The Fire

by Caroline B. Cooney

  Christina lost her temper. “I’ll give you a marshmallow face!” she yelled. She hit Vicki.

  Jonah pulled Christina off. “Don’t give her a bloody lip,” he said, “or you’ll be in trouble again. Less than three weeks to go, Chrissie. Stay good!”

  “I don’t get into trouble!” said Christina. How could her only ally talk like that? Jonah knew the truth; had always known the truth. “The Shevvingtons force me into it.”

  “Oh ho!” said Vicki. “Now you’re going to blame poor Mr. and Mrs. Shevvington because you hit me. I’ll tell you something, Christina Romney. Not everybody believes that the Shevvingtons’ son did all the stuff you said he did.” Vicki covered her swelling mouth with a manicured hand. “Like that time your entire winter wardrobe burned in a bonfire in the snow? You can’t blame that on their son, Christina. We know better.” Vicki raised her voice to reach her audience. “You’re an island girl. They’re all half crazy. You set that fire yourself.”

  The sea crept wetly around their sneakers, slurping at the dry land. The seventh grade watched Christina. It seemed to her that she was alone, and they were together; she was small and thin, and they were a crowd. A mob.

  The force of their bodies and faces and eyes and voices rolled over her like a great drowning wave. Now they were a single creature: the enemy. A group to push her backward into Candle Cove and watch, laughing, while the tide came in over her broken bones.

  Christina ran.

  She had never done such a thing before. She was the fighter, the one who never gave up. Alone she ran, over the cliffs, among the craggy boulders, past the millionaires’ mansions. Anything to get away, to be safe.

  Her greatest fear in life was that she would be alone: without friends.

  I should have given my friends a chance to speak up, she thought miserably. I played into the Shevvingtons’ hands again. They want me friendless and running. And they’ve got it.

  With her fists she rubbed away the tears that rolled over her eyes like fog over the island. So many victims. So much pain. All caused by Mr. and Mrs. Shevvington — humiliating, manipulating, taunting.

  “But it doesn’t matter now,” Christina said to the sea gulls who floated in the air currents above her. “They’re leaving!” she yelled to the barn swallows who dipped and swerved over the green meadow grass. “It’s over!”

  Christina went on past the old wharf that had once protruded a quarter mile into the ocean and was nothing now but piers sticking up like the feet of drowning men. She ran all the way to the storm cottages.

  Many years before, in 1938, a great hurricane crossed New England. When it was over, buildings had been tossed to the ground in splinters. Back then, summer people came for only a few weeks, so they didn’t care about quality building techniques. After the hurricane, the cottage owners made walls of broken boards and nailed on roofs that leaked and swayed.

  The storm cottages looked as if they had been built with bent nails by a beginning Girl Scout troop. They tilted, with crazy stairs and mismatched windows. Some had plumbing and some didn’t. Some had electricity and some didn’t. It was hard to believe they were now worth hundreds of thousands of dollars because they were ocean-front.

  Today, the storm cottages were still closed for the winter, shutters fastened over the windows.

  Christina opened the shutters to the window on the sagging front porch of her favorite storm cottage. She eased the window up, and slipped inside. The storm cottage was painted white: ceilings, walls, doors, and even floors. The furniture was winter-draped in white sheets. A crack of sun came through the window Christina had opened, like a huge golden pencil.

  Christina tiptoed through. In the funny old kitchen there were no counters, just a beaten-up table. The bathroom had a stand-up shower crammed in the corner, but the water was turned off. Upstairs a miniature bedroom held a bed with bare metal springs. Christina lay down and it was as comfortable as you would expect metal springs to be.

  She knew these summer people. They came in August. And they did not rent it out the rest of the time. She could use the storm cottage for her hide-out these last seventeen days. Actually, day seventeen was nearly over. Sixteen days, then. Who would hide out with me? she wondered.

  Michael and Benjamin Jaye were the only other island children at Schooner Inne now.

  On Burning Fog, Christina and Michael had been good friends, but the mainland pulled them apart. Michael was such a good athlete that he had already moved up the social ladder, and was important, because everybody knew he would be captain of everything one day, winning games against old rivals. Michael would laugh at her if she suggested a hideaway and Christina had been laughed at enough today.

  Benjamin was out of the question. Benj was a sophomore, two years and six months older than Christina. If she told Benj about the storm cottage, the two years and six months between them would seem like a century. “Chrissie, that’s trespassing,” he would say in his heavy, slow, islander’s voice.

  “Not really,” Christina would argue. “I’ve always done it. Besides, it’s just a storm cottage. Practically public property.”

  Slowly a frown would materialize on Benj’s forehead. Benj did everything slowly. “Christina,” he would say reprovingly. He probably wouldn’t stop her, and he probably wouldn’t tell, because he wanted her to help him raise money for Disney World, but he certainly wouldn’t hide out with her.

  That left Jonah. But he was being poopy. Don’t fight, don’t start things. Why share a hideaway with him?

  She let her mind drift over Blake, pretending she could live here with him. Handsome, perfect Blake. Anya’s boyfriend, however. Anya’s rescuer, too. Blake had taken Anya away from the Shevvingtons, stashing her with some relative of his in the city while he finished up at boarding school.

  The winter before, Christina had had such a crush on Blake! The crush had left her panting and trembling, dizzy and excited. Blake, of course, had not noticed. Eighteen-year-olds did not pay attention to the emotions of thirteen-year-olds. But Christina knew how love felt now, and Jonah did not inspire love. Jonah was just Jonah.

  She sighed. Blake would be too busy driving his sports car and dressing in his catalog Maine clothing to bother with games in a storm cottage.

  Christina checked the kitchen drawer. (There was only one drawer in the whole cottage.) Cheap forks, knives, and spoons; a spatula, a steak knife, can opener, and screwdriver. On a shelf were dented pots, ancient plastic plates, and a lemonade pitcher. Christina peeked under the sink. One squirt of dish soap, one stained sponge, and a box of kitchen matches.

  I could have a cookout, thought Christina. No. People would see the smoke and investigate. Besides, then Benji would be right. It’s one thing to creep in and out. It’s another thing entirely to cook a hamburger in the fireplace.

  Christina set the kitchen table for one and pretended to have pancakes, bacon, orange juice, and grapefruit halves with extra spoonfuls of sugar. I’m thirteen and playing house, she thought. This is so silly. In seventh grade, you’re supposed to grow up, not down.

  She put everything away exactly as she had found it.

  Her bad moods never lasted long and this one was gone. Pleased with her hideaway, Christina decided to go make friends with the seventh grade again. She slid out the window, tucked the shutter in, and ran back down the cliffs.

  Far away, in the cupola of Schooner Inne, sun glinted off a pair of binoculars.

  Chapter 6

  “THIS,” SAID ROBBIE TO Mr. O’Neil, the social worker, “is my cousin.”

  Christina tried to look like an Armstrong cousin. She had had a bad day in school and was rather hoping the afternoon trip to the mental institution would be a nice ride.

  “Her name is Iris,” added Robbie.

  Iris? Christina wished she could have chosen her own fake name. If I could pick, she thought, it would be a name soft and beautiful. Now she was stuck with Iris. Still, it was fun to be a different person for an afternoon. Chr
istina filled her head with Iris-type thoughts.

  The social worker was big but limp. Shaking hands with him was like holding a wet sneaker. Mr. O’Neill drove slumped over the steering wheel and talked slow; even his cheeks drooped. How could a visit from this lump cheer anybody up?

  He also asked too many questions. Christina knew nothing about Robbie’s family. What was she supposed to say when he asked was Iris related by blood to the Armstrongs?

  “No,” said Robbie, “she’s on my mother’s side. She’s a Murch.”

  Iris Murch? thought Christina. I can’t stand this.

  The social worker said, “Robbie, next time you might want to drive up with the Shevvingtons. They visit your sister every week. They’re such fine people. Why, Val is practically catatonic; she hardly ever speaks; she’s almost unreachable. Yet week after week Mr. and Mrs. Shevvington are there to encourage and comfort.” He shook his big, loose head, like a cow shaking away flies. “What fine people,” he repeated.

  Week after week … the Shevvingtons appearing by Val’s bed … creeping up like rodents in the dark … smiling in front of the staff, and gloating when they were alone with Val.

  Christina imagined Mrs. Shevvington rocking with silent laughter, looking down at Val. Val, huddled under the pitiful protection of a hospital blanket, hiding from the very people who had put her in that prison. Of course Val will never get well, thought Christina. Not when the Shevvingtons come every week to renew her terror.

  “They’ll be so glad Val’s cousin is visiting,” added the social worker. “They’ll want to meet you, Iris. Where do you go to school, anyway?”

  Robbie said quickly, “Her parents teach her at home. You’ve heard of that. Home schooling. They don’t approve of public schools. Or private schools, either.”

  The social worker said, “How fascinating, Iris. I would love to discuss that with your parents. Are they in town, too?”

  “No,” said Christina firmly. “Where is this hospital, anyway? Are we almost there? Do you think we could turn on the radio?” She hissed in Robbie’s ear, “You dodo. What if he tells the Shevvingtons about me?”

  Robbie said loudly, “Don’t introduce Iris to the Shevvingtons. Her parents hate anybody that teaches school. They had very bad experiences when they were young. Her parents will never let Iris visit Val again if you mention school principals.”

  “What a fascinating neurosis,” said Mr. O’Neill. “I promise, Iris. I can see you have a difficult life, and I don’t want to add to it.”

  They traveled on, Christina making desperate meaningless conversation with Robbie about the baseball season. Nerves made Christina laugh as if she, too, were insane. The social worker watched in his rearview mirror, trying to identify her neurosis.

  Suddenly, at a turn in the road, a high iron fence jumped up from the fields and flowers. Wire was woven among the black spikes, making the fence impassable from either side. A small white sign read “Shoreline Institute for the Mentally Troubled. Check in at gate. Visitors by pass only.”

  A guard stood in a little cubicle, swinging car gates open by pressing a button. He wrote down all their names. Iris Murch had just become real.

  Mr. O’Neill said he would be visiting patients in another hall; Robbie and Iris could be with Val for half an hour, and then they were to wait for him in the Visitors’ Lounge where, he assured them, a color television would keep them happy and occupied.

  They parked.

  Silent, empty cars glistened in the sun.

  From the buildings came no sound; on the grass nobody walked. And yet there must be patients living behind each pane of glass.

  They entered a wide lobby with polished floors and a smiling receptionist in a white uniform. “Doesn’t it look like a Fat Farm,” whispered Robbie, “where you pay a fortune to eat nothing and get massages?” But the hall doors were keyed; you could not get in or out without an attendant. The attendant on Val’s hall was a man in white: white shirt, pants, socks, and shoes, as if he intended to blend in with the white walls and the white sheets. Christina worried about all these confused patients with no way to exit. “What do you do if there’s a fire?” she said uneasily.

  “Don’t you think about that,” said the attendant, patting her. “It’s all arranged.” He smiled at Christina. The teeth were Mrs. Shevvington’s — wrinkled, dried corn on the cob. Christina shuddered. The attendant smiled even wider. Whispering, as if it were study hall, he breathed, “And what is your name?”

  Patients’ rooms stretched on either side, but there was no talk, no laughter, no radios, no yelling. If she looked in the rooms would they be like the guest rooms at Schooner Inne — occupied only by ghosts?

  “My name is Iris,” she whispered back.

  In the first room, a man sat in a chair, looking at nothing, mouth hanging open, no sound coming out.

  “They drug them,” whispered Robbie. “That way the staff doesn’t have to do anything.”

  Christina and Robbie walked slower, as if they too had been drugged and were sliding into a silent world.

  “Here is your room,” whispered the attendant. He took Christina’s arm, as if he were about to lock her in. His hand was thick and inhuman, like a rubber glove filled with sand.

  Robbie betrayed me! thought Christina, dizzy with shock. He and the Shevvingtons planned this. Robbie is going to have me admitted as Iris Murch. Nobody will ever see Christina Romney again. The attendant and the social worker are part of it. They didn’t need eighteen days! They just needed one afternoon. And Robbie.

  Christina tried to free herself but the attendant’s grip had hardened like cement. She swung fear-wide eyes toward Robbie, but he was staring at his shoes. The attendant’s lips never covered his yellow teeth. His smile stayed on and on, like a frozen frame in a movie.

  If I can break free, she thought, I can run down the hall. But I have no key to let myself out. A patient’s window? No. The glass is lined with wire. Even if I got into the yard, the fence has no toeholds. There’s no way over.

  She had a vision of her future: white walls, television with the sound turned off, attendants with triumphant smiles.

  “Chrissie, relax,” muttered Robbie. “It’s not that bad. Val just lies there. What’s the matter? You look as if you’re having a breakdown yourself.”

  He had called her Chrissie, not Iris. She whirled. The attendant was back at the other end of the hall, keying himself out.

  I fell into paranoia, thought Christina. I thought They were after me, all of Them. I thought They had a conspiracy against me.

  How easy it was, then, to go crazy. All you had to do was think about it, and you began to fall toward it, the tilting floor of your own mind sliding you into a crack that would smash shut.

  Val was exceptionally pretty.

  Christina had expected someone beaten and bruised. Someone on whom the Shevvingtons’ handiwork would show.

  But the girl sitting cross-legged in the center of the neatly made bed had big brown eyes, tan skin, long lashes, and a wide firm mouth. She wore khaki pants and a cotton sweater, white with horizontal khaki stripes. Val looked like a girl who danced and partied; whose laughter was a shout of glee.

  But Val did not blink. Her huge eyes just sat there. When Robbie and Christina crossed the room, the eyes did not follow them. The eyes did not see; needed no tears. Mrs. Shevvington’s eyes, thought Christina. That’s how the Shevvingtons got inside her. Through the eyes.

  Robbie sat beside his sister, and the bed sank down, making her slender body tip against him. “Val?” he said. “I’ve brought you a friend. Her name is —” Robbie stopped, not knowing which name to use.

  “I’m Anya’s friend, from Burning Fog Isle,” said Christina softly. “Do you remember Anya? You two used to be in school together.”

  Val got lower and lower in the bed, as if assuming a fetal position. She spoke in a voice so light it felt like a draft. “Anya!” Like air escaping from a balloon. “Anya is next.”
<
br />   “No. Anya is safe. Anya got away.”

  There was a conversation between them, one which Robbie was not part of. Val’s eyes cleared, and she made her first blink. It took a great effort, as if her lids scraped and ached. “Anya is safe?”

  “Anya is safe,” said Christina firmly. “I saved her. Now she’s living in the city with friends. She won’t be back for a long time.”

  “I won’t be back for a long time, either,” whispered Val.

  “Come back,” said Christina urgently. “I need you. Come back now, Val. Because I’m next.”

  Val’s eyes opened even wider. She seemed to suck Christina in through her pupils. She leaned toward Christina. Her fingers grappled with Christina’s dangling hair, gathering it in her hands like a harvest. “Then what are you doing here? The Shevvingtons might come!” She never raised her voice. As if the Shevvingtons’ ears were pressed to cracks.

  “I live with them,” said Christina. “I have to board at Schooner Inne. Like Anya.”

  “They’ll get you,” said Val. Suddenly her voice was normal. As if having the Shevvingtons win were also normal.

  Christina shook her head. “No, they won’t. I know their plan.”

  “It doesn’t help to know their plan. They get the other adults on their side. They get your parents and your teachers. They get psychiatrists. They make up lies. They corner you. They crowd you.”

  Val’s huge eyes stared into a white corner of her white room, as if seeing a white rat there, trapped, caught, destroyed.

  “If you’re next, and you know it,” whispered Val, “you must run.” She lay back on her bed. Suddenly she was limp as a wet dishrag. Just clothes lying on the bedcovers, with no body inside them.

  “Come back!” said Christina authoritatively.

  But Val did not come back.

  Robbie talked.

  Christina talked.

  But Val was not there. She was gone. Lost perhaps in her own head. Or floating in the room.