Except he comes after me—wrench in hand—which is the last thing I expect. “Hey, wait. I feel like we’re not communicating clearly here.”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you!” I blow out a frustrated breath as I turn back around to face him.
“Well, let’s change that, Penelope.” He nods at the cauldron. “I’ve really got to get this thing fixed, and I could use an extra pair of hands while I bang around down there and try and figure out what’s wrong.”
I glance at my phone. I should get going—the meeting’s in an hour, and I wanted to change beforehand—but I do want answers. Plus, it feels nice to be around someone whoactually calls me by my name. Also, PT seems a little freaked out, and if he really needs help, I can’t just leave him here.
“Yeah, all right,” I tell him as we walk back toward the cauldron. “What do you need me to do?”
“I think there’s a problem with its igniter. So if you could hold it steady for a few minutes, I just might be able to light this baby up and give the school back its fire.”
“Okay.” I spread my arms wide so I can grab on to both sides of the cauldron. “What made it go out in the first place?”
“I think we’re all still trying to figure that one out.” PT shoots me a look right before he crouches back down. “Now, tell me about your misadventures on the bridge.”
So I do, making sure I don’t leave anything out. When I get to the part about the snakes retreating, PT gives me a steady look that I can’t decipher. But before I can ask him what the look means, he stretches out under the cauldron.
“Keep talking,” he calls. “But can you also hand me my hammer? It’s in the toolbox near your feet.”
I hand him the hammer and keep on with the story while he bangs and clanks and does who knows what else under the cauldron. Only when I’ve finished my story does he sit back up.
“Here, put this away, will you?” He hands me the hammer. “And get me the butane lighter in there with the red base.”
I paw through the toolbox and find several different-colored butane lighters—how much fire does one guy need?—until I finally come across the red one. “That’s it?” I ask as I hand it to him. “That’s all you’ve got to say for yourself?”
PT takes a deep breath, starts to say something. But at the last minute he shakes his head and leans into the cauldron, pressing the button on the lighter to get it to ignite.
Nothing happens—to the lighter or the cauldron—so he tries several more times, to no avail. With a frustrated sigh, he tries to hand the lighter back to me.
I think about not taking it—he still hasn’t told me anything about why my trip on the bridge was different from everybody else’s—but in the end I take the lighter. Not helping him seems rude and won’t change anything that’s already happened.
Except the moment I take hold of the lighter, it ignites. A huge flame shoots out of the tip so hot and so fast that it nearly burns a hole in PT’s coveralls.
38.That Ponytail Has Sailed
TURN IT OFF!” PT YELPS,jumping backward.
“I can’t!” I yell back, holding the lighter up so he can see my fingers are nowhere near the buttons. “I’m not pressing anything!”
The more I move it, the bigger the flame gets, until it looks like I’m holding a full-blown torch instead of a lighter. At first, the fire just shoots outward and upward, but then it starts creeping down the base of the lighter toward my hand.
I try to hold on as long as I can—the last thing I want to do is set the entire amphitheater on fire if we can’t get it to turn off—but as the flame licks against my fingers, I freak out and drop the lighter on the ground next to the cauldron.
PT and I both jump back, expecting the worst. But the second the lighter hits the ground, the flame goes out. Just disappears like it never was. Even the smoke vanishes.
For several long seconds, we both just stand there, flabbergasted. Until PT slowly, carefully bends down and picks up the malfunctioning lighter. In some weird twist of I don’t know what, it stays dormant in his hand. Not even a stray spark comes out.
“Well, that’s not something you see every day,” he finally says.
“You know what? I’m okay with never seeing that again,” I shoot back, making sure to keep my distance from whatever is going on with that thing. “I’m beginning to think you and Anaximander’s are going to have to give up on getting that cauldron working again. It doesn’t appear to want to be lit.”
“I’m not so sure about that.” PT glances from the lighter to the cauldron before leveling a totally inscrutable look my way. “You’re going to have to stop blaming me for the bridge.”
It’s the last thing I expect him to say considering what just happened. “One little lighter accident and you think we’re even?”
“One little lighter accident and I’m suddenly seeing a pattern,” he answers as he starts gathering up his tools and dropping them in his toolbox. “I’m beginning to think there’s a reason things happen to you that don’t happen to anyone else. Things that have nothing to do with me or that one misshapen donut holeandeverything to do with you.”
He closes his toolbox with a snap that has my heart jumping in my chest. Then again, that could be from my close brush with disaster of the oh-so-flammable kind. Or, a tinyvoice inside me whispers, it could be because of his words. Words that are ringing true, even though I really, really don’t want them to.
