SHATTER

2. BOILING WATER BURNS? SHOCKER.

The fire alarm was immensely loud. I must have oversensitive ears; it seemed I was the only one really, truly affected. Then the sprinklers shot on. I raised my hand, as if to block the rushing water.

As if that will work, I scoffed at myself, but it seemed my hands had formed an invisible barrier. No water had yet touched my skin. I watched as the beads of water clashed against the invisible layer that surrounded me. I almost screamed. What was going on? I dropped my hand, and in an instant I was soaking wet.

No one saw it, but I was scared out of my mind. Everyone came rushing out of the classrooms into the hall, ready to escape the building because of the fire alarm.

Amy found me outside in the parking lot after the fire department left. She had gotten excused from detention, and now we were getting ready to leave. "Did you see that?" she gasped.

"Yeah, it was weird." I tried to cover my tone of astonishment by changing the subject. "But, hey, no detention!" I smiled at her as I walked her to her mom's car.

"Yeah, do you think Fox News will come to interview us? I mean, fire appearing out of nowhere. That's something to report on. My dad says they love conspiracies."

"Amy, Fox News isn't going to come interview you because a fire alarm went off."

"Man, I could have been famous." She flipped her hair. "What if I faked a thirty-degree burn?"

"You mean a third-degree burn."

"Silly Marie, three degrees isn't enough to burn someone."

I laughed and rolled my eyes at her as we continued to walk.

I have a lot of homework tonight, and I don't feel like doing any of it, I thought as I walked down the street. After walking Amy to her car, I decided not to get a ride home from her, because I didn't want to answer any more questions about whether or not I'd seen how the fire had started. Now I wanted to take it back, because I now had to walk a mile. I'd had to walk to school and home since the day I got kicked off the bus. It hadn't even been my fault! You see, with the economy being bad, they'd kicked a lot of people off, saying their houses were too close to school. They'd changed the required distance to one and a half miles. Stupid school. Stupid bus. Stupid economy.

I couldn't stop thinking about what had happened with that fire at school. And those sprinklers ... My mind wondered as I tried to come up with a realistic explanation—such as, there must be some problem or fault with the sprinklers. My school was cheap after all. The water fountains were home to almost every sea monster known to man. Maybe the water in the sprinklers was... fake? I tried to make up every excuse possible.

When I finally made it home, I opened the door and walked through the narrow hallway full of hanging family pictures. I smelled an odor that clearly said something ahead was burning. I continued into the kitchen and saw my mom. Oh no. My mom in the kitchen meant fire, or food poisoning, or that she wanted to try out a new recipe she'd gotten from one of her mom magazines.

"Ugh," my mother puffed as she took the cookie tray out of the now-smoking oven.

Oh no, not another fire.

"How come each time I try to make cookies, the oven burns them?" she whined.

Hmm, talking to herself; I knew I had inherited that from someone. Plus, she was blaming the oven. Really? Every time something goes wrong, she always finds a way to blame someone or something else. Apparently even when those things aren't alive.

"Maybe it's because each and every time you try to go near the kitchen, let alone cook in it," I said and smiled, "we need a fire extinguisher accessible." She glared over at me, half smiling and half frowning. She seemed to be happy that I was back yet not too pleased with my comment.