I took in the melee between dogs and teachers, the front line drawing ever closer. Patrick struck Principal Delarusso in the face with the butt of the shotgun. Rocky weaved back and forth as Mrs. Wolfgram tried to grab him. We were down to seconds.

Letting the baling hooks clatter to the rooftop, I went down on my knees, took JoJo’s sweaty hands, and lowered her over the edge. She dangled, her tearstained face looking up at me. “Don’t drop me,” she said.

I dropped her.

Mrs. Wolfgram had Rocky by the dark locks of his hair. I wrenched him free, kicking her in the gut with all my might. She flew back, and I grabbed Rocky’s arm and yanked him off the edge. I held his hand as he twisted to and fro in the air, until he shouted, “I got it!” and I let go.

He landed on his feet.

Patrick was waist-deep in the fight. Swinging, elbowing, and jabbing with the shotgun butt. “Patrick!” I yelled. “Let’s go!”

Coach broke through Princess and Tanner and dove, hitting me with a football tackle. She knocked me toward the edge. I skidded painfully across the gravel. There was no time to stop—I was going over.

At the last minute, one of my flailing hands caught the handle of a baling hook. As I flew off the building, the hook scrabbled along the rooftop, then caught in the gutter. Hanging on with one hand, I swung way out from the roof, the hook bending the gutter but somehow miraculously holding. Below I caught a whirling view of Don Weiss rising up from the pavement and beelining for Alex and JoJo. His twitching head was angled wrong on his neck.

I lunged for the other hook still up on the roof. It was too far to reach, but my fingers snagged the nylon loop attached to the handle. Spinning wildly, I managed to drag the second hook with me, and it flew by my face, nicking my cheek just as the gutter gave way under my weight. My momentum carried me beneath the overhang, and I fell back, cartwheeling my arms. My heels jarred the sidewalk, and then my shoulder blades and tailbone hammered the ground. I lay there looking up, waiting for the wall of pain to hit.

Before it could, I saw my brother take flight, an apparition streaking overhead, graceful as a big cat. He broke his fall with his feet, tumbled over one shoulder, and came up in a shooting position, blasting a shell through Don Weiss’s face as he closed in on Alex. Patrick’s cowboy hat never even shifted on his head.