After the Fire (13 page)

Alice didn't seem embarrassed. She didn't even seem to have noticed. Melissa shrugged away her confusion. She wasn't going to let a small thing like that wreck her birthday. She blew out the candles and everyone clapped and cheered.

“One more year and you'll have a teenager living in your house, Shar,” teased Bonnie. “Fun and games. Just you wait. I know. I've raised three.”

After they finished the cake, everyone helped blow up the seal, and Melissa, Cody and Alice took it down to the water.

Melissa discovered happily that twelve
wasn't
too old for a huge blow-up black seal, which Cody named Sammy. Alice and Melissa took turns trying to sit on its slippery back, laughing when it popped out from underneath them or they tumbled off sideways into the water.

“Me too! Me too!” screeched Cody. Alice lifted him up and he straddled the seal, his legs clamped tightly and his hands clutching Alice's waist.

Melissa grew bored with the seal after a while and collapsed on the air mattress. Alice seemed to have endless patience. She pushed Cody, who was perched on the seal, back and forth through the shallow water. “Keep going!” he shouted.

“You're going to have a friend for life!” Sharlene called out. “You'll have to come back every day or we'll have no peace.”

Later, when Melissa, Alice and Cody were sitting on their towels on the grass, slurping watermelon, Sharlene said, “You're wonderful with little kids, Alice. You must have some younger cousins or something. Or else do a lot of babysitting.”

Melissa thought instantly of the photograph with the little blond boy who reminded her of Cody. But Alice just said, “I like little kids, that's all.”

Bonnie and Ted left. Cody fell asleep in a lawn chair and Sharlene scooped him up and carried him to his bunk bed. Alice hung around for the afternoon and looked shocked when Sharlene said it was five o'clock.

“She seemed upset, didn't she?” mused Sharlene when Alice had hurried off. “Do you think there was something wrong?”

“I don't know,” said Melissa, frowning. She and Alice almost always left the island together, and it was usually around four o'clock. They had never stayed as late as five.

“Like Cinderella hurrying home from the ball,” said Sharlene thoughtfully.

In the evening, Melissa brought the
Nail Art
book outside, and she and Sharlene sat on lawn chairs and painted their fingernails. There were pages of ideas for designs: flowers, ducks, grapes, hearts, clouds and even a tea pot. It was hard to decide. In the end Melissa opted for a different-colored butterfly on each fingernail. Sharlene said she couldn't compete with an artist like Melissa and settled for purple and blue stripes.

“I like Alice a lot,” said Sharlene, sticking one hand out to admire the effect. “She was awfully good with Cody. He's already asking when she's coming back.”

Melissa didn't say anything. She concentrated on her blue butterfly's wings.

“Bonnie says there's some kind of mystery surrounding the family. Alice's older brother has done some jobs for them at the guest ranch and she said you can't get two words in a row out of him. And she's never seen the mother even though the family's been living here almost two years. That's a little odd.”

“Alice's mom is away a lot. She has an important job. And anyway, everyone isn't like you,” said Melissa. “Friends with the whole community. And besides, Alice says they're going to ask us over for a barbecue soon.”

“Mmmm,” said Sharlene. She screwed the lid on the bottle of purple nail polish and said, “Done.”

Melissa flipped pages in the book, careful not to smudge her butterflies. “Do you think Cody's toenails are big enough for this?” she asked, showing Sharlene a green snake with its head on a big toe and its long body crawling across the other toenails.

“Yup, just barely,” said Sharlene. “He'll love it.”

Seventeen

A
lice was waiting for Melissa at Dar Wynd the next day. She had been writing, but she put down her pen and jumped up when Melissa appeared. “Look what I've got,” she said. She picked up a round foil-covered package from the shelf. “Guess.”

“I don't know,” said Melissa.

“I'll give you a hint. It's something to do with food. And it was your idea.”

Melissa stared at her blankly and Alice said triumphantly, “It's bannock dough. I made it last night.”

She unwrapped the foil. Inside was a mound of soft white dough. Her hazel eyes flashed. “We're going to cook it,” she said. “We'll do it like you said, wrapped around a stick.”

It took a few seconds for Melissa to digest what Alice meant. “You mean on a fire?”

“How else?” said Alice. Her words were sharp but she was smiling.

Melissa's heart gave a jump. “Wait a minute,” she said. “You can't light a fire.”

“I know how,” said Alice, and Melissa thought she was deliberately pretending not to understand. “And I've got matches and paper.”

“But you can't. There's a ban on all campfires. Haven't you heard about the forest fire?” Melissa felt panic rise inside her. Alice looked like she was serious.

“That's miles away,” said Alice airily. “Who cares? We're not going to light a big fire. Just big enough to cook the bannock.”

“You're crazy,” said Melissa. “You could burn the whole island down.”

“Nothing's going to happen.”

Melissa searched frantically for arguments. “It's windy. You can't light a fire in this wind.”

There was a pause. Then Alice said coldly, “It's so hard to do stuff with you, Melissa.”

“That's not true,” said Melissa, stung.

Alice sighed heavily. “Well, I'm going to do it. I don't care if you help or not.”

Alice had left a bucket with a few pieces of newspaper and a box of matches in it at the bottom of the ladder. She retrieved the bucket, surveyed the clearing for a moment and then walked over to a place in the middle. “We'll build it away from the trees,” she said. “I'm not entirely stupid.”

“You're going to build it
here
?” said Melissa. “So far away from the water?”

Alice frowned. Then she said, “You're right. It would be better beside the lake. Come on. I'll bring this stuff and you bring the bannock.”

Melissa followed Alice along the trail. When they got to the canoes she would tell Alice she was leaving. “I
did
think of water, in case you're wondering,” said Alice over her shoulder. “That's what I brought the bucket for.”

“You could build it right in the middle of the rock,” said Melissa when they got to the flat rock. “That would be safest.”

“Stop worrying,” said Alice. “I don't want to mess up the rock for sunbathing. We'll put it here.” She kicked a patch of ground on the bank.

I should leave now, thought Melissa. But she didn't. She watched Alice pull up clumps of dry grass until she had a small circle of bare dirt. Then Alice started to tear the newspaper into strips, making a pile.

“You need rocks,” said Melissa.

Sharlene had told Melissa how she and her sister Eleanor had roasted hot dogs and marshmallows over outdoor fires. She had described how they had collected large rocks to make a protective circle and said they would do that if the fire ban ever lifted. Alice didn't seem to have any idea how to do this properly, and Melissa knew at that moment that she was going to stay. “You need to make a circle of rocks,” she said. “To keep the fire out of the grass.”

Alice hesitated, then said, “Okay, if it makes you happy.”

The rocks proved hard to find, but after about ten minutes of searching they had a small pile. “I think they should really be bigger,” said Melissa, unhappily, as they arranged them in a circle.

“It's good enough,” said Alice impatiently. “How many times do I have to tell you? We're just building a little fire.”

Melissa filled the bucket with water and set it beside the circle of rocks. Alice gathered up dry sticks from the ground. She made a small teepee of sticks over the shredded newspaper.

The newspaper caught instantly with only one match, and in a few seconds the sticks crackled and snapped.

Alice stood up. “We're going to need bigger sticks,” she said. “Those little ones are burning up too fast.”

Alice hunted for wood in the trees while Melissa guarded the tiny flames. By the time Alice was back, the fire was out.

“Why didn't you keep it going?” demanded Alice as she dumped an armful of thick branches on the ground.

“It was burning too fast,” said Melissa.

Alice frowned. “We'll need a stick that doesn't burn to wrap the bannock on. You can get that while I get some more small stuff to get this started again.”

Melissa gazed around uncertainly. There were a couple of big evergreen trees near the edge of the lake with bare branches sticking out of their trunks, but when she broke one off it was so dry it made a loud crack like a gunshot. She decided on the clump of bushy green willows where her canoe was tied. She slipped off her runners, waded out into the water and tried to break off a sturdy branch. It bent but didn't break and she had to twist it back and forth before it came free. It was a bit floppy, but Melissa couldn't think of anything else.

She scrambled back up on the bank. The fire was burning brightly again. “Don't you think that's enough wood?” she said as Alice fed more sticks into the blaze. The wind had picked up a little and the flames were being blown sideways.

“One more piece,” said Alice. “Then we'll let it die down and cook the bannock.”

She picked up a thick heavy branch covered with dry gray moss and laid it over the top of the fire. It caught instantly, shooting flames high above it. A blast of heat seared Melissa's cheeks.

“What are you doing?” she gasped. Even Alice looked frightened as the flames shot higher and higher, veering wildly to the side in the wind.

Melissa had a horrifying vision of the flames streaking up the trunks of the nearby trees into the leafy canopy above. She tried to grab the end of the branch that hadn't caught on fire yet and drag it off. But the heat was too intense and in a few seconds it was too late; the entire branch was engulfed in flame.

Melissa remembered Ted talking about the forest fire at her party the day before.
It jumped the river
, he had said.
In two places
. Melissa didn't know how a fire crossed water. When Ted was talking, she had imagined a fiery ball flying through the air.

How wide was the river? If fire could jump across a river, it could jump from this island to the mainland.

Melissa picked up the bucket and hurled the water on top of the soaring flames. There was a huge sizzling sound and a mass of steam.

“Hey, what are you doing? Quit that!” shouted Alice, but Melissa ignored her. She filled the bucket again and dumped it on the smoldering fire.

More steam. The rocks hissed and spat. Melissa didn't stop until she had dumped four buckets of water on the pile of blackened charred sticks. She took a big breath to calm her racing heart. Alice's face was white with fury. “You shouldn't have done that.”

“It was way too big,” said Melissa, trembling. “It was going to catch those trees on fire.” She bent down and stirred the sodden mass of black wood with a stick, reassuring herself that it was out.

“I had it under control.” Alice's words were icy. “You freaked because of your stupid kitchen catching on fire.”

Not kitchen, thought Melissa, suddenly feeling like she was going to throw up. Trailer. The whole trailer. “That had nothing to do with it,” she said, fighting back tears that pooled behind her eyelids. She stood up slowly on weak legs.

“Yeah, right. Well, you wrecked this. There's no point trying again.” Alice kicked fiercely at one of the blackened rocks. “I'm going back to Dar Wynd,” she said, sounding disgusted. “You can do what you want.”

“I'm going home,” said Melissa.

Melissa woke up suddenly, her heart racing. Her back was soaked with sweat. The fire dream was always the same. Flames sweeping up the curtains, Darren shouting, smoke everywhere.

Melissa lay still for a minute, waiting for the images to fade. She sometimes wondered if that was how it had really happened. There had been plastic blinds in the kitchen, and when they had gone back to the burnt-out trailer a few days later she had seen them, black and twisted and melted into odd shapes. The curtains had been in the living room. She didn't remember seeing them in flames like in the dream. The real fire was a blur, but the dream was so vivid.

Melissa pushed the indigo-light button on her watch and checked the time. 1:00 am. She picked up her flashlight, got out of bed and went in search of a drink. She poured a glass of water from the plastic water jug and then turned off her flashlight. She could see perfectly in the moonlight streaming through the big front window.

Melissa stood at the window and gazed out. Sharlene was sitting in a lawn chair at the top of the grassy slope. She looked so still that Melissa wondered if she were asleep. She hesitated, then carried her glass of water outside, the porch door clicking softly behind her.

Sharlene turned her head and said, “Hello, twelve-year-old.”

“Hi,” said Melissa. She slid into the lawn chair beside Sharlene and pulled her knees up to her chest. The sweat had dried on her back but her T-shirt felt clammy and there were goose bumps on her arms.

“Can't sleep?”

“No,” said Melissa. She stared hard at a package of cigarettes, still in their cellophane wrapper, and a silver lighter resting on the arm of Sharlene's chair. “Are you going to smoke?” she blurted.

“I thought I was when I brought them outside,” said Sharlene. “I was absolutely sure I was going to.” She smiled at Melissa. “But no, I'm not.”