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the bridge, and in a second it was gone. It was over the bridge, moving farther down the track, getting smaller and smaller, taking the noise with it until it was just a soft hum and then a slight vibration in the water and then . . . nothing.
    â€œWhat happened?” I whispered to Jack.
    â€œMaybe they didn’t hook it up right.” He paused. “Look, they’re going back.”
    The four men had started to climb back up the embankment and onto the tracks. As they walked, two of them were rolling up the wire that they’d laid out. Why were they doing that? If it hadn’t been hooked up right, wouldn’t they just check things and get the next train?
    From our hiding spot we could see the men, and now we could hear them, too. Before they had been completely silent, but now they were laughing and talking in loud voices. The train had gotten by, so why were they so happy? It seemed like the more we watched the less sense everything made.
    As two of the men stood in the middle of the bridge, two started down the sides, climbing along the trestle beams. These two were unwinding the wires, threading them back through the beams while the two at the top pulled them back up. Jack and I watched wordlessly for close to five minutes until finally all the wires were removed, and all four men reassembled on the top.
    â€œThey haven’t removed the explosives yet,” Jack said.
    I could clearly see that the dark blobs still remained attached to the support beams of the bridge.
    â€œMaybe they take the wires first and then go back for them,” I said.
    â€œMaybe, but I’m not so—oh my goodness,” Jack hissed.
    At that same instant I saw what he saw—a black inner tube was floating down the creek toward the bridge. I turnedaround; only one of ours was still pushed partially up on the shore.
    â€œYou idiot, you should have put your tube higher up.”
    â€œ My tube? How do you know it’s not yours!” I protested.
    â€œSssssshhhhh . . . keep it down. It doesn’t matter whose it is. I just hope they don’t see it.”
    â€œWhat could happen if they do?”
    He shook his head. “I don’t know, but maybe they might come looking for where it came from.”
    A shiver, unrelated to the cold of the creek, ran through my entire body.
    While I watched the men perched atop the bridge, I kept one eye on the inner tube. It was bobbing down the creek . . . slowly twirling and bouncing along with the current. It was almost like it was dancing, getting closer and closer to the bridge, and still they hadn’t seen it. In just a few seconds it would be right underneath their feet and then it would pop out the other side and—it hit one of the supports! The tube spun around to the side, pushed by the current, and then stopped moving. It seemed to be stuck, wedged in against the wooden beam.
    I looked up at the men and was shocked to see that they were no longer there. I quickly turned my head and spotted them walking along the tracks, away from the bridge. Then they dropped off the far side of the embankment, disappearing from my view.
    â€œThey didn’t take the explosives,” Jack said, excited. “They left them attached.”
    â€œWe’d better go and get help,” I said. “We’d better tell somebody.”
    â€œWe’d better get your inner tube.”
    â€œHow do you know it’s even my . . . no, forget it, we have to go and get help!”
    â€œWe’ll go after we get the tube.”
    â€œLet’s just leave it!” I pleaded. “It isn’t that important.”
    â€œMaybe not to you.”
    He waded over, grabbed the second tube, threw it in the water and flung himself on to it.
    There were just a few seconds to decide as he floated by. I grabbed onto the side of the tube. The branches of the willow tree brushed against us as we drifted through them and into the open water of the creek.
    I was