Mr. Fahrenheit by T. Michael Martin Page A

silently asked.
    CR, with one shoulder, shrugged: I. Got no. Idea.
    â€œWhat the ass just happened?” Ellie whispered, shaky-voiced.
    Spinney seemed to decide his phone wasn’t going to teleport back into his hand. He raised his gaze to Benji and his friends, and the compressed rage on his face made Zeeko actually whimper.
    â€œShit,” Spinney said philosophically, “I guess I’m gonna destroy you guys. You first, Little Lightman.” He stepped toward them.
    CR snatched up another stone.
    Spinney, seeing this, stopped.
    â€œThat’s not his name,” CR said. “Banjo, you tell this guy your real name, man.”
    All at once, everything inside of Benji, all the anxiety and terror that normally formed the shape of him, rushed away with a flood of wind and light. He reached for the magic in his pockets.
    â€œMy name,” he said, “is Benji . . .”
    His palms reemerged, bearing two tiny squares of flash paper.
    â€œ. . . Freakin’ . . .”
    With all his strength, Benji collided his hands above his head. A flash of heat and all at once he was bearing a bouquet of flame. He said, “. . . BLAZE —”
    But he never got to finish. His small fireball had inexplicably transformed into a tower of flame that rocketed heavenward. Shouting, he looked up and saw something horridly amazing. The cobwebs overhead had caught fire. The flames spiraled upward, greedily consuming the cobweb, and once they kissed the ceiling, the blaze fwoosh ed, fanning across the bone-dry ceiling and walls.
    â€œWHAT THE EFF-WORD? WHAT THE EFF-WORD?” Zeeko screamed.
    Smoke flooded the hallway with almost supernatural speed. Shaun Spinney, that great and noble soul, plowed into Benji, shrieking, “Let me out, bitches!” Spinney’s cohorts likewise trampled Benji, disorienting him in the smoke.
    â€œ This way ,” CR coughed somewhere behind him.
    Benji followed the voice. After a few moments, he staggered out the front door into the blessedly cool air of dusk. CR and Zeeko were just ahead of him on the porch. (Spinney and company were fleeing across the lawn like they thought the House was about to explode.)
    â€œC-call nine-one-one, Zeeko,” CR said as he ran down the porch steps. “B-Banjo, what’re you doing?”
    Benji was still on the porch, staring at the front door. Over the roar of the inferno, he could hear someone gasping for oxygen inside.
    Ellie .
    He dashed back into the House. An invisible wave of heat seemed to singe his throat and lungs. He stumbled down the gray vortex of the hall, calling her name, his head swimming from the smoke. I’m going to pass out , he thought, then four magical words from school flew into his head: Stop, Drop, and Roll .
    The lower air was marginally clearer. He crawled in the direction of a weak cough, and found Ellie facedown on the floor in the living room. She had passed out.
    â€œEllie!” he said, shaking her. “Hey, Ellie, come on!” Her eyelids flickered open briefly, her gaze glassy and confused. Groaning with exertion, Benji put her rag doll–limp arm over his shoulder and stood.
    But the House suddenly gave a great screaming BOOM! The floor beneath Benji quaked. To his left, floorboards flew upward like a volcanic blast. Authorities later theorized that the firehad lit some kind of natural gas pocket under the house.
    Benji half ran, half dragged Ellie back into the front hall, where the smoke had changed from gray to flame orange. Which way is the door? He gambled on going left, speeding now, coughing so hard his throat seemed to rip. He reached out blindly ahead of him, found a hard round surface. Doorknob! he thought, and tugged the door open.
    Despite the blaze, he went cold with terror.
    He’d opened the door to the cellar. He could see the rotting stairway, could see the crater down there in the earthen floor where the explosion had occurred. Emerging from that crater,