A Tragic Kind of Wonderful(64)
I worried the photos I saw online earlier were old and the fire escape would be gone. It’s still here, around the side, though out of reach. I wasn’t sure how I’d deal with that and figured I’d work out something when I got here.
A dumpster at the far end of the alley has wheels. Crappy wheels. Rusty. But it moves. Slowly.
The bottom of the fire-escape drop ladder is still a few feet out of reach. I climb back down and open the dumpster to look for a box or anything else to stand on. I see the answer right away: a beat-up umbrella, the classic black kind with a hook for a handle. This clinches it. I’m meant to get to the roof today.
*
“We’ll get in trouble!” I say after the elevator doors close.
“You never get in trouble. Everything’s always my fault.”
“Let’s go. The security guard was watching us. I think he was picking up the phone.”
“You haven’t seen the awesomeness yet! If they catch us they won’t throw us in jail. They’ll just tell us to leave.”
Nolan bounces on his toes, making me nervous. He’s really worked up and not looking at me much anymore. To get his attention, I say, “Where are we going?”
“All the way!”
The elevator goes to the top and stops on the seventh floor. Nolan leads me down a hall of closed wooden doors, through a big steel door, up some concrete steps, out another steel door, and into the sun. I can’t imagine how he ever came to find whatever he wants to show me.
It’s windy. Under our feet is loose gravel. The wall around the roof is only a foot high. It’s obvious people aren’t supposed to be up here. Not only for those reasons, but for a much bigger one.
There’s a large skylight before us, maybe ten feet wide but very long, almost enough to cut the entire roof in half. Instead of being a flat grid of square panes, it’s three long rows of dozens of glass pyramids sticking up, each about a foot tall. It’s pretty, but it also looks like a hazard in a video game, an obstacle to jump over where you lose a life if you touch any part of it.
“My metalworking class came here to see this and I saw they didn’t have to unlock any of the doors on the way up. Come look!”
He trots to the edge of the skylight. I walk slowly over and stop a few feet away, craning my neck to look. Even from here I can see how the space under the skylight goes all the way down to the ground.
“Come closer,” Nolan says. “It’s safe.” He leans out and bends over to plant a hand on one of the glass pyramids. “See? It’s solid. Good metalwork.”
“Wow,” I say. “Cool. Amazing. Awesome. Okay, let’s go.”
“That’s not the awesome part! Stand over there.” He points to a spot uncomfortably close to the edge of the roof.
“Why?”
“It’s the best place to see.”
“The wind will blow me off!”
“It won’t. Okay, fine, come on …”
He walks me over to the far side of the roof. It takes a minute to go all the way to the front of the building, to get around the skylight, and then back to the middle of the other side again. He stands me in front of a fire escape. I grab its railing.
“There, now the wind’s pushing you toward the building. Wait here.”
“Where are you going!”
“Back to the other side.”
He trots all the way around the skylight again to the far stairwell where we first emerged, bouncing on his feet way more than necessary. Maybe he wants to show me something about the glass pyramids, like the sun shining through them to make rainbows.
“Don’t stand so close to the edge!” I shout.
“It’s fine!” He puts his right foot back against the short wall, as if to push off from it. He crouches. “Okay, wave your Magic Wand!”
Somehow I knew, but I didn’t want to believe it …
“You’re not going to jump it, right?!”
He grins, laces his fingers together, cracks his knuckles, and he bends his neck to crack that, too.
“Piece of cake! Come on, wave your wand!”
“No way! Let’s go! Come on! The guard’s coming—I can hear him!”
I can’t really, but I wish I could and I don’t know what else to say. Nolan’s too far away to reach. I wouldn’t be any match for him anyway. Besides, he must be teasing. He won’t really do this.
“C’mon!” I yell. “Let’s go!”
He drops his head and his arms to dangle loosely. “All right, fine, I’m coming!”
Phew.
Nolan launches forward and runs straight toward me …
“NO!”
His third step slips in the gravel—he recovers and keeps sprinting …
“STOP!”
He jumps, grinning …
The toe of his trailing foot brushes the top of the first glass pyramid, just enough to tip him forward, arms spinning wildly …
It’s not over quickly. There’s no mercy in it. He crashes down heavily on the skylight, his knees punching through separate panes of glass, knocking him sideways as some pyramids shatter and others stay intact. Nolan tangles up in broken glass and metal rods, scrabbling desperately to grab something, anything, but everything he touches is jagged and sharp. His pained, contorted face is lined with bloody cuts—