Her hands hit it just as the first weight was about to drop. She shoved with all her strength. A second later the weights dropped off the rod, bouncing off the bench a bare inch from Randy’s head and hitting the floor with more metallic ringing.“Are you all right?” Nancy asked breathlessly, helping Randy up to a sitting position. He still clutched the metal rod, and his face was bright red from exertion.After taking a few gulps of air, he croaked out, “Yeah, I’m okay. If it weren’t for you, those weights would have—I was pressing a hundred pounds!”“How did that happen?” asked Bess, her voice filled with worry.Nancy pointed to the steel rod. “Isn’t there usually something on the ends of these things to hold the weights in place?”Randy nodded. “There should be a bolt on each end. I guess I should have checked before I started lifting. But when I saw that the right number of weights were on, I didn’t bother checking that the bolts were in place.”“What about those two guys who were here?”
