It

‘There!’ he shouted. ‘That way!’
Lightning flashed again and this time Ben could hear it, a buzzing noise like an overloaded Lionel train-transformer. It struck the tree an d blue –white electric fire sizzled its gnarly base into splinters and toothpicks sized for a fairytale giant. It fell toward the river with a rending crash, driving spray high into the air. Ben drew in a dismayed gasp and smelled something hot and punky and wild. A fireball rolled up the bole of the downed tree, seemed to flash brighter, and went out. Thunder exploded, not above them but around them, as if they stood in the center of the thunderclap. The rain sheeted down.
Bill thumped him on the back, awaking him from his dazed contemplation of these things. ‘Guh-guh-GO!’
Ben went, splashing and stumbling along the verge of the river, his hair hanging in his eyes. He reached the tree — the little root-cave beneath it had been obliterated — and climbed over it, digging his toes into its wet hide, scraping his hands and forearms.
Bill and Richie manhandled Eddie over, and as he stumbled off the tree-trunk, Ben caught him. They both went tumbling to the ground. Eddie cried out.
‘You all right?’ Ben shouted.
‘I guess so,’ Eddie shouted back, getting to his feet. He fumbled for his aspirator and almost dropped it. Ben grabbed it for him and Eddie gave him a grateful look as he stuffed it into his mouth and triggered it.
Richie came over, then Stan and Mike. Bill boosted Beverly up onto the tree and Ben and Richie caught her coming down on the far side, her hair plastered to her head, her blue jeans now black.
Bill came last, pulling himself onto the trunk and swinging his legs around. He saw Henry and the other two splashing down the river toward them, and as he slid off the fallen tree he shouted: ‘Ruh-ruh –rocks! Throw rocks!’
There were plenty of them here on the bank, and the lightning-struck tree made a perfect barricade. In a moment or two all seven of them were chucking rocks at Henry and his pals. They had nearly reached the tree; the range was point-blank. They were driven back, yelling with pain and fury, as rocks struck their faces, their chests, their arms and legs.
‘Teach us to throw rocks!’ Richie shouted, and chucked one the size of a hen’s egg at Victor. It struck his shoulder and bounced almost straight up into the air. Victor howled. ‘Ah say . . . Ah say . . . go on an teach us, boy! We learn good!’
‘Yeeeeh-aaaah!’ Mike screamed. ‘How do you like it? How do you like it?’
The answer was not much. They retreated until they were out of range and huddled together. A moment later they climbed the bank, slipping and stumbling on the slick wet earth, which was already honeycombed with little running streamlets, holding onto branches to stay upright.
They disappeared into the underbrush.
‘They’re gonna go around us, Big Bill,’ Richie said, pushing his glasses up on his nose.
‘That’s oh-oh-okay,’ Bill said . ‘G-Go on, B-B-Ben. We’ll fuh –fuh –follow y-you.’
Ben trotted along the embankment, paused (expecting that Henry and the others would burst out into his face at any moment), and saw the pumping-station twenty yards farther down the streambed. The others followed him to it. They could see other cylinders on the opposite bank, one fairly close, the other forty yards upstream. Those two were both shooting torrents of muddy water into the Kenduskeag, but only a trickle was coming from the pipe
sticking out of the embankment below this one. It wasn’t humming, either, Ben noticed. The pumping machinery had broken down.
He looked at Bill thoughtfully . . . and with some fright.
Bill was looking at Richie, Stan, and Mike. ‘W-W-We g-guh –hotta get the l-l-lid oh-oh-off,’ he said. ‘H-H-Help m-m-me.’
There were handholds in the iron, but the rain had made them slippery and the lid itself was incredibly heavy. Ben moved in next to Bill, and Bill shifted his hands a little to make room. Ben could hear water dripping inside — an echoey, unpleasant sound, like water dripping into a well.
‘Nuh-nuh-NOW!’ Bill shouted, and the five of them heaved in unison. The lid moved with an ugly grating sound.
Beverly grabbed on beside Richie and Eddie pushed with h is good arm.
‘One, two, three, push! ‘ Richie chanted. The lid grated a little farther off the top of the cylinder. Now a crescent of darkness showed.
‘One, two, three, push! ‘
The crescent fattened.
‘One, two, three, push! ‘
Ben shoved unt il red spots danced in front of his eyes.
‘Stand back!’ Mike shouted. ‘There it goes, there it goes!’
They