"Alex," said Donovan as he clamped his own glove around the gas vent. "I think I love you."
I laughed, tucking the makeshift balloon into my overalls. For once I was grateful for the baggy prison uniforms-the glove made it look like I'd put on a bit of weight but it wasn't too obvious. Donovan pulled his glove free and tried to tie a knot, but it was too full. With another rude noise it spat gas into his face, half emptying before he managed to secure the opening. Coughing, he held up the bedraggled glove.
"Not bad," I said. "But please don't kill yourself."
"How many do we need, you think?" he asked, tucking his first attempt down his overalls and wrapping a second glove around the vent.
"Probably dozens," I answered. "But we can't take more than three or four each at a time without looking like the Michelin Man. We can't risk giving the game away."
"Four at a time. You, me, and Zee. We can do this in a couple of weeks if the hard labor shifts are right."
"A month at most," I replied, trying to calculate it in my head. Donovan sighed loudly as he pulled the bloated glove free.
"Month's a long time in Furnace when you've got a secret like this," he said, doing a better job with his next knot. "You really think we can do it?"
I pulled another glove over the burner and tried to think back through the last couple of weeks, my endless depression, the sense of utter futility. But the feelings had vanished, as if my mind had been waiting to bring down a shutter and seal them off for good.
"Yeah," I replied, feeling like it was the first time I'd smiled in a lifetime. "I really think we can."
WE WERE so pumped up with hope that we almost forgot all about the trough. By the time the lunch siren blasted we'd only made a handful of pots of food and were forced to serve the hungry inmates with uncooked mush. From the sounds of it there were a few violent complaints, but they were directed at the unlucky kids who were serving, not us.
We almost learned the hard way how dangerous our plan was. Once we'd stuffed our overalls with flammable gas we lit the burner again, and came very close to being blown to smithereens by a stray spark. Next time we knew to fill up the gloves at the end of hard labor, not the beginning.
Walking out of the canteen and through the trough room was the most terrifying part of the operation. I felt like the globes of gas pressed between my skin and my clothes were visible to even the most shortsighted person in Furnace, and as we crossed the yard toward the staircase I started to panic, knowing that a guard or snitch was going to discover us at any moment. But Donovan steered me on with a firm hand on my back, and we made it to the cell without incident.
I hid the gloves underneath the mattress at the base of my bed while Donovan kept watch. I wasn't too happy about the idea of going up in flames in the middle of the night, but we had no choice. It was either there or in the toilet cistern, and the thought of being blown up while taking a dump was infinitely worse.
Once the miniature bombs were secure we set off to find Zee, bumping into him halfway along the third-level platform. He was red-faced and sweaty with a nasty-looking burn on his neck.
"Gary," he hissed as an explanation. "Had laundry duty with him today. He wanted me to do his share while he napped on the clean bedding. I won't be saying no to him again, he's a psycho."
"Well, we've got something that will cheer you up," I said.
"It must be something big if it's pulled you out from that mother of all sulks," was his reply. I clipped him softly on the ear then started walking, waiting until we were in the clear before we filled him in on the plan. He just about danced a jig on the spot, the excitement too much for him.
"Holy Mother of Jesus," he said, clutching his hair in his hands. "You pair of crazy, wonderful nutters. The gloves, of course!"
I clamped a hand over Zee's mouth while Donovan held a finger to his lips.
"Don't want the whole prison to know," he said.
"Yeah, that's essential," I went on, leaning in and whispering to Zee. "If this is going to work, then we can't tell a soul. It's got to be us three, nobody else. I trust you guys, no questions asked, but I wouldn't trust anyone else in here as far as I could throw them. One word to anyone and it's over, we'll end up in the hole, or crapped out the backside of some dog."
"Word of honor, boss," said Donovan, holding out his hand palm down. Zee nodded and placed his hand on Donovan's.
"Feels like the three musketeers," I said, adding mine to the pile. Zee laughed.
"All for one and let's get the hell out of here," he said.
I know it was just my imagination, but I could have sworn there was some sort of electrical pulse charging through our linked fingers. Maybe it had been so long since I'd gripped someone else's hand, so long since I'd felt that contact with anyone. But I sensed it, a force that united us right there and then, a bond of trust, of friendship, of hope.
I guess that's why it came as such a huge surprise that out of the three of us, I was the one who broke the vow first.
IT WAS AS we were heading down to the yard that I heard someone shouting, pointing to the platforms above our heads. I looked up into the shadows of the upper floors, scanning the cells and the walkways. At first I couldn't work out what had caused so much consternation, but then I spotted them-two bodies clinging to the railings on the eighth level.
"Jumpers," said Donovan. "I wouldn't watch this if I were you."
There were three blacksuits in the yard, but none of them moved. They simply gazed up at the two boys as if watching a movie, their booming chuckles audible even from where I was standing. The inmates around us were similarly unconcerned, shouting and jeering as they ran from the place the boys would hit if they let go of their perches.
"Why isn't anyone doing anything to stop them?" I asked.
"Like what?" said Donovan. "Put up a safety net? It's their choice, just let them go."
"No," I whispered, then without thinking about what I was doing, I bolted back up the stairs. I leaped up the first flight three at a time, bounding round the corners so fast I nearly toppled over the side. I made it up the second and third flights in seconds, by the sixth level I was gasping for breath, and I almost didn't make it up the eighth set of stairs, tripping on the last one and sprawling out across the landing.
I pulled myself up, desperately gasping for breath. The lights were off up here, the cells unoccupied and shut tight. But by the weak glow that rose up from the yard I saw the two pale figures twenty or so meters down the platform. They were standing on the other side of the railing, only their trembling fingers stopping them from spilling into the void.
Both boys were eyeing me nervously, and I could finally see who they were. It was the new kids, Toby and Ashley.
I stepped slowly toward them, hands up to show I didn't mean any harm. Ashley shuffled on the ledge, looking ready to leap at any time. Toby was a little more secure, his eyes locked on mine, pleading for me to help. Behind me I heard two more sets of footsteps and knew that Donovan and Zee had my back.
"Toby, right?" I said. "And Ashley?"
The first boy nodded, the larger of the two marking out his landing site eight stories below. I stopped walking when I was an arm's length away, and realized I had no idea what to say.
"Don't jump," was the first thing that came out of my mouth. What a great help that was-I should have been a Samaritan. "I know it's bad down there, but you don't have to do this. There's people who'll look after you, you can get by."
I reached out toward Toby but quickly pulled back when Ashley started screaming at me.
"We can't get by. Every day it's the same, every day we're pushed and punched and spat on. Some guys even wet my bed the other day."