by Patty Blount
I move a pawn ahead two spaces and gave him back the tablet. “We learned how to put on all the clothes. They’re called—”
“Turnout gear. I know.”
Of course he did. I rolled my eyes. “Sorry.” It was my turn again, so I moved a knight. “He didn’t teach much, just kind of demonstrated, but I was able to pick it up.”
“Go to YouTube, watch videos. And then read your text.”
“Done. I watched a dozen videos last night when I got home and—”
A throat cleared. I looked up and found Amanda Jamison standing next to me. My throat closed up. Under the table, Alex nudged my foot, and I jerked. “Oh, um, hey.”
“Hey.” She jerked her chin at me, then turned to Alex. “Hi, Alex.”
Wait, what? “You know each other?”
She shrugged. “Same English class.”
Oh.
Amanda turned back to me. “So, listen, Logan. The squad sits over there.” She jerked a thumb over her shoulder where Gage, Max, Bear, and Kevin sat. Bear waved. I waved back, wondering what the hell she expected me to do with this information.
Her hair was down today, long and smooth, tucked behind her ears. She wore no earrings. Every girl in the school had pierced ears—some wore multiple rings. She wore a pair of well-worn jeans, sneakers, and a hoodie.
So why did my heart speed up?
“Logan?”
“Uh, sorry. What?”
“I said we have a lot of work to do to get you caught up.”
“We?”
“All of us. The whole squad’s gonna help you. Last night…well, it was kind of a train wreck.”
“Caught that, huh?”
Her lip twitched, but she didn’t smile. I shifted and looked away.
“Look, we’re not doing this for you,” she snapped. “Squad’s important. Whatever’s going on between you and your dad stays home. And that means you need to step up. You have a lot to learn in a short time. Meet me after school at the track.”
“After—Alex and I were—”
“After school. Alex can come too if he wants,” she called out over her shoulder as she strode back to the squad table.
“Okay, then.” Alex angled his head. “I guess I won’t see you later.” He gathered his trash and his books and stood up.
“Oh, hey, I’m sorry about this.”
“No, no, it’s okay. This is important. You need to go.”
I stood too. “Thanks, man. Really.”
Alex left through the side door. I made my way to the squad table.
“Logan! Nice of you to join us.”
Join them? I must have missed that invitation. “So what are we doing after school?”
“Working out.”
Bear groaned, and I just blinked at Gage. “Sorry, what?”
“Logan, firefighting is physical, and no offense, but you look like a good gust of wind might knock you down, so we’re gonna help you get ripped.”
“Guys, I can handle it.”
Amanda snorted. “We’ll see.”
The bell rang, and there was no time to argue.
The afternoon’s classes went by way too fast, and by 2:45, I was behind the school, at the football field, where the lacrosse team was already practicing. A shrill whistle cut the air, and I found Max standing at the top of the bleachers. Gage and Kevin were there too.
But not Amanda.
I dropped my bag on one of the benches and jogged up the aisle to meet the guys at the top. Max and Gage exchanged a look.
“Not bad, Peanut,” Max said, scanning me up and down.
I froze in place. “Don’t call me that.”
“Cool it, Max.” Gage stepped in front of Max and put his hands on his hips. Max was incredibly well-built. It was steroids, I was sure of it. But then again, Gage was kind of broad too. “How much do you think bunker gear weighs?” he asked.
I went through the list—boots, pants, coat, helmet, tank. “About fifty pounds.”
“You’re right. Now, add in the weight of tools like a hose or a Halligan bar and an ax, and we’re talking about seventy-five pounds, give or take. You need to be able to carry that much weight without panting, or you’ll suck down an oxygen tank before you make it to the fire.”
Made sense. “Okay. What do you want me to do?”
“Meet us out here every day. We’re gonna run the bleachers, and every day, you’re gonna add more weight until you can do it with seventy-five pounds.”
Jesus H. Kristofferson, they were going to kill me.
Max stood at the top of the aisle. “Ready?”
Not even a little bit. I followed behind him at an easy jog, down the steps and back up. On the second lap, I noticed Gage wasn’t running. And where was the rest of the squad? Shouldn’t they all be conditioning?
“Hold up.” Gage put up a hand to stop us on the third circuit. “How do your lungs feel, Reece?”
“Okay…I guess.”
“Tell me your address.”
“One twen…twenty-two…Heatherwood Lane.” I was gasping for air, pressure building around my lungs.
“You’re breathing too deeply. You need to control that,” Amanda said. I whipped around and found her on the bleachers behind me. “Breathe in. Hold it for three…two…one. Let go.”
I followed her instructions and felt the pressure in my chest fade.
“Again,” she ordered.
I jogged down the steps, concentrating on controlling my breathing as I did. I did two more circuits, and my thighs were on fire.
“How many?” she asked Gage.
“Six.”
“Okay, that’s good for today. Tomorrow, add five pounds. Rope next.”
Oh God. I thought good for today meant done for the day. When she passed me on the steps and waved a hand, indicating I should follow her, I lost all hope. Amanda led me around the bleachers to a grassy section underneath them and picked up the end of a thick coil of rope tied to a cinder block.
“Take this. Run relay-style from here to there.” She pointed to the gate that led to the field. “Turn around, repeat, but reverse arms.”
I took the rope and took a step.
“No. Stop.” She adjusted the rope so that the length of it—and its weight—was over my shoulder. “Lean down. Grip it tight. Now go.”
I ran, tugging the weighted rope behind me. When I reached the gate, I turned, switched shoulders, and ran back.
“Control your breathing.”
Oh Christ. I did it again, holding my breath for a few seconds before letting it out. It definitely helped. But it was a lot to think about.
“Okay, stop.”
With pleasure. I dropped the rope, leaned over my knees, and wished desperately for a bottle of water to materialize in my hand, but the only things there were rope burns. “What next?” I managed to croak out.
Amanda tucked her hair behind her ears. I didn’t know why, but it made my fingers itch. She didn’t answer me. Instead, she just angled her head and looked me up and down the way Gage had a little while ago. “You got any weights at home?”
I thought about Matt’s stuff. He had gym equipment in the basement. A bench and a set of barbells. I think there were even some dumbbells still in his room. “Yeah. Why?”
“Tomorrow, get up early and start lifting. You’ve got broad shoulders, but you need to build the muscles here and here,” she said with a hand to my back and my arms. “Do a set of ten with light weight. Increase the reps the next day. Next week, go heavier. Got it?”
“Sure. What else?”
“Run the bleachers every day. Weights in the morning, running in the afternoon. Now, head over to the library. Bear’s waiting for you.”
I held back the groan and just nodded. I went back inside the gate and grabbed my bag
from the low bleacher, but when I got back outside, Amanda was gone.
***
The next day, I woke up an hour early and did presses, rows, and curls with Matt’s barbells. In the afternoon, I ran the bleachers.
I couldn’t raise my hand without coming dangerously close to sobbing.
“You have to give your muscles time to heal,” Alex reminded me on Friday as we walked out of the school’s main entrance.
I rolled my eyes. My drill sergeants didn’t believe in time off. I’d already gotten texts from Max about doing more step runs after school and from Bear about reading another topic in the textbook and even from Ty about showing me what firefighter’s irons were. “Yeah, well, time is apparently something I don’t have a lot of. Squad has this field trip coming up. Once a month, they go out to Yaphank where there’s a huge training facility, and they physically practice everything they’ve been studying in the classroom.”
“When is the next one?”
“End of the month.”
Alex shook his head. “Reece, you should sit this session out and do next month’s.”
No.
I shouldn’t.
Because that would show my dad I couldn’t do the job. The whole point of this exercise was to show him he’d been wrong about me.
Beside me, Alex sighed.“But you’re not going to do that, are you?”
“Alex, I can’t. The whole squad is trying to help me. I can’t let them down.”
He put up his hand when we reached the bus stop. “Okay. Here.” He opened his messenger bag and took out a bottle of water and a banana. “Eat this now. Don’t stretch, but do warm-ups before you start running up the steps.”
“Wait, don’t stretch?”
“No. The reason your muscles hurt is because they’re tearing. Stretching will tear them more and, in your case, will likely cause more injury than it prevents.”
Okay, then. No stretching. “Thanks, Doc.” I waved the banana at him and headed for the field.
“Oh, and apply ice later!” he called out before the doors slid closed.
As soon as the bus pulled away, I remembered we were supposed to see a movie tonight. With a curse, I pulled out my phone and texted Alex my apologies for forgetting.
He immediately replied.
I knew you forgot. Your failure to mention our plans indicated that. The pain that you’re in is making it difficult for you to concentrate. We can adjust and try tomorrow.
With a laugh, I texted back my thanks and headed to the field, where Max was already stretching. “Hey, Logan. You ready?”
I ate my banana, swallowed some water, and nodded. “Let’s do it.”
I followed behind him, my quadriceps burning and trembling with every step.
“Come on, Logan, kick it up!”
I struggled to control my breathing, but it wasn’t working. I was sucking air, and my legs quit. I fell, sprawled face-first, and waited for death.
“Whoa, what happened?” Max ran back down the stairs and turned me over. He wasn’t even winded. I’d have cursed him if I could…you know…actually talk.
“Jesus, Logan,” Amanda’s voice said from somewhere outside my visual field. It hurt even to roll my eyes.
Two hands grasped mine and abruptly pulled me up to a sitting position. The world reeled for a second, then righted itself. “Gah,” I might have said. It was all a blur.
Amanda peered at me and shook her head in disgust. “Guess you’re cooked for the day.” She tossed me my water bottle. It sailed right past my head and landed with a dull plunk somewhere to my right. Amanda shut her eyes, and Max snorted.
“Logan, have you ever done anything physical without a game controller in your hands?” Max laughed.
Huh. I wondered if walking Tucker counted. “You know…it’s all about…finger strength,” I said between pants.
“Logan, think you can pull the heavy rope?” Amanda asked.
Oh God. I wasn’t sure my arms were still attached. I just sat there, panting. Amanda retrieved my water bottle—it had rolled down a few steps—and popped the cap. I managed to get my arm high enough to swallow some.
“We’ll forget the heavy rope for today.” She pulled out her cell phone, an ancient flip, and tapped out a text message. “Go meet Bear. He’s gonna quiz you on fire extinguisher types.”
There were types?
I climbed slowly to my feet and managed to make it down to ground level without passing out. Max and Amanda laughed, and my face burned, but I didn’t look back. I made it to the library, muttered a prayer of thanks that Bear chose a table on the main floor, and slowly shuffled over.
“Hey, Bear.” I fell into the chair opposite his.
“Hey, Reece. You okay? You look like you’re gonna puke.”
“I’ll be fine.”
He slid over a book. “Okay, we need to know about fire suppression.”
I glanced at the book. “I had no idea there were different types of fire extinguishers.”
“Yeah.” He pointed to the one bolted to the wall in the corner of the library. “You need to make sure you’re using the right tool for the job.”
I read the page he had open. The most common types were water, dry chemical, and carbon dioxide. In addition, there were categories based on the type of fire each was best suited to put out. Class A fires were ordinary things, like wood, paper, and household stuff. Class B fires were petroleum-based, like gasoline or oil and paint. Class C fires were usually electrical, like wiring or transformers. Class D fires were metal-based, like potassium or copper. Class K fires were kitchen- and restaurant-based, involving cooking greases.
“We’re taught to never use a water extinguisher on a kitchen fire. Tell me why.”
I considered that for a minute. “Oil and water don’t mix.”
“Yeah. The water extinguisher will spread the oil drops, which just spreads the fire instead of suppressing it.”
Made sense.
I kept reading. The cans were color-coded and labeled for intended uses, and some could be used for more than one type of fire. We kept this up for an hour or so, with me reading the list and Bear quizzing me, and it was really working for me. Once I read something, I never forgot it.
Matt always called my eidetic memory my superpower. But Dad? Oh, he hated it. Thought it was just another thing that made me…weird. Mom—well, she kind of played the center. She encouraged me, but she also tried to downplay my ability. That was another reason I knew I had to leave. She’d been playing the center for so long, she didn’t know where the edges were anymore.
Alex was the only person I knew who thought my memory thing was cool. Smart as he was, he didn’t have an eidetic memory, and so, he had to study—hard—for whatever it was that interested him at the moment. But the difference between Alex and me is that he grasped the things he studied. Applied them. Thought about them. Expanded on them. All I could do was regurgitate what I read. But Bear’s quizzes were helping me truly understand this material.
“Okay, make sure you read the next chapter. Tomorrow, we’re supposed to go over fire behavior. When we get to the training facility in a few weeks, we need you to be ready.”
“I will be with this stuff.” I waved a hand over the book. “But the exercise? I hurt from head to toe.”
Bear grinned. He was a big kid, but not exactly a poster boy for the Insanity workout. “I hate working out. But I do it.”
I blinked. “I haven’t seen you run up and down the bleachers.”
“I may be a little chubby, but I’m strong.”
I didn’t doubt that. “What about fast? Amanda and Max, they told me you have to be fast too, because there’s only about thirty minutes of air in the tanks.”
“That’s only half true. The tanks are rated for thirty minutes, but under the stress of working the fire
, we’re lucky to get half of that. I have a lot of stamina. I know how to conserve my tank.”
Frowning, I tried to imagine holding my breath in a real fire. “How did you learn to do that?”
A slow and evil grin spread across Bear’s face. “Tomorrow, I’ll show you.”
I climbed to my feet, relieved my wobbly legs could hold me, and held out my hand. “Thanks, Bear.”
“No problem, man. See ya tomorrow.” He shuffled off to the exit. I took a few minutes to reread the fire extinguisher section and headed home.
***
I was parked in back of the firehouse by eight thirty the next morning, watching sprinklers tick across a couple of lawns. I took my note out of my pocket, read what I had so far, and frowned. A car pulled in beside mine, and I quickly put the note away, watching Amanda leave the passenger seat of Mr. Beckett’s car.
She didn’t look happy as she strode into the station house. He followed, several paces behind. Was he her stepfather or something?
I got out of my mom’s car and headed in. Amanda was already in the conference room, distributing a stack of photocopies.
“Hey,” I greeted her.
She looked up, grunted, and went back to work. I watched, wondering if I was supposed to help. She looked terrible this morning. Her hair was tied up in its usual knot, and she wore her station uniform—LVFD T-shirt with a pair of black work pants—but she was pale with purple circles under her eyes.
Amanda hadn’t slept.
Why? What was she worried about?
“Logan,” she snapped. “Grab that stack of textbooks and hand them out.”
I stepped closer. “You okay?”
Her eyes narrowed. “Back off. Put out the textbooks.”
I sighed loudly and nodded. “Yeah. No problem.” I did what I was ordered.
“Amanda.”
The voice in the door made Amanda snap up straight. I turned and saw Mr. Beckett looking from me to her and back again.
“You’re working alone with this boy?”
She shook her head. “The rest of the squad will be here in a few minutes.”
He took a step inside the conference room and picked up a textbook. “I’ll wait then.”