Chapter 12: The Gas Line

"Don't touch the lights," I said.

My voice came out sharp and flat.

"Don't touch anything electric. Don't strike a match. Marta, the back door, now."

Marta stared at the cellar stairs.

"The valve is down there," she said. "I can turn it off."

"There's no time."

"My whole life is in this building."

"Marta." I grabbed her by the shoulders. "Your whole life is standing in this room."

She looked at Santino, grey and swaying on the table, and her face broke.

She nodded.

I got my shoulder under Santino's good arm.

"Up."

"I can walk," he said.

"Then walk faster."

We got him off the table and across the floor with Marta on his other side.

The smell was thick now, sweet and rotten, burning my eyes.

I heard a faint hiss somewhere under our feet.

Marta wrenched the bolt on the back door and yanked it open.

Cold air hit us.

We stumbled out into the alley.

"Keep going," I gasped. "Down to the end. Go."

We made it thirty feet.

The explosion came from the front of the shop.

It was not like the movies.

It was a flat, enormous crack, and a blow of air picked me up and threw me against the brick wall.

Then came a roar of orange light that lit the alley.

Glass sprayed past my head.

I hit the ground on my hands and knees.

My ears rang with a high whine, and when I lifted my face, the whole front of the bakery was gone.

The striped awning was on fire.

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