Double-Crossed

by Lin Oliver

“Over here, girls,” Tyler called from the front row. “Look into the lens.”

  He didn’t have to tell them twice, that’s for sure. They were all over it, assuming their most extreme model poses and casting über-flirty glances at the camera. Jillian was the worst, raising her arms over her head and sticking her chest out like some Kim Kardashian wannabe.

  Oh, wait. Jillian is a Kim Kardashian wannabe.

  The only two sane-looking ones in the group were Governor Corday and Lily, who both smiled naturally at Tyler and didn’t go completely nutso with the posing. Meanwhile, Tom Ballard was back at the microphone, thanking the governor for showing up and reminding people that if they cared about arts in the schools, they should vote for him in the next election.

  Suddenly, the wail of sirens filled the air. One minute they weren’t there, the next minute all you could hear was sirens, lots of them, approaching the club. Then a voice rang out in the crowd. It was Officer Beswick, speaking into a handheld megaphone from his position at the gate.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, stay calm! We have the situation under control!”

  If you want people to panic, all you have to do is tell them to stay calm. Everyone gasped and looked around desperately to see what was the matter. Two officers bolted out of the house and up to the stage, surrounding the governor like she was in immediate danger.

  What was going on? I looked around frantically, first out at the black ocean, then back at the shore. That was when I saw them. Flames. Huge, bright orange flames billowing out of Mrs. Ivanov’s house.

  “Fire!” someone yelled.

  The crowd moved like a mob, surging toward the gate in a giant human wave.

  “That old wooden house will burn like a matchstick!” I heard Dr. Mandel say.

  “Remain calm,” Officer Beswick repeated. “Clear the area. Move slowly away from the buildings.”

  “It’s going to spread to the club,” a panicky woman shouted.

  The wind whipped around us, blowing red-hot embers into the night air.

  “Santa Ana winds,” Noah Mandel told his father. “Compressed air creates rising temperatures. Fire conditions.”

  “Sammie! Charlie!” It was my dad, running from the house to find us, followed by Ryan. “Come with me. We have to evacuate. It’s not safe in the house.”

  “Mr. Diamond, have you seen Oscar and Eddie?” Alicia asked him, her voice full of worry.

  “The police are moving everyone out to the parking lot,” he answered. “That’s probably where they are.”

  “Where’s GoGo?” I hollered. The last I had seen her was right after the performance, when she had returned to the kitchen to bring out another platter of brownies.

  My dad’s eyes scanned the horizon, looking for GoGo’s distinctive gray hair, which she always puts in a knot on top of her head. Nothing. I stayed behind to look for her.

  “GoGo!” I shouted at the top of my lungs. I squinted through the smoky air, trying to see into our kitchen window. She wasn’t there.

  “Where could she be?” Charlie cried, grabbing me by the arm.

  Suddenly, it dawned on me. I knew where she was! Not that I had seen her, but I know my grandmother, and I figured out exactly what she would do in this situation. I broke loose from my dad and bolted across the deck toward Mrs. Ivanov’s house. As I neared the flames, I could feel their heat on my face.

  “Stay away, young lady,” Officer Beswick called into his megaphone. “The firefighters will be here any second. Let them handle this.”

  The flames were concentrated in the front of the house, leaping out from the living room that faced the sandy beach. It was the room where Mrs. Ivanov had been sitting earlier that day when I brought her the meal from GoGo. She had been so happy and peaceful, resting in her white wicker rocking chair and looking through an old photo album. And now, that peaceful room was being consumed by flames!

  I approached the house cautiously after Officer Beswick left to meet the firefighters, but was forced back when one of her blue-and-white-striped deck umbrellas caught on fire, exploding like a Roman candle on the Fourth of July.

  “Mrs. Ivanov,” I shouted above the roar of the fire. “Are you in there?”

  “We’re over here, Sammie.”

  It was GoGo’s voice, coming from the side of the house. She was at the side door, very slowly making her way out. Holding on to her arm for dear life was Mrs. Ivanov, looking frail and frightened in her pink bathrobe.

  “GoGo, you have to get out of there!” I screamed.

  “The poor dear can’t go any faster!” she yelled back.

  Suddenly, I felt a strong, familiar arm push me aside.

  “Clear the way, Sam-I-Am,” Ryan said, swooping in from behind me. “I’ve got speed and height on my side.”

  He raced past me and in two seconds flat arrived at the side door. In one swift movement, he scooped Mrs. Ivanov up into his giant arms.

  “I have you,” he said to her, with no trace of his usual goofiness. “Hang on tight.”

  “But my photographs are inside,” she cried. “My whole life.”

  “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Ivanov. We can’t go back in there. It’s too dangerous. GoGo, are you okay?”

  “Take care of Mrs. Ivanov,” she told him. “I’ll follow right behind you!”

  Ryan ran across the deck holding poor Mrs. Ivanov in his arms, while I raced over and grabbed GoGo by the hand. My dad was right on my heels and arrived just in time to scoop her into his arms. All of us ran away from the burning building, and were lucky enough to arrive in the safety of the parking lot unharmed. Charlie burst into tears when she saw that we were all okay.

  “Is anyone else in that house?” the governor asked.

  “I don’t think so,” I answered. “Mrs. Ivanov lives all alone.”

  Alicia came charging up to me, her voice desperate.

  “I found Eddie. He was on the beach with the other boys. But I didn’t see Oscar.”

  Two fire trucks arrived on the scene and pulled into the parking lot alongside us. In a matter of seconds, a swarm of firefighters descended from the trucks. There was a fire chief who hollered commands, and they got right to work, connecting their giant hoses to the pumper truck. Working in teams, they moved closer and closer to Mrs. Ivanov’s house, pointing the streams of water directly at the flames. A few of them who weren’t holding hoses crept up to the wooden house. Staying low to the ground, they got close enough to knock down the front door with axes. Flames shot out. The firefighters holding the hoses took aim and immediately bombarded them. We heard a loud sizzling sound and white smoke billowed from the doorway.

  Over in the parking lot, the four police officers had formed a human chain to keep us away from the fire. They were encouraging people to get in their cars and leave. Most left, but some stayed. Dr. Mandel said he wanted to stay in case anyone needed emergency medical treatment.

  Meanwhile, Alicia was maneuvering through the crowd, calling Oscar’s name.

  “You looking for the dude in the Human Torch sweatshirt?” Noah asked when she bumped into him.

  “Yes, have you seen him?”

  “Yeah, he was in that Ferrari. The one parked in front of the club.”

  Alicia came and got me and we ran to Tyler’s car. Even in the darkness, I could see Oscar huddled inside, looking small and frightened. I pulled on the door handle, but it was locked, so I pounded on the window.

  “Oscar, open up!”

  He shook his head.

  “Oscar, right now,” Alicia yelled. “You can’t stay in there.”

  He shook his head again.

  “Oscar, there’s a huge fire. What if it spreads? It’s dangerous in there.”

  Oscar looked from Alicia to me. Slowly, he unlocked the car door and we pulled it open. I could see that there were tears rolling down his face.

  “What are you doing in there?” Alicia demanded.

  “I was just looking inside Tyler’s Batmobile,” he said. “He told me I could.”<
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  “Oscar, why are you crying?” Alicia asked him. “Tell us.”

  “The policeman, the mean one with the flashlight, he saw me inside here,” he said, trying to stifle his sobs.

  “That must be Officer Porter,” I said.

  “I don’t know his name, but he yelled at me. He thought I was stealing the car. He pounded on the window, so I locked myself in.”

  “You should have just gotten out and explained everything to him,” Alicia said.

  “I was going to. Then suddenly, all the trucks and sirens came. The policeman, he ran away with them. But he said he’d be back. I was afraid of him. I was afraid of the fire. I didn’t know what to do. So I stayed locked inside.”

  “You don’t have to be afraid anymore, Oscar,” I said to him. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “But that policeman, he thinks I did.”

  “He just didn’t understand that you had Tyler’s permission to look in his car,” I said. “Come out. Come be with us. It’s okay. Trust me, it’s okay.”

  He got out of the car slowly, and I took him by the hand. I could feel that he was trembling all over. Alicia and I led him over to the deck. We sat him down at one of the redwood picnic tables. Alicia stayed with him while I went to find the governor, who was speaking with the fire chief while a few remaining guests were observing the firefighters. There were no more orange flames shooting from Mrs. Ivanov’s house. Instead, clouds of white smoke wafted out of the water-soaked structure.

  “It looks like we have it under control, ma’am,” the fire chief said to Governor Corday.

  “No danger of it spreading?” she asked.

  “Not anymore. We were lucky, though. Lucky it didn’t spread. Lucky the structure didn’t collapse.”

  “So I can go home now?” Mrs. Ivanov asked. Ryan had put her gently in one of our beach chairs where she sat stunned, watching the fire.

  Governor Corday pulled up a chair and sat down next to her. She spoke very softly to her.

  “Mrs. Ivanov, you’re not going to be able to go home for quite a while,” she said. “The fire has seriously damaged a good part of your house.”

  “But my photographs, they are all right, yes?” Mrs. Ivanov was practically pleading. “I can’t lose my photographs.”

  “I’m sure the firefighters will save everything they can,” the governor reassured her.

  “I love the one from Swan Lake,” Mrs. Ivanov said with a faraway smile. “I danced with Rudolf Nureyev, you know. It was 1964 in Paris. He was such a handsome boy. And a beautiful prince.”

  The governor glanced at the fire chief.

  “Is there any chance?” she whispered.

  He shook his head. “I’m sorry. Everything in there is either burned or water-damaged.”

  “Oh no,” Mrs. Ivanov said. “Oh no, oh no, oh no!”

  And then she put her head in her small, delicate hands and wept.

  “We’ll find out what happened here,” Governor Corday said, putting her arm around Mrs. Ivanov’s thin shoulders. “I promise you that.”

  “Governor Corday,” her chief aide said. He was holding two cell phones, one to each ear. “We have to go. You have two more appearances tonight.”

  “Cancel them, Chris,” she said. Then turning to the fire chief, she asked, “Do you have any idea what started this fire? Was it the Santa Ana winds?”

  “The winds didn’t help,” the chief answered. “But they didn’t cause the fire. People did.”

  “People? What people?”

  “Most likely kids. My men tell me they found a fresh bonfire on the beach in front of Mrs. Ivanov’s house. In this wind, one spark from a bonfire can fly off, land on an old wood structure like this, and poof … it goes up in flames. Just like what happened here.”

  “But bonfires are illegal on this beach,” the governor reminded him.

  “Sure. Go tell that to the kids.”

  A bonfire! Immediately, I suspected Jared and Sean and the General. I had seen the two of them out on the beach earlier. And when we were doing our performance, they were nowhere to be seen. Probably making the bonfire they always talked about. I didn’t say anything, though. First of all, I didn’t have any evidence, just a suspicion. And second of all, I knew the truth would reveal itself.

  “Do you have any suspects?” Governor Corday asked the chief.

  “Yes, ma’am, we certainly do.”

  There, like I just said. The truth would reveal itself. Those boys would pay the price for breaking the rules.

  “Officer Porter reported a young Latino kid who was acting suspiciously,” the fire chief said. “He was hiding in a locked car and wouldn’t come out. Apparently, he was wearing a sweatshirt with some kind of fire symbol on it.”

  Oscar? Was he talking about Oscar?

  “Some kids are like that,” he went on. “Obsessed with fire. Can’t get enough of it. We’re going to talk to him now.”

  I glanced over at the redwood table and saw Oscar sitting with Alicia. He looked so scared. Officers Beswick and Porter were approaching him, with Porter shining his flashlight right into Oscar’s face.

  Oh no, I thought. Oh no, oh no, oh no!

  The Accusation

  Chapter 12

  “He didn’t do it,” I said to Governor Corday, planting my feet firmly in front of her. “I know he didn’t.”

  From where I was standing, I could see Officer Porter questioning Oscar. I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but I saw that Oscar wasn’t answering. He just kept his head down and stared at the wooden planks on the deck. Alicia was sitting next to him with her arm around his shoulders. She was crying.

  “Sammie, you can’t say that for certain,” Governor Corday said. “The fire chief said your friend was acting suspiciously.”

  “But, Governor, I am a Truth Teller. Even you said how brave I was to tell the truth, no matter how painful. I wouldn’t lie about this.”

  “Listen to me, Sammie. Sometimes when we care about people, we want to believe the best about them. I understand that you want to believe your friend is innocent. But you have to let the officers do their work.”

  “Well, I’m going to help Oscar. He doesn’t even know how to answer their questions.”

  “I’ll come with you,” she offered. “I want to get to the bottom of this, too. Let’s just make sure that Mrs. Ivanov is settled first.”

  An ambulance had come to take Mrs. Ivanov to the hospital to be checked. She was protesting, saying that she was fine and wanted to stay in her house. It was only when GoGo agreed to ride in the ambulance with her that Mrs. Ivanov agreed to go. Governor Corday was so incredibly kind to Mrs. Ivanov. She even waited by the ambulance until she was settled on the gurney and safely inside.

  “Please let me know how she is,” the governor said to GoGo. “This must be heartbreaking for her.”

  Her aide handed GoGo a card with phone numbers on it. “You can reach us on the private line,” he said.

  “Sammie, you take care of Oscar,” GoGo called out to me. “Get your father to help.”

  The ambulance driver closed the double doors, and the last thing I saw as it pulled away was GoGo reaching out to take Mrs. Ivanov’s hand.

  Governor Corday kept her promise. She told her aide to hold all her calls, that she had urgent business she had to attend to. Together we went to the table where Oscar and Alicia were sitting. By then, the fire chief had joined Officer Beswick and Officer Porter. Councilman Ballard was there, too, with Spencer at his side. Dr. Mandel was sitting quietly, stroking his gray beard, his bushy eyebrows furrowed. Amidst all those important people, poor little Oscar looked frightened and alone.

  For the first time since the fire broke out, I took a real look around. Mrs. Ivanov’s house was damaged, but not as badly as I had thought. The front room and the deck were entirely scorched, but the back of the house seemed like it had been saved. Nearby, the firefighters were cleaning up the mess from the fire, picking up debris and carrying th
eir hoses and equipment to the truck. Sitting at a table close to the beach, just a little distance from us, were Lauren and Charlie and the other girls. All their smiles had disappeared. They looked worried and jittery. I noticed that Jared, Sean, and the General had joined them. The only kids missing were Lily and Eddie. They were nowhere to be seen.

  I had a desperate urge to march right over to Jared, Sean, and the General and accuse them of setting the bonfire. I wanted to make them defend themselves, to stand up for what I believed they had done. But they weren’t the ones being encircled by a group of adults asking tough questions. Oscar was. And he needed my help. I had to pay attention to the questioning that was going on, so I turned away from them and focused my full attention on Governor Corday.

  “What have you learned, gentlemen?” she asked as she took a seat at the redwood table.

  “Not much,” Officer Porter said. “The suspect isn’t talking.”

  “He’s not a suspect,” I blurted out, trying to sound reasonable but knowing that I was barking like an angry little dog. “His name is Oscar Bermudez and he’s here to get his leg operated on. Isn’t that right, Dr. Mandel?”

  “That’s correct,” he answered quietly. There was pain in his voice. “I hope we can still do that.”

  “We all feel for this young man and his physical difficulties,” Mr. Ballard said. “But the issue here is whether or not he started the bonfire. The police have asked him, but he has refused to answer.”

  “That’s because he’s afraid of you,” I said. “Of all of you.”

  “If he’s innocent, he has nothing to be afraid of,” Officer Beswick pointed out. Easy for him to say. He wasn’t a thirteen-year-old kid from a country two thousand miles away with a bunch of powerful grown-ups breathing down his neck.

  “Sammie, can I use your phone?” Alicia said. “I have to call my father. He should be here.”

  “That will take too long, Alicia. Go find my dad. He’ll help.”

  She got up to look for my dad. Through the clubhouse window, I could see that he was on the phone. Ryan was next to him, writing something down on a yellow pad. I assumed they were trying to get the number of Oscar and Eddie’s parents in El Salvador. Ryan’s under the mistaken impression that he is actually good at speaking Spanish. My dad looked totally frustrated. I tried to get my dad’s attention, but he didn’t look up, just kept pacing back and forth with the phone to his ear. We needed him here, to defend Oscar, to tell Officer Porter to give Oscar a chance to speak.