20

Laker Broome's scream paralyzed everybody, magicians and audience alike, for a second, even the boy who had shouted a moment earlier. And then this second of silence broke - during it we had heard that awful whooshing, snapping noise of a monstrous fire. Everybody stood and ran toward the two doors, throwing chairs aside. Laker Broome was shouting: 'Everybody out! Everybody out!' Maybe five boys got out the doors before Mr. Thorpe yelled, 'Stop in your tracks!' Already, the doors were a pandemonium: all of us crowding and shoving to get out, and the boys who had left screaming to get back in. 'Back away,' Mr. Thorpe yelled, and started to throw boys bodily back into the auditorium. Then we could feel the heat, and the crowd surged back, knocking down the smaller boys at the rear.

When the doors were cleared, we saw that the flames were leaping within six or seven feet of the auditorium - the outside looked like a solid world of fire. The old wooden field house was completely blanketed in flames. One of the stocky little turrets was leaning sideways, poised over the huge body of the fire like a diver.

The boys who had got outside and then forced their way back in stood beside the doors looking dazed and flushed and scared. I saw with amazement that one of them, a sophomore named Wheland, no longer had eyebrows - his face was a pink peeled egg.

'You fool,' Thorpe hissed at the headmaster. 'Didn't you see? You almost got all of them killed.'

Broome just stared at him ferociously, then grabbed the sophomore's shoulder. 'What did you see out there, Wheland?'

'Just fire, sir. We have to get out in front.'

Mr. Thorpe was sending Mrs. Olinger to the office to call the fire department - 'Move it!'.'

'Couldn't you get down the side?'

'The bushes are burning. On both sides. You can't get out that way.'

At Wheland's words, everybody broke and ran toward the hall door. This was much narrower than the auditorium's side doors, and in seconds it was buried under a crowd of brawling boys. I saw Terry Peters knock down a sophomore named Johnny Day, and then throw Derek Brown down on top of him. 'My bass!' squalled Brown. He ran straight into a line of tall upperclassmen, trying to get to the stage. Many boys were screaming. Mrs. Olinger, I saw with horror, was stuck in the middle of the battling crowd, unable to get to the telephone.

Then I realized that the auditorium was filling with smoke.

'We have to close those doors,' Tom called from the stage. He unwound himself from the Indian garments and jumped down. Mr. Thorpe ran up to help him.

Mr. Ridpath was shouting useless orders. The other teachers ran up, seeing what Tom and Mr. Thorpe were doing. A senior was clubbing boys with a metal chair, trying to hack his way to the doors, and I ducked around him to try to help them close the doors.

The smoke was already very thick on that side of the auditorium. I brushed against Mr. Thorpe, who said, 'Grab this and pull.' It was the metal bar on the door, and it was uncomfortably hot. 'Ropes,' Mr. Fitz-Hallan muttered, and Tom said, 'We used them… so we could pull from backstage: they come in the window in back - '

'Blast,' muttered Mr. Thorpe, and for a time we searched on the ground immediately outside the door and pulled lengths of rope inside. All of us were having trouble breathing: the smoke got in our eyes and throats and burned like acid. 'That's all of them,' Tom said. Through the boiling smoke we could see the wall of fire that once had been the field house: both turrets were gone now, and a column of blacker smoke rose directly up from the center of the burning mass. We slammed the doors shut on a row of advancing flame.

I turned and stumbled into Del, who was reeling through a thicket of upturned chairs. 'Can't see,' he said. Boys in the blocked doorway continued to scream. Del collapsed over the raised legs of a chair.

Then Tom was miraculously beside me, lifting Del. 'No one's going to make it through the door,' he shouted in my ear. 'They can get out by going over the stage.'

'The equipment,' Del said. 'We have to get it out.'

'We will,' Tom said. 'Here, you get up there - you'll be able to see better. The smoke won't be so bad.' He half-carried Del to the stage and hoisted him up. Del scrambled forward and groped around until he found whatever it was he wanted to save.

'Where's Skeleton?' Tom said close to my face. His own face was greasy and strained, and his eyes looked white.

'Not here.'

'We have to get them away from that door,' he shouted. Mr. Broome and Mr. Ridpath were yelling on the other side of the auditorium, peeling boys off the pile around the door. Mr. Fitz-Hallan loomed up out of the smoke beside me, carrying a boy in his arms. 'Stage door,' he said. 'Some of them are passing out. A few of them are hurt.' Mrs. Olinger was clutching the flap of his jacket. 'I'll be back,' Fitz-Hallan said, and crawled up onto the boards. He set down the boy and unceremoniously yanked Mrs. Olinger up.

Hollis Wax was running screaming across the auditorium. I saw Derek Brown picking himself out of a tangle of chairs, weeping. Wax caromed into the doors Flanagan and the teachers had managed to close and banged his fists against them. 'They're hot!' he screamed. 'They're going to burn!'

Tom ran toward him, seeing in the smoke like a bat, and Wax immediately broke for the stage. Then I dimly saw Tom picking up Brown and dragging him across the floor toward me.

'Get him onto the stage,' he ordered, and I got my arms under Brown and pulled his shoulders onto the stage. Then I lifted his legs and sprawled him onto the wood. 'Carry him out,' Tom yelled from somewhere. I could see Mr. Fitz-Hallan coming toward me with another boy: a crocodile of sobbing students clung on behind him, as Mrs. Olinger had. I got up on the stage beside the English teacher and hauled Brown out and through the door to the hall. Even out there, wisps and trails of smoke drifted in the sunny corridor. 'Bass,' Brown sighed, straightening up and grinding at his eyes. Hollis Wax hovered far down the corridor, looking back. Tom and Fitz-Hallan came out beside me, and Wax saw us and turned and sprinted as soon as Fitz-Hallan waved at him. 'All of you,' Fitz-Hallan called, 'follow Wax outside and wait in the parking lot.'

Doubled up, Mr. Ridpath lurched out into the hall just as we were going back inside. A little crowd of coughing boys and teachers burst out after him. 'Can't… ' Ridpath uttered, and then bent over further, coughing. 'Outside,' Fitz-Hallan ordered. Tom was already back through - I saw him slipping across the dark stage. Brown took Mr. Ridpath's hand and began to move as quickly as he could down the corridor Wax had taken. The boy who had tried to hack his way out with a chair jumped through the door just as Tom disappeared off the apron of the stage back into the smoky chaos of the auditorium.

I walked slowly across the stage, not breathing. My eyes burned with smoke. The bass, I thought, and then noticed that the stage was empty of everything except the piano. The field house was making an end-of-the-world rushing roar. Mr. Broome vaulted up onto the stage beside me. 'You,' he said. 'I order you to leave this building immediately.'

I looked out into the auditorium and saw that the doors were burning. It was hotter than a steam room. A deadweight of maybe twenty boys lay in a heap before the hall exit: Mr. Weatherbee was bent over in the smoke, dragging two boys toward me. I jumped down and helped get them onto the stage. 'Can't stay in here anymore,' he croaked, and rolled onto the platform and grabbed the boys' wrists and went for the back door. He was crawling by the time he reached it.

Tom and Mr. Fitz-Hallan were pulling unconscious boys from the pile. I jumped down, and the outside doors gave way at the same instant. Fire streamed in as though shot from a flamethrower. Black spreading scars instantly appeared on the auditorium floor.

'Get up off the floor, Whipple,' Mr. Broome sang out. I looked up, surprised to see him poised on the edge of the stage hike a ham actor. 'You'll burn like bacon. Get up off the floor.'

Over the noise of the fire I heard the wailing of sirens.

Mr. Broome shouted, 'Everybody out! This instant! All out!' Mr. Whipple was too heavy to lift. I inhaled a gulp of burning smoke; my knees turned inside out and I fell over his jellylike stomach. Tom appeared beside me, carrying one of the unconscious boys.

'Out! Out! Out!' screamed Mr. Broome.

Fire caught the curtains of the stage, and lying on the ground I saw them crackle up and disappear like tissue paper. Mr. Fitz-Hallan went on his knees twenty feet away. Mr. Whipple's stomach roared and he rolled over and threw up a yard from my head. I could see Tom holding an arm over his mouth.and hear him wheezing as he pulled at Mr. Fitz-Hallan's arm. Then an enormous form in black shiny clothing leaned over and picked me up. He smelled like smoke.