Нил Шустерман - The Shadow Club

“There’s more,” said Darren. “This is the bad part.” He leaned his head back. I could tell by his voice that he was crying a little. “When he told us about the fires,” continued Darren, “I got real crazy. I . . . I started to dunk his head in the water over and over again ...”

“Oh, no!” I yelled. “How could you do that?”

“I don’t know! I just started thinking about that fireman they carried out of the gym last year, and about all the people that could have been killed, and if you were there you would have done the same thing, ’cause you were acting just as crazy as me!”

A shiver began in my back, working its way up to my head. Darren was right, I probably would have done it.

“We all helped,” said Jason. “We all kept pushing him in the water, and he kept yelling, then gasping, then he didn’t make any noises at all.”

“We were gonna stop,” added O.P., “but a gigantic wave hit all of us. We were all knocked down, and by the time we got our balance and stood up, Tyson wasn’t there.”

I stared at them in disbelief.

“That’s when the craziness sort of just went away,” said Darren, “and we all realized what we had done. We searched and searched the water, but we couldn’t find Tyson. It seemed like we were searching for ten minutes . . . and then, another wave rolled in, and we saw him tossed over in the crest, facedown. We all swam out to him and dragged him back to shore. It was scary, Jared—he was so limp and so heavy.”

“I resuscitated him,” said O.P. “I didn’t even know if I was doing it right, but I must have been, ’cause it worked. He coughed up water and just kept coughing, so we rolled him onto his side.

“He was really dazed,” continued Darren. “I don’t know if he was even completely conscious at first, but then a minute later, he stumbles up, and begins to run away.”

“He threw a rock at us,” said Abbie. “It nearly hit Darren in the head.”

“Do you blame him?” I asked.

“No,” said Jason. “Anyway, he ran up the way we came, coughing, cursing, and screaming, ‘I’ll show you! I’ll show you!’ That was the last we saw of him.”

So that was it. “What a mess,” I said, figuring that to be the biggest understatement of my life.

“There’s one more thing,” said Darren. “We came back here to wait for you on account of we were afraid to go home, since Greene had probably called all our parents. While we sat here waiting we found something out.” Darren looked down—nobody could look me in the face.

“Tyson . . . didn’t . . . pull. . . the pranks,” said Darren. He stopped for a while, then said, “I cut Vera’s brakes,” and Abbie said, “I poured paint in Eric’s locker,” and O.P. said, “I put David’s trumpet behind the bus,” and Jason said, “I put the blockbuster in the fish tank—I didn’t mean to blow it up. I also hid the camera in Tommy Nickols’ locker.”

“We figured Cheryl or Randall put the rocks down for Austin,” said Darren.

“Cheryl did,” I said.

“Thought so,” said Darren.

“What did you do?” asked O.P.

I thought about it. “I did the worst thing of all,” I said. “It was my idea to start pulling pranks to begin with.”

We sat there for the longest time, cold and wet, afraid to go anywhere.

“So what do we do now?” asked Abbie. “What happens when we get home? What happens tomorrow? What happens at school on Monday?”

“Whatever happens to us happens. We deserve it. Anyway, let’s not think about any of that now.” I stood up. “I’m going to Tyson’s house,” I said, “to start . . . unscrewing things up, and apologize.”

“How do you apologize for nearly killing someone?” asked O.P.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I’ve never almost killed someone before.”

One by one they all stood to follow me, and we walked out of Stonehenge together, but as we did I noticed something and knelt down beside it. It was the pile of marionette heads, arms, legs, and bodies torn to bits. He must have spent hours on each one. Now they were beyond repair.

“Why do you think he made those?” asked Abbie.

“I think I know,” said Jason. “He doesn’t have any friends. He had to make up friends of his own.”

“We were all in his collection,” I said. “I guess we should have been flattered.” I stood and led the way to Tyson’s house.

Something was wrong at the lighthouse.

There were lights in the windows, but they were the wrong color, and they flickered.

Darren realized it first. “It’s on fire!” he said, and we ran toward it. “Tyson set the place on fire!”

The front door was wide open, just as we had left it, and Tyson’s aunt and uncle were still not home. As I peered in, I could see flames eating up the living room. There wasn’t much time to think, or to do much of anything, but one thought did make its way to my brain. If Tyson was in there, and he died, it would be my fault, because we pushed him to do it. I knew that I couldn’t live with that; I couldn’t live with it for one single day!

I ran through the front door, as the rest of the club screamed for me to stop.

Inside, it didn’t seem as bad as it had looked from the outside. The drapes were on fire, the furniture and part of the floor, too, but I could make my way around easily, if I held my breath. I ran down the hall that was just beginning to catch fire, but when I looked into Tyson’s room I had to turn away—the fire was everywhere. I couldn’t see a thing, and could feel the heat all around me! There was no way I could get near the room.

Fire moves faster than most people probably think it does. When I turned around, the hallway was blocked off by flames, so I turned and ran through a door, finding myself in the kitchen. It was amazing, but nothing in the kitchen was on fire yet. I closed the door behind me.

That’s when I began to get scared. Really scared. It just came over me, nearly making me pass out. Smoke filled the room, and I could hear the rumble of the flames eating up the walls around me. There were no windows in the small kitchen, and only one other door. I ran to open it.

It was locked.

Turning the knob, I pushed on it again and again, but it wouldn’t budge. I was trapped! I heard the television explode in the living room, and I realized that coming into this burning house was the biggest mistake I had ever made. That’s when I did it.

I wet my pants.

That’s right, I wet my pants, and I’m not ashamed of it either! I was on the verge of frying to death! No human being can stand that stress.

Anyway, I didn’t realize it right away; I was too busy kicking at the door. Then for no particular reason, I turned the knob and pulled rather than pushed. The door opened.

How stupid! I thought to myself. How stupid it would be if I died because I was too much of an idiot to pull the door instead of push it!

I closed the door behind me and found myself in a round room, standing before an old wooden spiral staircase. I was inside the base of the lighthouse.

Behind me the roar of the flames got loud, and I knew that the kitchen was history; I had gotten out just in time. Ahead of me lay the spiral staircase, no windows or doors, and so up I went.

At the top of the stairs, I found myself inside a dirty glass booth, the light cage, I think it’s called. In the center of the round booth was the old light that hadn’t been used for dozens of years.

I saw him right away. Tyson sat between the light cage and the railing that ran around it, clutching something in his hands and rocking back and forth. He saw me right away, too. I stepped out of the light cage, and onto the ledge. He looked up at me. His eyes were red from tears; my eyes were red from smoke. He picked something up that lay next to him—a broken piece of brick—and he hurled it at me. It hit me in the shoulder. I tried not to feel it.