The Fire

by Caroline B. Cooney

  “Don’t worry,” she said to Val. “They want me to be afraid. They are probably awake and happy because of that scream.” She thought of their smiles: Mr. Shevvington’s, smooth and hidden in the dark; Mrs. Shevvington’s, yellow and curled at his side.

  And I, she thought, am no longer half here. I am all here. “Thank you, Val,” she whispered, hugging the other girl. “I nearly slipped into the crack. You saved me.”

  She turned on the tiny lamp by the bedside table.

  In the half light, fire and smoke seemed to creep out of the cracks of the walls. For a moment she was ready to run, ready to scream Fire!, to save Val as she had once saved Dolly.

  It’s just paint, she thought. Anya fell into the changing posters of the sea that Mrs. Shevvington put in her room. I will fall into the mural they’ve painted on the wall. This afternoon I panicked. I was expecting fire so it became fire.

  I must remember that. Things become what you expect them to become. But I am granite. Nothing can shatter me.

  Christina lay back on the pillow again, comforted.

  “Now hide me somewhere,” whispered Val.

  “Why can’t you go home? I haven’t met your mother and father, but Robbie is nice. Just explain that you’re better and you can live at home now.”

  “You don’t understand. They think the Shevvingtons know best. The Institute has probably already telephoned them. And all they would do is call an ambulance and send me back.”

  A year ago, Christina would never have believed that. Now she believed.

  “I can’t hide here, either.” Val’s voice was breath, without tone. “The Shevvingtons chose the Institute. They’d love driving me back there. Shutting the gates. Closing the glass. Smiling sadly when I tried to explain.”

  The house creaked.

  Val whimpered.

  Even when there are no footsteps, thought Christina, in this house you hear them. You hear the ghosts of these rooms, all the souls trying to get free of the Shevvingtons.

  Outside the ocean spit water against the cliff’s, but it did not call her name. Had it been Val whispering Christina? Or the ocean? And why wasn’t it talking now? Was the ocean just resting between tides?

  Between victims?

  In the morning, thought Christina, I will go to the hardware store and buy a gallon of paint. I will paint over these walls. I will paint away the fire and the fog. I will say to the Shevvingtons, “It’s my room and I like it plain white.” With a paintbrush I will end the nightmare.

  She imagined herself flicking paint in their eyes if they argued.

  She imagined them taking the tin can with the candle and the fingerprints to the police, and telling them of arson; imagined the ambulance coming for her as well as for Val. Imagined the Shevvingtons saying to her mother and father, You tried — but sometimes mental illness seizes a child no matter how well intentioned the parents; nobody knows better than we; are we not suffering the very same catastrophe that you are? Our only son locked up just as your only daughter must be? Be brave, like us, and say good-bye to the Christina you once knew.

  “The storm cottage,” breathed Christina. “Val, that’s where you can hide! Nobody will look there. The summer people don’t come till August.” Christina slid out of the bed. She pulled on jeans and yanked her sweatshirt over her head.

  “Step where I step,” instructed Christina in the softest voice she had. “Skip stairs where I skip.”

  Val said, “Shouldn’t we wait till the sun comes up?”

  Christina shook her head. “People might see us,” she whispered.

  Down, down they went: ghosts on the run.

  As they went lower and lower, Christina smelled the tide. For a moment she could not take the last step off the stairs, for fear she would tumble into the sea. It was right here — right in the house!

  Val said, “The cellar is full of water. I know because I tried to hide there. It chased me up the stairs.”

  The snick of the front door lock seemed loud as a cannon. They waited, but the Shevvingtons’ bedroom door did not open.

  They slid out, and eased the door shut behind them.

  The stars in the sky trembled.

  The waves in the ocean fluttered.

  They scuttled over rocks and sand, past deserted docks, and silent parked cars.

  “I know what happened,” said Christina, disgusted with herself. Why, oh, why did she let herself yarn? Michael was right; Christina would stretch any story at all. The cannon strength of the tides had broken through the cellar passage, that was all. It was open again. The flimsy cement layer the Shevvingtons had used to block up their son’s creepy entrance had burst.

  “Honestly,” said Christina to Val, “I’m such a dodo bird. I make such a big deal out of every little thing.”

  The horizon glowed pink. The sun edged toward Maine. They had barely gotten past the wharf when the first lobsterman pulled up in his truck, stomped down the dock, started the engine on his boat.

  Silent as seabirds they crept around the closed cottages.

  “This is perfect,” said Christina happily. “You’ll be safe here, Val. Nobody can find you here.”

  In a window high in Schooner Inne, the first ray of sun glinted off a pair of binoculars.

  Chapter 9

  CHRISTINA HAD ALWAYS WANTED to stay up all night. Every time on Burning Fog Isle when she had a friend spending the night, she begged her parents to let them stay up all night, and her parents always said no.

  But it was not as much fun as she had expected.

  In school the next day, she was dizzy with sleepiness; her eyelids closed relentlessly. When her brain dredged for information, it found only grit.

  She worried continually about Val, sleeping on bare metal springs in a vacant house. Was Val stable enough, well enough for such a night? Was it even safe for anybody to stay alone like that? Should Christina call Mr. and Mrs. Armstrong and tell them? Should Christina tell Robbie? Or Benj? Or her own mother and father?

  But the Shevvingtons must have an ally she had not identified. What if the ally was Robbie? And when she said, “I have Val!” what if his mouth went thin and evil like Mrs. Shevvington’s … his eyes hot and yellow like theirs?

  As for Benj, last night when she could have used his granite, he had been elsewhere. At some meeting for Band, working on fund-raisers. Oh, sure, he said he wanted her help, but when push came to shove, he got all stuttery and embarrassed and said he couldn’t bring a seventh-grader to the meeting. “I mean, girls like Astrid and Megan are going to be on the committee,” he said helplessly. Astrid and Megan were impressive, exciting seniors. Once they had been best friends with Anya. But when Anya began to collapse, Astrid and Megan vanished. They weren’t going to hang around with a failure. Christina would just as soon kick Astrid and Megan in the shins as work with them. “That’s why you can’t come,” Benj had said at last. “You act like a seventh-grader, too.”

  I do not act like a seventh-grader! thought Christina resentfully, walking down middle school halls, passing middle school classrooms. Who saved Val, anyway?

  But oh, how Christina wanted to lean on somebody. How she wanted a partner! Or at least some advice.

  From some unknown source Val had acquired a surge of strength. But breaking out of the Institute, hitchhiking to the village, creeping into Schooner Inne, hiding from the Shevvingtons … all Val’s resources were used up.

  Now Val expected Christina to accomplish everything else — bring food and news and company. Find a way to make her freedom last. Save Val from going back. Prove that Val was well again. Prove, in fact, that she had never been ill to start with. That it was all the Shevvingtons’ contrivance.

  Christina did not have the slightest idea how to do any of that.

  If only she had gotten a full night’s rest. Then perhaps she could think clearly. As it was, all her thoughts were blurred.

  In school it was Safety Week. Christina tried to open her eyes and concentrate on Safet
y. The Fire Department gave an assembly talk about safety with matches, lawnmowers, and barbecues.

  Nobody in seventh grade wanted to be safe. What was exciting about safety? Everybody wanted to be in danger. In history they talked about terrorism and how it was sweeping the world. Jonah said, “I like terrorism. It’s exciting to get on a plane and wonder if you’ll be hijacked and end up a prisoner.” Everybody agreed that was much more exciting than getting salted nuts for a snack.

  In Art they had to make posters about safety, and in English Mrs. Shevvington made them write slogans for the posters. Christina was too tired even to hang onto a crayon, let along design something. “We’re too old for this,” she complained. “Elementary school kids have to make posters, but seventh-graders have outgrown it.”

  “Outgrown safety?” said Mrs. Shevvington. “How interesting, Christina. I shall bear that in mind.”

  “Yeah,” said Gretch, “you should see what she’s doing in woodworking. She’s making a fire.”

  Mrs. Shevvington’s little eyes flared. She turned her whole body, like a vehicle, and her flat oatmeal face fastened on Christina. “Making fires?” she repeated.

  “We’re all making summer fires,” said Christina.

  “But only yours,” smirked Vicki, “has flames.”

  For Father’s Day, the seventh-graders were painting plywood cut-outs to be placed in the empty fireplace for decoration during the summer. Most kids were doing geraniums or cats. Christina, however, thought a summer fire should be a fire, and hers was bigger than anybody’s, with curling flames she had cut on the jigsaw. She had chosen metallic paint — bronze and gold with flecks that glittered.

  “Oh, you know her fire obsession, Mrs. Shevvington,” said Gretch. “You were the one who told us about it. Remember how she wrote essays over the winter about fire? About how she’d like to burn all her sweaters because she was so sick of them? Well, you should see how much she loves Woodworking. She can play with fire all —”

  Christina was too tired to think. “You shut up!” she yelled. “Or I’ll burn you!”

  The room went silent.

  The hum of fans and the whir of traffic invaded the room, like crawling insects. The eyes of the classroom rotated and fixed on Christina. Her threat seemed to hang in the room like loops of crepe paper, flaming, touching Gretchen.

  Christina lifted her hands as if she could cut off the rays of their stares with her flat palms. Her lids scraped mercilessly over her dried-out eyes. Being so sleepy made her nervous and twitchy.

  Am I really twitching? thought Christina. Is my cheek jerking like Robbie’s? Are my hands knotting? Do I look insane? Or is it just inside my head where the twitching and the panting is going on?

  “Christina,” said Mrs. Shevvington. Her voice was silken now, drawing across Christina’s cheek like a veil. “How queer you sound, my dear. First you don’t care about Safety.” Her voice curled like smoke and the room seemed to fog up.

  Like the wall in bedroom number 8, Christina thought. I meant to buy paint today. Paint over the fire and islands. But instead I have to get food for Val.

  “Then, Christina, dear, you tell us that only little children should worry about Safety?” The voice crept like a cat, playing with that word safety, mocking it, tossing it around like a dead mouse.

  “Then you play with fire,” whispered Mrs. Shevvington, her voice a wind that flickered flames. The classroom shivered. Even Jonah shivered. “And finally, Christina …” She spoke like the sea. Chhhhrrissssteeenah, she hissed. “… you threaten your classmates?”

  Christina tried to wake up. She was falling into a trap; she knew it, she could see the steel teeth of the jaws of the trap, but she could not run.

  “Chhhhrrissssteeenah!” said Mrs. Shevvington, wet like tides, “what is that I see on your desk?”

  The mass of eyes swerved and followed the thick, stubby, pointing finger. In her morning stupor, Christina had forgotten to bring her books to school, so the desktop was empty: just a rectangle of blonde wood with a groove for a pencil. Christina lowered her head, although she was so tired she was afraid she would drop down onto the desk and sleep: through school, or through life.

  The desk was not empty.

  Lying on the edge was a tiny box of matches, the kind with a little drawer, that Christina had used for bureaus for her dolls’ bedrooms when she had had a dollhouse. The red tip of a single match stuck out of the tiny drawer.

  Mrs. Shevvington gasped, and clutched her chest.

  The seventh grade gasped, and covered their mouths.

  “Yesterday on the playing field, matchbooks fell out of her jacket pocket,” said Vicki.

  “It’s not mine,” said Christina. She pushed the matchbox away, and it fell on the floor. The mass of eyes tilted to see the floor. She was no longer in a room with twenty-five thirteen-year-olds; they were just eyes. Eyes that peeked and peered.

  “Stop staring at me!” Christina cried out.

  The eyes turned away, full of pity, saying in eye language, poor Christina … poor Christina … poor sick Christina.

  Mrs. Shevvington knelt beside Christina’s desk. Her oatmeal face was close to Christina’s; her tiny yellow teeth near enough to bite. Her hand was so fat, the flesh grew over her rings, and her thick, bitten nails pressed jaggedy half moons into Christina’s kneecap. Christina nearly gagged.

  “You feel sick, don’t you, Christina? What kind of sickness is it, Christina? Sickness of the heart? Or — sickness of the mind, my dear?” Her voice oozed like a jellyfish.

  “It’s sickness from cafeteria food,” said Jonah loudly. “They served last week’s tunafish.”

  “I had that,” said Katy. “It was disgusting. I practically threw up.”

  Jonah and Katy batted words back and forth, like a ball over a volley net, and the eyes stopped staring, and Mrs. Shevvington stopped kneeling, and finally, finally, class was over.

  Christina felt as fragile as spun glass. If somebody pushes me, she thought, I’ll shatter.

  Walking down the halls with the others, she tried to make herself small and safe. What if a fire starts? They’ll say that I —

  Somebody touched her. Christina leaped as if attacked by a nest of wasps. Gretch and Vicki snickered. “It’s only your old lobsterman,” they said.

  It was Benj. She could not imagine what he was doing in this hallway. High school did not share corridors with middle school. Benj seemed out of breath, almost frantic. Had the Shevvingtons hurt Benj, too? I should be an owl, she thought, so I can swivel my head in all directions. I can’t keep track of the Shevvingtons.

  “You were in bed when I got home from our meeting,” Benj said, “so I didn’t get to tell you about it. The fund-raising committee,” he added, because she looked so blank, “for Disney World. And guess what?” His eyes were fever-bright.

  I have to feed Val, she thought, and paint the wall, and stay awake, and keep away from matches. “What?” she said dimly.

  His voice was still as the surface of a pond. “I’m chairman,” Benj told her.

  School did not interest Benj and had little to do with his life. He had never joined anything except Band, never played a sport, never attended a show. It was Michael for whom the games and activities of school were lifeblood. For Benj only the sea mattered; only Burning Fog Isle, and his own boat.

  Something in Christina awoke. Off to the side of her own problems, she remembered his. “You’re chairman,” Christina repeated. “Benj!” She hugged him. “I’m so proud of you.”

  He let out the puff of air he had been holding onto, and he grinned. “I’ve never done anything like this before, Chrissie,” he confided. “I don’t really know where to start. But I told everybody your ideas. The walk-a-thon. Car washes. Bake sales. But mostly the chowder-thon. Everybody said it was the best idea they’d ever heard. Even Astrid and Megan thought it was the best idea they’d ever heard. And they nominated me chairman!”

  Vicki and Gretch snickered. Vick
i said, “They just couldn’t find a sucker to do it except you, Benjamin.”

  Christina backed up and jammed her shoe heel down toward the bare toes peeking out of Vicki’s sandals.

  “You missed,” said Vicki sweetly.

  Mrs. Shevvington caught up to them. “Why, Benjamin,” she said, “what are you doing in the middle school wing? You know we can’t have older, wilder boys around the younger children.”

  Vicki and Gretch giggled. “Older and wilder?” repeated Gretch scornfully, stroking her seal-smooth brown hair.

  Mrs. Shevvington laughed a civilized little laugh. “Of course, you’re right, girls. How silly of me. Benjamin may be older, but he’s too dull to be wild. He couldn’t corrupt a clam.”

  Threats filled Christina’s head: terrible things to say and do to Mrs. Shevvington and Vicki and Gretch. I hate them! she thought. They can flatten anybody. All they need is bad words and good timing.

  But Benjamin Jaye surprised her. He hardly heard Mrs. Shevvington. He certainly hadn’t heard Vicki and Gretch; those two girls meant nothing to him; never had; never would.

  Benj took Christina’s waist in his two big workman’s hands and lifted her into the air. He swung her in a circle the way he would have swung his baby sister Dolly.

  It was sheer athletic exuberance. Benjamin was overflowing with pride in himself: For the first time ever, he was stretching himself — doing more — reaching out — getting ready to pull something off: something that mattered.

  Christina laughed, sharing his joy.

  When he set her down she hugged him a second time and looked up into his face to admire his happiness. He looked down to share it with her and the world changed.

  The halls vanished.

  Mrs. Shevvington evaporated.

  Vicki and Gretch were silent wraiths.

  Jonah and Robbie were gone as if they had never been.

  Benjamin’s hands left her waist and found her hair. He separated the silver from the gold, the gold from the chocolate brown. He twined his fingers in her strange mass of tangled hair and tangled it more. He bent forward. His lips touched her forehead and seemed to hover there, as if all their lives had been waiting for this moment: waiting to be together.