Besides, there were problems more pressing than Caleb to occupy them now. Dr. Loew had moved out of the family house and into an apartment.
Oren sat in the corner of the fort, looking like he’d been hit with a Mack truck.
“Uh, want part of my candy bar?” Teddy asked him, breaking off a melting piece of chocolate.
As if on autopilot, Oren took the candy, put it into his mouth, and began to chew.
“Hey, Oren!” Benji said with exaggerated enthusiasm. “I say we rig up one of your remote-control cars and strap on some firecrackers and drive it around the block and set them off. We can hide in the bushes by the Schuylers’ and watch it all! Wouldn’t that be cool?”
Oren shrugged noncommittally, looking down at his chocolaty fingers.
And that was when Penny smelled the smoke, an acrid odor in the air.
“You guys smell that?” she asked, wrinkling her nose.
Benji stood up, stretching slightly, his head hitting the roof. “Yeah.”
“Where’s it coming from?” Penny asked, a bad feeling crawling up her spine.
“Maybe a barbecue,” Teddy suggested.
“Smells more like burning leaves,” Mac said with a knowing sniff.
“Who’d be burning leaves this time of year?” Oren asked. “My dad always burns leaves in the fall.” His voice trailed off, as if it suddenly occurred to him that his dad might not be around to burn any leaves this fall.
Black smoke drifted in through a window.
“What the—?” Mac asked.
The crackling of burning wood and dry twigs suddenly seemed loud, and close. The wind shifted abruptly, washing in a cloud of smoke that billowed in black waves.
“I think … “Teddy said shakily. “I think it’s a fire.”
Penny leaned to look out the window on the other side and felt her heart pound painfully.
“The fort’s on fire!”
The boys shoved Penny out of the way, looking down at the rising flames that flickered around the trees supporting the fort. The boards that they’d nailed on to serve as steps were burning brightly, the cheap, dry wood catching fire easily, like kindling.
“What do we do?” Teddy demanded fearfully.
Mac took charge. “Everyone on the roof. Penny, you go first.”
Penny didn’t argue, she just stepped out the door, grabbed a tree branch, and started to climb, Benji one breath behind her. As Penny nimbly scaled the tree, she saw that the woods surrounding the fort were ablaze. And then they were all on the roof, clutching tree limbs.
“Now what?” Penny asked. “We can’t stay up here.”
“We could jump,” Benji said.
“No way!” Oren said. “We’ll die if we jump.”
“We’ll slide down this tree,” Mac said, gripping a slender bark-encrusted tree that grew parallel to the trees supporting the fort. It was a young, green tree, and on fire, but not as badly as the other ones.
“How?” Benji asked. “We’ll burn off our hands.”
“I got it figured out. Everyone take off your shirts,” Mac ordered.
The boys quickly stripped their shirts over their heads, revealing tan bellies. After a moment, Penny did too, grateful that she was wearing an undershirt, even if it was a pink one with little yellow roses. Imagine her embarrassment if she’d actually been wearing that awful training bra! As it was, Benji cast a surreptitious glance at the undershirt.
“Follow me,” Mac declared, and, reaching out, wound his T-shirt around the tree and started to slip down the tree with the shirt, the fabric slowing his slide and blotting out the flames. He reached the bottom and waved. Benji and Oren were down in short order. Teddy looked tremulously at Penny.
“You go first,” she said.
He bit his lip. “But you’re a girl. I should go last.”
“Just go,” Penny ordered, starting to cough from the smoke.
“Hurry!” Benji shouted from the ground.
With a last look, Teddy slid down, and then, confident he was safe, Penny reached out for the tree, wrapped her T-shirt around it, and started the perilous trip down. She was halfway down when she heard the crack.
The next thing she knew, she was falling, tumbling through the air. She fell into a tangle of leaves and branches on the ground, her rear end slamming the dirt and her wrist bending awkwardly under the impact. The boys were around her in a heartbeat, urging her up, the flames close now.
“You okay?” Benji shouted through the smoke, an arm around her waist. “The tree broke!”
“No kidding,” she said, wincing.
For a moment the kids looked up at the fort, mouths open, watching all their hard work go up in flames. The wind blew and a wave of black smoke wafted over them, and when Penny’s eyes cleared, she saw Benji looking the other way.
“Oh no,” Benji whispered.
They turned and saw the fire roaring up the slope toward the houses.
“It’s heading for my house!” Mac shouted.
They tried to run around the fire toward the McHales’ house, but the smoke was suffocating and they couldn’t find a clear path. Coughing for air, their eyes stinging, they knew they’d never make it if they went that way.
“Turn around,” Mac called.
They doubled back, the flames behind them now, at their shirtless backs, heating their bare skin, the horrible crackle of igniting trees sharp in their ears. Mac led them down to the creek, and they scrambled as fast as they could over the dry rocky bed. Penny clambered after the boys up the bank by the Lark Hill bridge, and then started the trek up Lark Hill Road. She was tired, and her throat hurt from the smoke, and her wrist was throbbing.
They were halfway up the hill when the police car and fire engines went screaming past, and by the time they made it down the block, the engines were already parked in front of the McHales’ house. Huge firemen carried impossibly long hoses into the backyard. All the moms were huddled together on the sidewalk by the house, whispering and consoling Mrs. McHale, who was beside herself. When she saw Mac, she broke free of the women and ran to him.
“What were you doing in the woods?” she cried angrily, and then pulled him into her arms, hugging him hard.
He didn’t bother to deny it. “Lemme go,” he said.
Mrs. Albright rushed forward to grab Benji, her face tear-stained. “And you, young man, are in serious trouble. You are grounded forever!”
Penny, who was cradling her wrist, saw her mom hurry over to her, a worried expression on her face. “Are you all right?”
“I fell on my wrist,” Penny said apologetically, holding out her hand.
Her mother inspected the swollen joint. “We’ll have your father take a look at it.”
A big mustached fireman in a yellow jacket walked over to where Mrs. McHale stood sobbing. “Really, ma’am,” the fireman said in a husky voice. “Your house is fine. The fire never even reached the back fence. We have a team back there in the woods right now putting out the rest of it. It’s under control.”
“Thank heavens!” Mrs. McHale exclaimed.
Penny saw how the fireman looked them over, saw them through his eyes: a bunch of sooty, barechested kids who looked like they had been up to no good.
“You kids do this?” He pulled off his heavy hat and scratched his head. “No way,” Mac said.
“You think someone started it on purpose?” Penny asked.
“Sure looks that way.” “Man,” Benji said, almost to himself. “You boys ever smoke cigarettes back there?” the fireman asked.
“No,” Benji said, shooting Mac a warning glance. “Well, something started that fire. And I suspect it was of the two-legged variety,” the fireman said. “We found these.”
He held out a pack of blackened cigarettes. Teddy’s eyes widened at the sight. “You recognize these, son? These yours, maybe?” the fireman asked.
“Uh, no,” Teddy whispered. The fireman gave them all a long appraising look. “Well, if you think of anything,
you be sure to give us a holler. This was a real close call. If we hadn’t caught the fire as quickly as we did, it could’ve burned down the whole block.”
Mrs. McHale twisted her hands and then clutched the fireman’s arm. In a desperate voice she said, “It was Caleb Devlin.”
“Now, see here, Faith,” Officer Cox began, in a placating tone.
Before he could get another word out, Mrs. McHale shouted, “I tell you it was Caleb! He did it before. He burned those woods years ago!”
A soft murmur went through the crowd.
The fireman looked at Officer Cox, and then Mrs. McHale, and then back at Officer Cox again.
“Calm down, Faith. You’re getting yourself all worked up,” Officer Cox said, holding up his hands in a soothing manner. “You know how dry it’s been.”
Mrs. McHale shook her head, her voice tinged with hysteria. “You know what he did to that boy! He put him in a coma! What are you waiting for? For him to burn us all out of house and home?”
“Faith—”
She whirled around, wild-eyed, and screamed, her voice echoing clear down the block, “He’s going to kill someone!”
“It was a horror show,” Penny’s mother said to her father, describing the scene that had taken place that afternoon. “She just kept screaming, ‘It was Caleb! It was Caleb!’”
They were eating dinner. Chicken, mashed potatoes, and peas. Baby Sam had smeared what looked like an entire bowl of mashed potatoes down the front of his snuggly suit.
“So, I hear you kids were in the woods,” her father said in a deceptively calm voice.
Penny wanted to lie, but everyone knew that they had been in the woods. She had the sprained wrist to prove it.
“The fort—,” she began.
Her father cleared his throat. “I don’t want you kids to play down in the woods anymore.”
“How come?” Penny asked.
“Because I said so, because I’m the dad. Can’t you guys play on the street or in the yards?”
“It’s not the same.”
“Come on, now. Your mom doesn’t like the idea of you playing back in the woods.”
“So many things can happen back there. And what about the creek? I know that you’re swimming in the creek, despite what I told you,” her mother added, as if suddenly remembering all the times Penny and Teddy had come home with damp hair that Penny had explained away as being wet from sweat or a garden hose.
“We don’t swim in the creek!” Penny said quickly.
Teddy looked morosely at his plate, digging a tunnel under his mashed potatoes and hiding the peas in it.
“Teddy, eat your peas,” Mrs. Carson said.
“Look, tell you what,” Penny’s father cajoled her. “How about I build you guys a fort? Right here in your own backyard?”
Penny and Teddy looked at him dubiously.
“With a rope?” Teddy asked.
“Sure, why not?” Dr. Carson said easily. “And a fireman’s pole, too, if that’s what you want.”
Teddy brightened a little.
“So, we understand each other, right, kids? You guys will stay out of the woods?” Penny’s father said, like it was all settled.
They nodded, but beneath the table they tapped each other’s feet. Taps that said what parents didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them.
They saw the full extent of the damage the next morning. A swath of woods extending up toward the McHales’ had been burned, and the fort was a smoldering carcass.
“What a mess,” Mac said angrily, winging a burned piece of two-by-four at a tree. He was in a grim mood. It had taken incredible stealth just to get out of his house.
“All my comic books,” Benji said in a broken voice.
“Mine, too,” Mac spit out.
Benji took a deep breath. “At least the BB guns weren’t here.”
“Or the fireworks,” Oren added with relief.
Penny didn’t even want to think what would have happened if there had been fireworks in the fort when that fire was going.
Zachary came crashing through the woods. He didn’t have a sling on anymore, Penny noticed. Her own wrist felt much better. He stopped when he saw the burned fort, and his mouth dropped open.
“Man,” he said, looking shaken. “Caleb did this?”
“No kidding, Sherlock,” Mac said sarcastically.
“What are we gonna do?” Zachary asked, looking at them all.
“We?” Mac echoed.
Zachary looked flustered.
Penny whirled on Mac. “Leave him alone!”
Mac looked at the burned fort and shook his head in disgust. “Let’s get out of here. This place stinks,” he said bitterly.
“Yeah,” Teddy said, his face pale.
Penny knew that they believed her now. She knew it without even having to ask, by the look in their eyes. And something else. They were angry, really angry.
It was war.
They set off down the creek bed, away from the burned ruins of that part of the woods. As they walked along, one side of the bank grew higher and steeper until it was far above them.
There was a crackling noise in the distance, like a deer breaking a branch, and they all leaped at the sound, hearts pounding.
“What was that?” Zachary whispered.
They all ignored him.
“I bet he knew we were at the fort and tried to get us on purpose,” Penny said. “What did your mom mean, Mac, about him starting a fire in the woods years ago?”
“There was a fire, back past the skeet range, and Toby saw Caleb leaving the woods right after it started,” Mac said. “It was a long time ago.”
There was a soft noise, and Benji looked up.
“Oh, jeez,” Benji whispered under his breath. He turned to the other kids and held a finger to his lips, waving with the other hand and then pointing up. From high above them came the voices of two boys.
“Yo, Caleb. Check it out. Must’ve gotten burned in the fire,” a voice chortled. Penny recognized it immediately. It was that kid Doug Coles, who was always selling drugs under the Lark Hill bridge.
“Extra crispy,” Caleb said in a husky drawl. Then he laughed.
Penny held her body flat to the cliff wall on the steep side of the creek, the smell of cigarette smoke drifting down to her. When she looked up, she saw the broad stretch of Caleb’s back, the hard outline of his thighs, encased in filthy old jeans, the muscled arms visible beneath the black T-shirt. His dark hair was a little too long, so that it curled at the nape of his neck, and a part of her wanted to reach out and touch it, just to see what it felt like.
“Let me have it,” Doug said.
Something came flying over the edge, and to her horror, Penny recognized it at once. A charred turtle shell, the soft turtle part burned away. Penny gasped audibly, watching the turtle shell fall.
“You hear something?” Doug asked.
“Nah,” Caleb said. “Let’s go.” And then they walked away, their voices fading in the distance.
The kids huddled around the black shell. Teddy’s eyes welled with tears.
“Ahh, man,” Mac said glumly.
It was Tom Ten.
“It’s okay, Teddy,” Penny said half-heartedly, not even believing her own words.
In a dull voice Teddy repeated Caleb’s cruel words—“Extra crispy”—and then started to cry.
CHAPTER 9
What else do we need?” Teddy asked as they dug around the garage for spare tools. He waved a rusty hammer, orangy-brown on the edges. “There’s no way Dad’s going to miss this one.”
“We could really use his good screwdriver, but he would definitely miss that,” Penny said, pocketing a wrench.
“How about this?” Teddy asked, holding a short, rusty saw.
“Sure.” Pennv hefted her backpack, weighted down now with tools. “Let’s go.”
They stepped out of the garage and a wave of heat hit them, thick and suffocating as an old quilt. Penny looked across the
street and wondered if Amy was swimming at the public pool with her new, older friends.
Penny and Teddy walked out of the backyard and right into the woods, something they wouldn’t have dared to do if their mother had been home. But she had left to go to the grocery store after breakfast, and wouldn’t be back for a while.
“Have you seen Mr. Cat?” Mrs. Carson had asked curiously that morning, eyeing his food bowl.
Penny had hesitated. Surely her mother would believe her? But then she considered that she had seen Mr. Cat while she was down at the creek, somewhere she was not supposed to be—and after the fire, she knew that admitting she’d been in the creek was a bad idea.
“Uh, no,” Penny had said.
The woods were cool after the bright heat of the sun. After the scare yesterday with Caleb and Doug, Penny and the boys had unanimously decided to rebuild their fort much deeper in the woods, far from Caleb’s old stomping grounds. Mac, with his infinite resources, had located a new source for lumber, a building site a few blocks from Wren Circle, and the boys were already there, picking up the wood. Well, actually they were stealing it, but Penny didn’t like to think about that.
They reached the location of the new fort, a high stretch along the creek, far from the burned part of the woods. Penny dropped her backpack and started to pull out the tools.
“Darn,” Penny said. “I forgot to bring nails.”
“I’ll go back and get them,” Teddy offered.
“No, you stay here. The guys’ll be here any minute and you can help them. Don’t go wandering off, okay?” she said.
“I won’t, Mom,” he said.
She trotted off through the woods at a jog, wending her way back up to their house. The mini van was still missing from the driveway, so she went into the garage. There were several boxes of nails, and she stole a few nails from each of them, filling the pockets of her shorts until they bulged. Then she headed back through the dark, cool woods.
Penny was out of breath when she finally reached the clearing. And Teddy was nowhere in sight.
“Teddy?” she called, a frisson of fear running up her spine.
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