The Fire (8 page)

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 Safety. 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. Vicki 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.

Benj said, “The sophomore dance is Friday night.” His voice was husky and muffled.

Christina thought, He has never asked anybody to go to a dance. He has never even thought of asking anybody to go to a dance.

“Will you go with me?” said Benj.

“C
HRISTINA,” BREATHED KATY, AWESTRUCK
and proud to be Christina’s friend. Her plump cheeks grew even fatter with her excited smile. “You’re going to the
sophomore
dance? With Benjamin Jaye? The one whose muscles split open the sleeves of his T-shirts?”

Christina paraded in front of the seventh-grade girls. I am the only one, she thought, going to a high school dance. Even Vicki and Gretch are nobodies compared to me. Christina’s head sang songs of triumph. Her feet danced rhythms of conquering.

“He’s just a smelly old lobsterman,” said Vicki contemptuously. “Who would want to go anywhere with Old Benj?”

“Besides,” said Gretch, giggling, “it’s not a real date. Christina’s practically his sister. Everybody’s related to everybody on that silly island. A
real
date would be Benjamin asking a
real
person. Somebody from the mainland.”

“But who from the mainland would go anywhere with that dim old fisherman?” snickered Vicki.

“Here’s what their conversation will be,” said Gretch. “Christina will babble about fires and islands. Benj will grunt. Christina will babble about safety posters and woodworking class. Benj will grunt.” Gretch and Vicki grunted at each other, laughing hysterically.

“Don’t hit them,” said Jonah in an undertone. “Chrissie, get a grip on yourself. Mrs. Shevvington is watching. Don’t hit Vicki or Gretch.”

“Hit them?” said Christina gaily. “I hardly even hear them. They’re just little seventh-graders. I’m the one going to a high school dance.” She began dancing with Jonah, gripping his hand, swinging him back, yanking herself in, taking up the entire hall in her exuberance.

Jonah let her dance him like a puppet. Then he said hesitantly, “But they’re right, aren’t they? You are just going as island friends, aren’t you?”

Christina could feel the separate colors of her hair dazzling in the sun’s rays. She felt herself giving off heat — sparkling from behind her eyes. She danced away from Jonah, off by herself, wearing the gown of her golden hair. I am on fire, she thought. I might even decide to fall in love.

The seventh-graders stared after her. The girls were half envious and half afraid. They could not imagine going anywhere with a real live sixteen-year-old boy.

Vicki whispered, “You know what I bet?”

“What?” said the seventh-grade girls. They wondered how did Christina suddenly get so much older than they were? What did Christina have to offer that they did not?

“I bet Christina’s going to be a wharf rat.”

“No, she won’t,” said Jonah.

“You always defend her,” said Gretch. “Your opinion doesn’t count.”

Jonah wanted to run after Christina and warn her, but he didn’t want to be teased by Vicki and Gretch. He hated being teased. Hated the way Vicki and Gretch could flick words around like the tip of a whip.

Nor could he stay among these girls any longer. Like some great ugly hen, Mrs. Shevvington was spreading her filthy wings over her brood. The girls were clucking like her; scratching in the dirt like her. Jonah felt as if any moment the girls would start pecking Christina. They wanted to say vicious things; he could feel their eagerness to repeat anything Mrs. Shevvington said.

“What is a wharf rat, anyway?” asked Katy.

“A girl,” said Mrs. Shevvington, “who works in factories and has babies before she’s sixteen.”

Jonah fled.