TORCH by Yvonne Collins, Sandy Rideout Page A

meet you. I’m sure she mentioned that you tried to steal her purse.”
    We stare at each other through the crack over the door. His fingers, wrapped over the door frame, are dripping, and water runs down his face, as well. Even if he had a run-in with a fire hose, he can’t still be that wet. The guy must have a serious perspiration problem.
    I use that problem to my advantage now, placing the heel of my hand against his fingers and pushing. He jerks his hand away abruptly and I hear a slight hissing sound as I slam the door closed.
    Starting the car, I pull away from Kai, half-hoping to run over his wet sneakers. Leaving the lights off, I pause at the corner to look down the hill. If Dad is there, I can’t see him. There’s just the gorgeous orange glow coming from the church. The huge arcs of water from the fire hoses are still losing the battle. I have to fight to keep my eyes off the rearview mirror and on the road as I drive away.
     

     
    I’m still awake when Dad comes into the house just after six a.m. My brain’s been racing for hours, and the burn on my hand, from where I touched Kai, throbs so much I needed an ice pack.
    I expect Dad to head down the hall to his bedroom. Instead, I hear the fridge door open and the pop of a soda can. At least I hope it’s a soda can at this hour. I give him about fifteen minutes to settle in, knowing I only have another half hour to talk to him before Graham wakes up and we have to get ready for school. I try to figure out what to say, but it’s hard to know where to start. Hopefully, he’ll lead the conversation. After all, he promised to tell me more about Kai’s family and hasn’t yet.
    Creeping down the hall in my pajamas, I stop short of the doorway and peek into the family room. Dad is in his recliner with his back to me, watching a crime show on TV. In his hand is a beer can. There’s a second can waiting on the table beside him.
    As I try to work up my nerve to go in, he tips the beer down his throat, crunches the empty can and drops it to the carpet. His hand dangles over the side of the chair closest to me, and there’s a sudden flash of light. At the end of Dad’s fingertips is a fireball. It’s a bit smaller than a golf ball, and white in the centre with a green tinge around the edges. His eyes still on the TV, Dad rolls the fireball from finger to finger, as if he were dribbling a tiny basketball. Then he opens his hand and the fireball swirls around his palm, and then back to his fingertips.
    I stand, transfixed, understanding, at least in part, what I am.
    Dad clenches his hand before reaching for the TV remote. The fireball is gone.
    He turns up the volume and I sneak back down the hall to the bathroom. I run the water till it’s cold and splash my face. When I can breathe normally, I stick my head out the door and call, “Morning, Dad.”
    “Morning, Phee.” He sounds annoyingly casual, considering he’s just toppled my entire world. “Get your brother up and make sure he eats, okay?”
    “Yeah, yeah,” I say. “You should go to bed. You must be tired.”
    He gets out of his chair and comes down the hall. “You have no idea.” Ruffling my hair, he adds, “You look beat yourself. Sleep okay?
    I shake my head. “I’m having bad dreams.”
    It’s an opening, and I hope he’ll take it. Instead, he just nods and turns toward his bedroom. “Yeah. There’s a lot of that going around.”
     

 
     
     
     
    R egan shoves her bushy hair out of her eyes to stare at me. “You look like crap,” she says.
    “I know. I didn’t sleep much.” I lean against the wall in the school’s lower hallway as we wait for the first yearbook meeting to convene. Regan’s hoping her calling might be writing clever captions. I’m secretly hoping we don’t have to go to all sorts of school activities. With everything that’s happened in the past week, I’d be better off keeping a low profile.
    “More bad dreams?” she asks.
    I nod. Normally I