I frowned. "How much gasoline?"
"A five-gallon can."
"Oh." I paused to think. "But if the gas isinsidethe can, a little piece of paper wouldn’t catch the can on fire. Would it?"
"It would if I'd just filled it up."
I still wasn't following. "But why?"
"Why do you think?"
Once again, I tried to envision it. Thinking out loud, I said, "Is it because there was gas spilled along the side or something?"
"Probably."
"But you don't know for sure?"
His gaze locked on mine. "Hard to check when your truck's on fire."
"Okay, fine," I said. "But even if all five gallonsdidcatch on fire, it wouldn't make your whole truck blow up." I bit my lip. "Would it? I mean, that was a pretty big explosion."
"No kidding."
"But why would the whole truck explode?"
"Because I'd just filled up the tank."
"You mean the truck's fuel tank?"
"Yeah. Twenty gallons."
"Oh." Finally, I saw what he meant. His truck had been old and rusty, so it wasn'tthatinconceivable that flaming fuel in the truck bed would've sparked a larger explosion in the main gas tank.
Reluctantly, I said, "I guess that makes sense."
Brody eyed me with obvious contempt. "Good to know."
Ignoring his attitude, I said, "But wait, why would you be hauling around gas in the first place?"
"Because," he said, "I was mowing lawns on the side."
He was?I tried to envision the scene from six years ago. "But I didn't see a mower in the truck bed."
"Right. Because I was mowing out back."
"Oh." His explanation was surprisingly simple. And yet, it wasn't what I'd expected. "Sothat'swhy you were skipping class? To work?" I stared up at him. "Seriously?"
"What, you're surprised?"
"Well, yeah, actually. I mean, I always figured you were cutting class for the fun of it."
"Want to know whatIalways figured?"
"What?"
His gaze hardened. "That I was done with you."
His words stung, but for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why. The two of us had never been friends. And, as I'd learned the hard way in high school, just because we were working on a common project, that didn't mean we were working on the same side.
