Free League of Strays by L. B. Schulman

turned to flame. She dropped it on the floor, and I watched the crisp pages curl to ash. She stomped out the smoldering embers with her boots, leaving a melted hole in the linoleum. “Problem solved,” she said.
    Richie’s snort broke the tension. We fell into fits of laughter until our lungs begged for air. My own laughter had the forced quality of an actor onstage delivering a bad performance. The room looked terrible, worse than I’d imagined. I’d thought we’d throw a few papers around, maybe knock some books off a shelf—nothing like this.
    I rested against the wall, spent from the manic act of destruction. A piercing alarm delivered a new dose of adrenaline.
    Zoe threw her hands over her ears. “Oh damn, the fire alarm!”
    “Let’s go,” I cried. I was already out the door, the others on my heels. I flew through the gym, down the hallway, and into the stairwell. The alarm caught its breath, then screamed again.
    Back in the basement, I dashed to the window and stepped into the cradle of Kade’s hands. He launched me through, and I tumbled, arms flailing, onto the dirt path. I managed to roll out of the way a second before Richie, Zoe, and Nora catapulted outside.
    “Come on!” I screamed to Kade as the lights from the fire truck flashed in the distance.
    He wriggled out the opening. We scrambled across the unkempt field, not stopping until we were hidden behind a wall of pine trees.
    “Holy shit,” Zoe said breathlessly as we watched the firemen pry open a door.
    “I can’t get caught. I can’t!” Nora said.
    “You won’t,” Kade told her. The worse things got, the more confident he became. It was comforting to know he wasn’t worried, kind of like the moment when the pilot comes on the intercom to tell you that the safety belt light is off.
    My eyes drifted down to a bare hand.
Oh, no.
    “My glove!” I cried. “It was just here.” I had no idea where I’d lost it. In the field? In the stockroom?
In the gym office?
My fingerprints were in that glove.
    “Oh, crap, Charlotte,” Nora said, as if I’d done it on purpose.
    Kade extracted the missing glove from his pocket and snapped one of its fingers. “No worries, Charlie. I had you covered. I have all of you covered.”
    I exhaled, relieved, but my heart kept up its double-time tempo.
    “Everything went according to plan,” he said. “The alarm part was unexpected, but what a finish. Congratulations, everyone!” His smile lit up the night, wrapping me in its warmth.
    Richie took the glove from Kade and pressed the opening to his mouth. He blew, expanding the rubber until it looked like a bloated king with a crown on his head. He waved it at us, then let it go. We all laughed.
    Kade kneeled down to retrieve the glove. “It was a new moona few days ago. That was part of the plan, too. Those firemen couldn’t spot us with binoculars.”
    Nora thought about it, then nodded. “Did you know that in astrology, the new moon means the sun and the moon are aligned in the same sign? Supposedly, an energy portal is opened, or something like that. Anyway, it’s a great time for new beginnings.”
    Kade raised his fist to the moon. “To new beginnings.”
    We joined ours with his. “To new beginnings,” we echoed.
    When the distant fire alarm, which had faded into background music, gave a strangled hiccup and cut out, Kade turned his back on the school and strolled away. I took one last look at Kennedy High, bathed in red strobe lights, before going after him.

 
    I COULDN’T WAIT TO SEE EVERYONE’S REACTION TO THE news, which would probably be all over the school by the time I got there. I hadn’t even made it through the parking lot when it started. Kenny York, under the hood of his ‘74 Camaro, had a cell phone pressed to his ear with one shoulder while fiddling with his engine.
    “They did what? In the gym?” He pulled out a screw, studied it, then dropped it into his back pocket. “Christ, dude, for real? Damn, that takes