He doesn’t move. Only his eyes flit back and forth on mine. “Tell me everything,” he says finally.
I glance at the clock and jump to my feet. It’s after six. “I don’t have time. It’s happening at 7:04 p.m.” I glide through the piles of junk to my room and grab the Elvira wig. “I gotta go.” I slip my arms around his waist and hug him.
He hugs back. “But, Jules, this is cra—I mean, this is, ah . . .”
“It’s okay if you don’t believe me,” I find myself saying for the second time today. “I just have to do this, and I’ll—I’ll see you later. I’ll be at Angotti’s. Don’t tell them—Mom and Dad—unless . . . unless it’s absolutely necessary.”
“Jules, you’re talking scary. Just sit tight, okay? Stay here. I’m going to get Mom.”
“Trey,” I say, and I’ve never been more calm. “If you stop me from saving Sawyer Angotti, I will never, ever forgive you. If I’m actually crazy right now, nothing will happen to Angotti’s or to me, and I’ll be fine, and you can tell Mom everything then. But if I’m not crazy, and this crash is really about to happen, I have to do something. I have to. I can’t not do it. I have a feeling this vision thing won’t totally leave me until it’s all over, but it calms down when I do the right thing. And right now, I’m doing the right thing—that’s all I’m sure of.” I look at him. “I need you to keep Mom and Dad from noticing that I’m gone, or I’m totally screwed. Okay?”
He shakes his head at me, a perplexed look on his face. “Jesus, Jules.” He leans over and grips the back of the desk chair and gives it a little shake.
“You said that already.” I grab his arm. “Trey, come on. Don’t doubt me. You know me. I’m not insane.” Is it a lie? I guess we’ll find out.
“We should call the police, then,” he says, turning back to face me.
“And tell them what? That a crash is about to happen? Yeah, that’ll work.” Worry grips his face, and I totally understand why, but I’m running out of time. All the muscles in my body are twitching, urging me to go out the door, but my brain tells me I have to get at least one person to sort of believe me or everything else will be messed up.
He just shakes his head, and I can hear his phone vibrating in his pocket. He checks it. “Mom,” he says. He gives me an urgent look. “Okay,” he says finally. “I’ll cover for you. Just don’t do anything stupid, don’t be Superman, and call me immediately when it’s . . . over. Or whatever. Right?”
Electricity surges through me, like I’ve won a battle. “Thanks. I’ll call you. I promise!” I grab my wig, coat, and keys and fly to the door.
“Wait,” he says. He looks around the dining room frantically. “Hold up a sec. You need . . .” He spies something and goes to it, wrestling a red box from the middle of a pile of junk. He pulls it out, causing an avalanche, and opens it—it’s a toolbox. “You need this,” he says, handing me a wrench. “For the gas valve. A quarter turn will shut it off. Do it and get the hell out of there. Promise me.”
I take the wrench. “Promise.” I reach up and grab him around the neck, giving him a quick kiss on the cheek, which he doesn’t even wipe off. “See you in a bit.” And then I turn and go down the steps as quietly as I can and escape out the door to the alley and hop into my giant meatball truck.
On my wristwatch: Both white-gloved Mickey Mouse hands point at the six. Thirty-four minutes to explosion. Way too much time wasted. I wind the giant meatballs around town, and the route that normally takes me just under five minutes takes twice as long because of the snow and the cars. I want to barrel right over them. “Hurry up!” I scream, shaking the steering wheel. Finally I drive past Angotti’s, and my suspicion is confirmed. The decorations are up now—giant puffy crepe-paper pendant-like hearts that look like . . . well, apparently they look like light fixtures from far away. The Angottis must have hung them this morning.
But I don’t have time to ponder trivial things. I drive to the street where the snowplow will come from. At 6:41, I park a couple blocks away so nobody sees my truck.
I take out my cell phone and text Sawyer, not caring what he’ll think of me when he gets the message. “I was wrong. The explosion is TONIGHT at 7:04. Please, Sawyer . . . I won’t bother you again, I just had to tell you. Get out of there.”
I don’t have time to wait for a reply. I grab the wrench, shove the wig on my head, and fly out of the truck and down the street in the snow. I pass the sign and glance at the fire hydrant across the street. The snow level isn’t right—it’s too low—and I almost stop, but the vision’s frequency ramps up when I start to slow down, so I keep going. I reach the back of the building and sneak along it, edging under the window, praying that nobody comes out the back door right now.
When I get to the gas meter, it’s covered in snow. I wipe it clean and look for the lever that Trey described to me. Finally I find it, but it’s encased in ice. I try to break the ice around it with my hands, but it doesn’t budge. I chip away at the ice with the Crescent wrench, cringing at every noise it makes. Sweat pours from under my wig as I whip my gloves off to get a better grasp on the joints around the lever, and I can’t even think about how much time is passing because it just makes my fingers fumble. At one point the wrench slips and splits open my knuckle. “Faaaaahck,” I mutter. But I keep going, blood and all.