Episode Fifty Three

Milo continued to wrestle with his thoughts in the wake of this realization for the next several days. Over lunch the next day, and after school, when the four of them gather together to work on their homework and other assignments, Milo could almost swear that on a couple of occasions, he thought he saw Zack shooting furtive looks at Melissa.That could just be my imagination, he thought, but he couldn't help but feela flash of emotion every time it happened. He wondered if he would ever stop doing that. He also caught himself looking at Amanda on at least one or two occasions as well, but her back had been turned and she hadn't noticed. He wondered if he should ask Amanda if she had a crush on him, but each time the thought occurred to him, he heard a loud rushing sound in his ears, as if Murphy's Law was somehow causing his brain to jam, and he wasn't able to think at all until he stopped thinking about Amanda and thought about something else.

The upside of Milo's confusion was that he had totally forgotten about his trepidation over having allowed himself to be roped into presenting at the WIBA Awards, which were rapidly approaching. As he walked into the gym after school, he pushed these thoughts aside with difficulty. The gym had been transformed. Stacks of folding chairs were scattered here and there, obscuring the scuffed and weathered hardwood of the basketball court. Streamers hung from the walls. A large banner over the stage at the far end of the gym proclaimed "The Jefferson G County Middle School Winter Break Awards." Students were buzzing around under Amanda's supervision, as they set up chairs, tested the stage lights and the A/V booth. Bradley and Mort grunted with effort as they maneuvered a heavy looking folding table out of the sliding storage rack under the stage where they were usually kept out of the way when not in use. There were two more already set up on stage. Amanda was standing in the middle of the confusion with a clipboard in one hand, talking to Zack and Melissa.

"Zack, you can help Chad set up all these folding chairs," said Amanda. She turned to Melissa. "Melissa, I need you to help Joni finish setting up the A/V booth."

An overhead light came down with a loud crash that echoed off the walls. Everyone stopped at the sudden noise, turning to stare at Milo. He ignored them as he stepped around the shattered ceiling light, which was surrounded by broken glass. He walked over to where Zack and Melissa had been talking to Amanda before he had arrived.

"Hi guys," he said.

"Oh, hi Milo," said Amanda.

"The gym looks great, Amanda," replied Milo.

"Thanks," said Amanda, "but actually we're not quite finished setting up yet." She gestured to the controlled confusion swirling around them.

From somewhere in the background, Milo heard a loud bang as something heavy hit the floor. A split second later he heard Bradley exclaim angrily, "Mort, you dropped that on my foot!"

"Sorry, Bradley," said Mort sheepishly. "I think that was-"

"I don't care what that was-," interjected Bradley.

Milo turned his attention back to Amanda, who was still speaking.

"When we're finished setting up up for the award show, we're going to run through a rehearsal for the award show," she was saying.

It took almost an hour to finish setting up the gym for the WIBAs. Milo had to keep telling himself to focus on what he was doing. After Bradley and Mort had finished moving and setting up the tables for the awards, Amanda had asked him to help Mort and Chad set up the stage lights. As Mort and Chad hoisted the lights into position over the stage, Milo picked up the end of a heavy duty extension cord and walked over to a wall socket in a corner. He bent over and plugged it in. It sparked as he did so, and Milo felt a jolt run up his arm. It made the hair on his arm stand on end and Milo felt as though ants were crawling around under his skin. Milo sniffed. He thought he smelled something burning, then felt slight warmth on top of his head, and Milo realized that his hair was slightly singed. Half a second after that, the lights went out. The gym was plunged into semidarkness. The only light coming from outside was the watery sunlight coming in through the high windows just under the ceiling. The shafts of sunlight caught the dust motes suspended in midair. Milo let go of the extension cord, which was smoking slightly. The sensation of ants crawling around under his skin ceased as soon as his hand broke contact. Milo straightened up. Above the sound of people milling around and muttering in the semi-darkness, Milo heard the sound of rapid footsteps. He paused, his backpack hanging loosely from one shoulder, to see, Zack, Melissa and Amanda all coming quickly toward him.

"Milo, are you OK?" asked Amanda, the whites of her eyes seemed extra bright in the gloom.

Milo gave a casual shrug. "Yeah, I'm fine," he said. "This is the," he paused briefly, mentally counting, "third time I've been electrocuted."

"Not counting the two times you were struck by lightning,' interjected Melissa.

Milo nodded. He had momentarily forgotten that he had been hit lightning on his eighth and tenth birthdays. "OK, so I've been electrocuted five times, then," he said.

"Milo, you realize you have an electrical burn on your hand," said Zack.

Milo looked down at his right hand. His palm was shiny, red and blistered. He was suddenly aware of a throbbing pain in his hand. "Oh," he said, "thanks, Zack." He let his backpack slide off his other shoulder and it fell to the floor with a dull thud. He quickly rifled through his backpack and pulled out his burn kit. Milo spread anti-burn gel on his palm and then wrapped his hand in a bandage. He reached into his backpack again, produced a pair of heavy black electricians's gloves and tugged them on. The glove on his right hand was snugger fit than usual owing to the bandage wrapped around his palm and he found that both the burn and the bandage he wrapped his hand in had limited the dexterity of Milo's right hand. He awkwardly leaned over and took hold of the extension cord with his left hand. Milo tugged, but the plug didn't want to budge. He frowned at it. "Hmmmm," he said, "it appeared to be stuck."

"Could it be fused with the electrical socket?" asked Melissa. "You looked like you got a pretty good jolt."

Milo looked at the electrical plug and frowned again. "I don't think so Melissa," he said. He tried pulling on the extension cord again. It still refused to the stinging sensation in the palm of his right hand, Milo awkwardly wrapped his other hand around the extension cord and gave a hard pull. The plug and the wall socket came loose together with a loud cracking noise as the cinderblock wall splintered. Milo straightened up, and taking the electrical plug in one hand and the wall socket in the other wrenched them apart. He let the extension cord fall to the floor and rummaged through his backpack again, this time, extracting a pair of pliers. Milo stripped off his electrician's gloves, stuffed them into his pocket and set about rewiring the electrical socket. He was half way through rewiring the plug when Bradley stalked over to where Melissa, Zack and Amanda were watching Milo work.

"Amanda, what's going on?" he asked. "Why are the lights still out?"

"Working on it, Bradley," said Milo slightly absently, as he patiently finished rewiring the wall plug.

Bradley uttered a characteristic snort. "Of course," he said, "who ever would have guessed that this was caused by Milo? Oh wait," he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm, "everyone."

Milo finished what he was doing and stood up. "Come on," he said to Amanda, Zack and Melissa, "lets go check the fuse box." Milo turned and walked over to a darkened corner on the opposite side of the stage. He had taken about five steps when he was suddenly in free fall. The stage floor had given way and Milo landed with a thud on a pile of boxes. Aside from the shaft of dim light coming down from where he had fallen through the stage. He could fee the tines of his grappling hook pressing against the small of his back through his backpack. That's definitely going to leave a bruise, thought Milo. He took in a breath and felt momentarily dizzy. The fall had apparently momentarily knocked the wind out of him. Milo sat up and climbed out of the pile of boxes that had broken his fall. He shrugged off his backpack and fished through the contents for a flashlight. His hand pushed aside a spare bicycle chain and a tire pump and closed over one of his headlamps. Milo pulled it out of his backpack and put it on his head. He clicked it on and a cone of pale yellow light lit up the space immediately around him. Milo's head lamp cast wild shadows on the walls around him. The space under the stage was mostly filled with boxes of props, sets and racks of slightly dusty costumes from previous years' school plays. Pipes, bundles of electrical wires and air conditioning ducts snaked here and there overhead. He wove his way through the maze of various cluttered objects that occupied the space.

Milo was half way to the staircase on the other side of the room, when he heard a loud hissing noise and suddenly felt as if he were covered in something hot and wet. Milo's hair was plastered to his forehead and his clothes stuck to his grey-white fog swirled in the yellow beam of his head lamp, obscuring his vision and filling the room. Milo looked around, wondering where it had come from. A sudden thought struck him and he looked overhead. A steam pipe had burst, dousing him in a thick white cloud. Milo thought for a second, running through contents of his backpack in his mind to see if he had anything he could use to shut off the thick, billowing clouds flowing out of the ruptured pipe. Without taking off his backpack, Milo reached around behind himself and thrust a hand into his backpack. He extracted a large plumber's wrench and looked around, searching for a shut-off valve. He spied one on the other side of the room, through the swirling clouds of condensation.

Milo wound his way through the cluttered mess. He was suddenly knocked to the floor under avalanche of swords and armour left over from last year's production of Camelot. At the same moment, his headlamp went out and Milo was plunged back into darkness. He crawled out from under the pile of swords and armour and stood up. Milo took in a breath and coughed several times. The pile of swords and armour that had knocked him over had kicked of a thick cloud of dust. Milo groped through his backpack in the darkness, looking for his dust mask. His hand closed instead over the familiarity shape of his night vision googles. He pulled off his head lamp, pulled his night vision googles down over his eyes and flicked them on. They cut through the thick clouds of steam like a knife through butter. Everything was bathed in vivid shades of electronic green. Milo quickly scanned the room and found the shut off valve again on the other side of the room. He set off again, sidestepping a falling ladder and dodging around an overturned shelf of cleaning supplies.

Milo eventually reached the shut off valve after narrowly avoiding being bombarded with a deluge of intramural sports trophies. One in particular caught his eye. Milo bent over and picked it up. It had a gold coloured plastic soccer player on top. The plaque at the base read

Jefferson G County Middle School

Intramural Soccer League

Martin Murphy

Best Remaining Player

1985

Martin had talked on more than a few occasions about the soccer trophy he had won when he had been Milo's age. The trophy was very dusty. It had clearly been down in the basement for a long time and Milo doubted that anyone would notice that it was missing. Dad will be really happy that I found this, thought Milo. He tucked it into his backpack and turned his attention back to the shut off valve. He hefted his plumber's wrench and jammed it securely it into the spokes of the large circular valve. The burn on Milo's palm throbbed again and he adjusted his grip slightly so that it was less painful.

Milo pushed on the wrench that he had jammed into the circular handle. It moved, but only very slightly and he guessed that nobody had turned it in a long time. He tried pushing it again and it moved a little more. I think it moved more easily, he thought. Milo took hold of the plumber's wrench for the third time and put all of his weight on it. He felt it begin to turn and the loud hissing of the steam out of the ruptured pipe on the other side of the room became noticeably quieter.

Milo managed to turn the shut off valve a little more than a half revolution when it suddenly snapped off. He toppled to the floor and felt the head of the bolt ruffling the hair on the back of his head as it went whizzing past him and spanged loudly off of a near by water pipe, which split open with the sound of gushing water. Milo picked himself up, retrieved his wrench and quickly finished closing off the flow of steam. The loud hiss was replaced by the gurgle of water flowing out of the burst water pipe. He looked around again, looking for another shut off valve. A large puddle of water was spreading across the floor. Milo spied the valve he was looking for on the opposite wall. He began picking his way across the room, moving much faster than before. With the steam from the broken steam pipe no longer filling the room with thick obscuring clouds, it was much easier to see what he was doing and he crossed the room with less difficulty that before, only having to backtrack when a pile of marching band instruments suddenly fell in front of him, blocking his path.

After about ten minutes, Milo reached the shut off valve. He took hold of it and turned it a little. It turned easily and after several revolutions, the stream of water flowing out of the burst pipe slowed and then stopped. The only remaining sound was the thin trickle of water flowing into the drain in the middle of the floor. Milo scanned the room again, looking for the stairs back up to the stage. He found them after a short search in the far corner, opposite to where he had fallen through the floor and made his way over to them. He put one foot and then the other on the bottom step and stood very still, as if waiting for something to happen. The last time Milo had tried to climb this staircase, had been during the pervious year's WIBAs when they had collapsed as a result of Murphy's Law. Nothing happened and Milo took another cautious step, and then another, and another and another.

In a few quick strides, Milo reached the top of the staircase and stepped onto the small landing. On the other side was the stage door. Milo crossed in the distance in a single stride and took hold of the door handle, which came off in his hand. Milo let the door handle fall to the floor, where it landed with a thud, and thrust a hand into his pocket, fishing for his wallet. Milo opened it, pulled out his student ID card and thrust it into the gap between the door and the door jam. He jimmied his student ID card back and forth three or four times. There was an audible metallic click and the door swung open.