“Friday morning, 0900.”

“Friday, at 0900?” I asked.

“High tide reaches the dunes at noon,” Kenneth said.

“We’ve got a three-hour window to dig the pit, set the secondary charge and blow it before the ocean floods the trench.”

“The school assembly starts at eleven,” I said.

“I’m on at 1130 sharp.”

Kenneth looked down at his boot and tapped the steel toe with his wrench again.

“If that old fuse sticks during extraction, Sarah, we’ll be in that trench right up to eleven fifteen.”