Nobody said anything to that.

There was nothing to say.

They would die like people in a jar. They would die of smoke, not fire. At least it would be quick, not slow.

“My fault,” said Venita. “I opened the door.”

“We needed the air,” said Austin.

“ ’Cept there’s been an arsonist going after churches,” said Davonn. “Guy probably looked in, saw turpentine—whatever. One flick of a lighter and we’re dead meat.”

Macey’s head was actually smoking. She was breathing in her death. Arson. Incredibly, her mind moved all the way back to 1959, to the moment when another building and another person had burned.

It wasn’t anything, her grandfather had said. Just an old building that isn’t there anymore.

In a little while I won’t be anything, thought Macey. Just a person who isn’t here anymore.

Distantly she heard Venita say, “Everybody get down. Air’s better close to the bottom. Remember fire drills?”

Macey could not remember fire drills.

She heard Davonn say, “I hear sirens. We gotta yell, we gotta make them hear us, we gotta be louder.”

The stench of burning paint seemed part of her, as if she were being fired like pottery in a kiln.

3

The sirens got so loud so quickly! Austin thought they must have come from just around the corner. In moments, his pounding upward on the metal doors was equaled by pounding down.

“Door getting hot,” said Chamique. She’d been the last one in and her back was pressed against the door into the church. Austin skimmed his hands behind her and tightened her in against himself, giving her a few inches of space. He could not feel more heat, but he could taste the difference in the air. He held his breath against the smoke.

Up above was scraping and the lunging of metal against metal, and a shower of swear words, and he prayed that whatever was holding the door down could be severed. He thought of the possible tools, and even though he could hear the firemen above them yelling, “Don’t shove up!” he couldn’t help it, and neither could Isaiah and Davonn, and they kept shoving up, and suddenly the chain or lock snapped, and the double doors got thrust up so fast Austin was afraid the firemen’s chins would be split. But the men leaped back and helped with the doors, and eight teenagers spurted out like water from a hose.

They stood stunned on a sidewalk. Smoke poured out after them, and the firemen poured down the stairs after it.

“I’m alive,” Macey whispered. She held out her hands and found that she had no burns, that nothing had happened to her. Venita was staring down at her own hands, and the girls touched fingertips, amazed to be safe.

“We’re all alive,” said Austin, counting.

“Leggo my shirt, Texas,” said Chamique.