8. Breaking Free

BREAKING FREE 8 They needed to get the table legs free from the ice. But Sam couldn't think. SMASH! SMASH! SMASH! Icicles crashed all around them. Then Sam heard another sound a sort of clanging. "What was that noise?" Lucy asked. "Wait a second," Sam said. "I know that sound! I hear it every day at lunch!"

Sam suddenly stuck his arm out. He reached up and felt along the tabletop. "What are you doing?!" Lucy yelled, as an icicle slammed into the tabletop. Then Sam's fingers felt metal. He yanked his hand back under the table. He was holding two metal lunch forks. Lucy's eyes lit up. "Good thinking!" Sam and Lucy quickly began jabbing the forks at the ice around the table legs. Soon, the ice cracked. The table was free.

"Let's go!" Sam said. He and Lucy grunted as they lifted the table. Icicles shattered against the tabletop, but it shielded them all the way to the kitchen. At the kitchen door, they rushed out from under the table. Sam breathed a sigh of relief. "No ice and no spikey traps in here," he said. "Finally this school cuts us a break," Lucy said, as she grabbed a large bag of salt from the kitchen cabinet.

Sam and Lucy burst out into the hallway. They raced back to the bathroom, slipping and sliding as they ran. The two friends gasped when they entered the bathroom: Antonio was frozen up to his waist! "What t-t-took you so long?" Antonio said. Lucy tore open the bag of salt and poured it over the ice. Sam helped rub it in. The salt stopped new ice from forming. It was working! But it wasn't working fast enough.

"I'm going to chip away at the ice," Sam told Antonio. Sam grabbed the hammer from the sink and began banging away at the ice. Lucy checked the thermometer. "Hurry, guys!" she yelled. "The temperature has already fallen to 19 degrees! Six more degrees, and Orson Eerie will be here in HUMAN form!" Sam swung the hammer one final time. Chunks of ice splintered.

"I'm free!" Antonio said, as he stepped from the crumbling ice. He huddled beneath the hand dryer. Warm air rushed over him. Sam slipped off his jacket. "Take this, buddy," Sam said. "We can't waste any more time in this bathroom. We need to get to that main thermostat in the teachers' lounge! We need to get the heat back on. Now!"