Page 128 of The Reformatory

The unfairness of giving Boone and Haddock what they wanted after they had arranged for Redbone to get killed roiled inside of Robert. Could he trust himself not to cuss them out? Or grab a knife from the butcher shop to see how they liked getting stabbed?

“Do it tomorrow. Early. They’ll leave you alone tonight.”

“Then what?” Robert said.

“Did you get the key?”

“Just lucky I saw it,” Robert said. “That trumpet was a dumb place to put it.”

“You found it, didn’t you?”

Arguing was giving Robert a headache. The sunset’s red fireball glared through his skull. “Yes, I have the key. Now what?”

“We’ll do it like we said,” Blue said. “I’ll draw him away so you can get in through his office window. He likes fresh air, and that screen on his window is loose enough to break. I rattle it sometimes, right behind his head. So I can cause a fire in the kitchen at suppertime—that’s what I’ll do. It’s so easy, with all the flames. I can tip over some grease and do that real quick. I know he’ll go running if it’s big enough. He’ll be scared the governor might hear.”

“Don’t hurt anybody!” Robert said. “You’re just as bad as them.”

“I won’t burn up any thumpers,” Blue said. “Not on purpose. Not if they’re quick.”

“I won’t do it if you hurt anyone,” Robert said. “Quick or not. You sure don’t sound like somebody who died in a fire.”

Blue sighed as if Robert were being unreasonable. “I guess all your talk about sacrifice is just for your own kind, but fine. I’ll set the fire when no one’s nearby.”

“Redbone’s not enough of a sacrifice?”

“You’re right,” Blue said more softly. Maybe Blue loved Redbone after all; Robert would be less mad at him if he thought Blue had feelings. At least he could trust him a little more.

The cafeteria was in sight ahead, with the line out the door of boys who had made it late or who were on punishment so they had to stand at the end, where Robert saw Tex and the band students who had returned from the burial. They were still at least fifty yards away, but Robert reminded himself not to be obvious about talking to Blue, in case Boone saw him.

“Grab a satchel from somebody’s locker,” Blue said. “You’ll need it to carry the haint jar and the photos so you won’t drop them. But don’t carry anything else: it’ll just slow you down.” For an instant, Blue did seem like Redbone, who was always so quick with plans. But Blue knew about things and places that Redbone hadn’t known about. Blue looked and acted like a boy, but he had been learning and watching for thirty years.

“Okay,” Robert said. “Then, when I grab it, I’ll just climb back out of the window and run for the hole in the fence?”

“Do everything else just like your sister said.”

“How do I know the hole is there?”

“It’s there,” Blue said, certain. “Right behind those weeds near the chairs behind the Funhouse.”

“How do you know?”

“I saw your uncle June, that’s how,” Blue said. “He cut that hole today.”

That night, when the dormitory was quiet and dark except for moonlight through the windows, Robert opened his eyes when he heard pages flapping.

Redbone was sitting at the foot of his bed reading a Flash Gordon comic book. The moonlight was bright enough to see the red of Flash’s costume as he battled a green-clad figure from another planet. Robert was so intrigued by the comic—he hadn’t seen one the whole time he’d been at the Reformatory!—that for three whole seconds he forgot Redbone was dead. Then he sat up, clutching his sheet to his chin.

“Bone?” he whispered.

Redbone flipped the page before he looked at Robert and smiled. “Damn right.”

No sign of blood or cuts on him. Redbone was wearing his normal pajamas. Robert checked to make sure no one else was stirring and that Boone wasn’t spying in the doorway to try to catch Redbone.

“You’re a haint now?”

“Guess so,” Redbone said. He didn’t seem interested.

“Did it… hurt?”