engines and comes over to me with a water bottle. I drink very gratefully; I hadn’t realized how thirsty I was.
“You can all go back inside,” says Stew, waving a huge yellow hand toward the front door. “And if I were you, ladies, I’d stage a major investigation, pronto, to find out which of these young women did something this stupid.” He folds his arms over his chest. “Because playing with fire is verra, verra stupid, lassies. Someone could have got seriously hurt from smoke inhalation. Believe it or not, fifty to eighty percent of deaths from fires are down to smoke inhalation. Did you know that?”
We all shake our heads dutifully, eyes wide and fixed on Stewart; his voice is so booming and serious you can’t help being impressed by him. Even Plum and Nadia, I notice, are focusing completely.
“And think about someone taking a nasty fall because they couldn’t see where they were going!” he continues. “Think about someone going head over heels and breaking their neck! How would you feel if you’d played a silly trick like this and someone—one of your chums—got paralyzed for life? Or worse—died? Don’t make me tell you how many corpses we’ve had to carry out of buildings! And what if one of those bins had overturned? You could have started a fire for real!”
Even though he pronounces died in a funny way, no one laughs. No one even sniggers. Stewart’s manner is totally serious, and it makes us equally so. Looming over us, huge in his dark uniform, his shoulders looking wide as a house, the bright flashes of reflective strips gleaming, he’s as imposing as the school building itself.
Kiss of Death Page 5