by Patty Blount
My eyes popped. “Six? Jesus, Alex, shouldn’t you pace yourself or something?” The chess club was ready to vote him off their island.
He laughed. “It was great, really. I’m still experimenting with mating patterns, so I got to test my top picks.”
“Which are?”
He laughed louder and shook his head. “Nice try. If I tell you, you’ll read all that’s printed on each and be able to defend against them.”
I squirmed. “Um, sure.” I wasn’t sure, but I thought Alex just called me a cheater.
“So how did J squad go today?”
I settled deeper into the sofa and wondered how to answer that. I decided not to tell him about the kiss. “I’m really not sure. Aside from the usual tense moments with my dad, we played dodgeball in full turnout gear—”
“Why?”
“It helps us learn tank conservation.”
“Why dodgeball, specifically?”
I shifted again. Sometimes, Alex’s giant brain made him annoying. “It’s one way of simulating the kind of physical exertion needed to fight a real fire.”
He cocked his head and then shook it a moment later. “No, it’s not. Firefighters have few, if any, reasons to throw objects. It would have been better to play tug-of-war, to mimic hose-lifting. Why not simply practice hauling people up and down ladders?”
I shut my eyes for a second. “Because we work with very limited resources. We had only a half hour to practice, so tossing around a ball was an easy impromptu exercise the entire squad could perform with minimal setup.”
Alex still wasn’t convinced but let the matter drop, thank God. “How did you do?”
“I ran out of air after eleven minutes.”
“Is that bad?”
I nodded. “Yeah. The tanks are rated for thirty minutes, but nobody ever gets that long. But eleven was pretty bad. I have a goal to reach sixteen minutes by the end of the month.”
“A five-minute gain would be a forty-five percent improvement,” he said, impressed. “You have about three weeks to achieve it.”
Oh God. “Yep.”
Alex glanced at me and frowned. “You don’t sound convinced.”
I spread my arms up, winced when they screamed their protest, and let them fall. “Look at me, man. Do I look anything like the guys in Matt’s calendar?”
Alex laughed and rolled his eyes. “Oh right! He was highly insulted he was rejected for November.” I didn’t laugh, and he nudged me. “You’re not seriously holding yourself to that standard? Eighty percent of the LVFD would fail. Even your dad has that paunch.”
I acknowledged that point. “True, but Max wouldn’t. Neither would Gage.” Both of them were built like ads for some sports drink.
“Reece, I have a question.”
I raised my eyebrows.
“You’re doing this to get your dad’s attention, right? Do you really need to kill yourself in the process?”
I coughed and stood up. “Um, well, I guess I’m trying to do this right, you know? Prove to him I can be something he can be proud of. If I can’t even breathe right, what chance do I have?”
Alex opened his mouth to argue and then changed his mind. He nodded gravely. “Guess I won’t see you for a while. You have a mission now. A promise to keep.”
I tried to untangle my thoughts. Alex was my best friend.
But I didn’t tell him that my promise was no longer what was driving me.
Chapter 10
Amanda
I jolted awake, heart pounding. Crap, it was two o’clock in the morning. After the day I had, I should have slept like the dead.
It was a foster home thing…you never really slept soundly. You worried about every little sound, wondered if someone was going to sneak in and steal your stuff.
Or worse.
Mr. Beckett never said a word about the kiss. Maybe he didn’t see it. I’d turned around, braced for the disappointed expression, the tone that said “Pack your bags, young lady.” Instead, he’d wagged his finger. “The trucks just rolled out, and I know it’s exciting, but you have work to do, don’t you?”
I’d gone along with him, pretending my lips weren’t branded by that kiss.
“No, it’s fine. We had a great session today. Tank conservation,” I’d babbled, but Mr. Beckett hadn’t noticed.
“Did you hear the alarm? It’s a big one.”
I’d almost cried in relief. Mr. Beckett had been so jazzed about the trucks rolling, he really hadn’t seen the kiss.
It was so cool. We’d climbed into his car, a little gold Nissan littered with folded-up potato chip bags, empty coffee cups, and old lesson plans, and rode over to Juniper Court. Junior cadets weren’t allowed at working fire scenes. All the practice we did never involved flames. But there was no rule against driving by.
“Oh my God, it’s fully involved,” Mr. Beckett had said as we crawled by. We couldn’t see much from the main road, but even from there, we’d been able to see the flames towering above the roofline. “Look at that, Mandy! I think they’re using the deck gun.”
I’d stared at the high-powered stream of water aimed at the roof, and Mr. Beckett accelerated with a sigh.
“Pretty cool, huh, Mandy?”
I’d nodded and smiled. “Yeah. Pretty cool.”
I curled my hands into fists and punched my pillow. Stupid, stupid, stupid! I almost messed up everything. I left the bed Mrs. Beckett decorated with pillows in my favorite shade of blue and crept into the hall. Downstairs in the kitchen, I found Larry silhouetted in the slash of light from the open refrigerator.
“Hey, were you outside? I thought I heard the door shut.”
He whipped around with a gasp. “Jesus, Amanda.” He turned back to browse for leftovers and grabbed the meatloaf. The Becketts were cool about us eating their food, which was handy, since I was convinced Larry had a tapeworm or something. He grabbed some bread and a bottle of ketchup and made a sandwich. “I didn’t go anywhere. I was in bed.”
“Did you have a bad dream or something?”
He shook his head, and brown hair fell over his eyes. “I was hungry.”
“It’s two a.m., Larry. Did you get any sleep?”
He lifted his shoulders. “Yeah, a little. Want in on this?”
God, no. I shook my head, sank into a kitchen chair, and yawned.
Larry put the food away and joined me at the table. “You look zonked.”
“Up early dealing with a bunch of guys in bunker gear all morning? Yeah, zonked pretty much covers it.”
Larry smirked and took a healthy bite out of his sandwich.
I brought my knees up, curled my arms around them, and sighed. I could still smell the savory scents from that night’s dinner. Mrs. Beckett cooked real food. Oh, she’s not a chef or anything, but she’s a hell of a lot better than that one foster house where I had to write down every bite I took.
“I like it here,” Larry whispered in the dark.
I thought about that for a second. “Me too.”
He took another bite and stared at his sandwich. “I got hit once for this.”
“Eating?”
“No. Taking extra.”
“That sucks.” We had it good here. Well, as long as we never touched Mr. Beckett’s potato chips. Mrs. Beckett bought individual bags of them by the carton from the warehouse store. I was kind of surprised Mr. Beckett wasn’t a giant walking zit from all that grease.
“Yeah.” He licked ketchup off a finger. “The Becketts are kinda normal, you know?”
I shrugged. I was pretty sure all foster families had quirks and secrets, but the Becketts were sitcom parents compared to that one home where the parents were like military commanders, always barking orders.
“My dad used to sneak out after he thought I was sleeping and come back with all
this crap like computers and cell phones and cameras.”
Larry’s dad was in year two of a five-year sentence. The court had not been able to find his mom. I wondered if they were still looking. “Oh, Larry, I’m sorry.”
Larry shook his head. “It’s not your fault.” He chewed quietly. “I don’t miss him,” he whispered.
He grabbed what was left of his sandwich and hurried back up the stairs, bare feet squeaking on the wooden floor. I thought about it for another minute and followed. I kind of missed my mom—or the life we used to have before Dmitri. But now? I hope I never see her again.
I lay in my warm bed under yards and yards of soft downy comforter and burrowed into pillows. My stomach didn’t rumble—not from hunger or fear. I thought about tall boys with lean muscle and toasty-brown hair. Somewhere, in the back of my brain, just before sleep pulled me under, I was sure I heard the front door squeak open.
***
The sun woke me up late Sunday morning. I shot out of bed and hurried downstairs, biting back a curse when my foot landed on something sharp. At the foot of the stairs, there was…a tiny piece of wood and dirt. A piece of tree bark or something and some dark flecks. I bent to examine the chunk and discovered it wasn’t bark—it was mulch. Larry probably forgot to wipe his feet, and Mrs. Beckett would have a heart attack. She was a ruthless housekeeper. I headed for the kitchen, tossed the chunk of wood into the trash, and grabbed a plate.
“There’s the sleepyhead,” Mr. Beckett said, grinning at me over his coffee cup.
“Eggs, Amanda?” Mrs. Beckett stood by the stove, wrapped in a robe. Larry was already half-done with his breakfast.
“Yes, please.” I handed her my plate.
“I was just about to come up, make sure you’re not sick.” Mr. Beckett said.
“Yeah, sorry about that. Didn’t sleep well.”
“Oh?” The smile slid off his face.
“Yeah, I heard a noise in the middle of the night. I got up but didn’t notice anything weird.”
His forehead creased, and then it was gone. “This is a safe place. You know you have nothing to be afraid of here, right?”
I felt a tiny pinch under my heart and smiled at the sincerity on his face. I didn’t know if it was God or just dumb luck, but however I got here, I was grateful. I loved it here, but I could never tell the Becketts that, of course. After Mrs. Merodie, I was careful never to fall in love with a family again.
Of course, there are some houses you couldn’t wait to leave. The last house… I shivered, remembering the creepy son who liked to sneak up on me. There was no lock on my bedroom door, so I used to hang stuff over it at night, hoping the noise would wake me if he came in.
It did.
He fell and broke his wrist and told everybody I’d invited him to my room. They believed him and kicked me out. And yet, even Creepy Kyle was better than the house before that one, where food was rationed. Oh, I didn’t just like it here, I loved it. I loved Mrs. B’s cooking, and I loved the fire service, which I wouldn’t have learned about if Mr. Beckett hadn’t encouraged me. I wished I could tell them both how much I loved it here and that I hoped they’d keep me until I aged out of foster care and even after that, how I wished we could stay in touch and have visits or spend holidays together.
But saying all that out loud risked losing it.
“Yes, I know. Thank you.” I nodded stiffly.
Mr. Beckett reached out a hand to squeeze mine. “You never have to thank us.” He poured some juice and slid it to me, and I hid my face behind the glass, hoping it concealed the tears in my eyes. “So how’s your new cadet doing?”
I froze for a second. Dangerous territory! “Um, good.” I shrugged. “I’ve got the whole squad working one-on-one with him, studying the NFPA guidelines and the textbooks.”
My foster dad waved his hand. “Firefighting’s not about textbooks, Amanda. It’s about heart and guts.” He put down his coffee cup and leaned over the table. “Did I ever tell you about Captain Ray Jenner? Toughest firefighter I ever buffed for.” He shook his head and laughed once. “I couldn’t have been much older than you, Larry.”
Larry looked up from his plate. “What does that mean?”
“Buff? It means I was a big fan—still am. Buffs like me used to hang out at fire stations, help out. It’s like volunteering, except for a particular guy.”
“Like his assistant?”
Mr. Beckett laughed. “Yes, though assistant is a bit of a stretch. I was more like his personal flunky.”
“Cool.” Larry nodded and drained the rest of his juice.
“It was very cool. Except when you were afraid of the guy you’re buffing for. Ray was a big brute of a guy—like your Chief Duffy, only mean.” Mr. Beckett pointed at me. “I’m not lying when I tell you my bladder let go whenever I was close to him.”
“Mark! Too much information,” Mrs. Beckett said on a groan and joined us with a plate of her own.
“Sorry, Diane.” He winced. “Anyway, when I was about thirteen, I was seriously in love with firefighting. I wanted to join the department, but they didn’t have a junior squad where I grew up. So all I could do was hang around the firehouse and hope to see some action. I’d fetch newspapers and coffee from the corner store for the men. I ran cloths over the trucks, whatever they needed, and believe me, I was happy to do it. Except when it was Ray Jenner.”
Mr. Beckett’s eyes glowed with excitement and maybe a little awe. “Ray used to love scaring the tar out of me. ‘Beckett!’ he’d bark, and I’d quiver in my shoes. ‘Go out there and sweep the front.’ He’d hand me a small kitchen broom.” Mr. Beckett waved a hand toward the broom that leaned against a corner. “I’d go out in front of the station and spend hours sweeping the same six leaves because they’d just blow from one end of the lot to the other. He never thanked me. Not once.” Mr. Beckett kicked back in his chair, sipped more coffee, and fell deeper into the past. “The other guys always did, but not him. He thought I should thank him. So I never did. I was kind of a badass.”
Larry laughed. Mr. Beckett was a tall, thin man with round wire glasses and big teeth who loved shuffling around the house in corduroy slippers. He was the polar opposite of badass.
“No, really. I was,” Mr. Beckett insisted with a grin. “So I’d show up whenever I didn’t have chores or homework and then end up just doing more stupid chores. All I wanted to do was hang out and be part of the brotherhood, you know? I wanted to hear the stories about charging into the pit of hell, snatching some poor victim back from its greedy claws, and beating flames down with nothing but a can and a Halligan.”
I nodded. I totally understood that need. Nobody becomes a firefighter for the money. My heart pinched again—I wouldn’t have this, wouldn’t have my squad, my brothers, if I hadn’t been placed in the Becketts’ home.
“What’s a Halligan?” Larry asked.
“It’s kind of like a crowbar,” I told him. “Except it’s got a fork on one end and a blade. We use it to bust through doors and walls.”
His eyes went round. “Cool.”
“Oh, it was cool. It was all cool. I wanted to hear all their stories about pretty ladies who thanked the guys for saving their lives. I wanted to see the medals the mayor pinned on their chests. God, I wanted that so much,” Mr. Beckett said with a slap to the table for emphasis.
“So how come you’re a chemistry teacher and not a fireman?”
Mr. Beckett tightened his lips and shook his head, not looking at any of us.
“I tried. Flunked the training program.”
Whoa. I never knew that.
“Anyhow, one day, I had some time, so I headed to the firehouse, but they had the purple banners hanging. I didn’t know who died, only that someone did. I moved in quietly and just waited for someone to tell me what needed doing. But nobody did. The truckies, they were sitting around a tab
le on the apparatus floor, faces white and eyes haunted. I wanted to help—I had to help them—so I just grabbed that dumb kitchen broom and started sweeping outside. I swept for an hour, maybe two. When I had that lot whistle clean, I went back inside the house to put away the broom. The truckies—the guys sitting around that table? They were crying. Every one of them.” Mr. Beckett’s eyes misted. “One by one, they shook my hand, and I knew. That’s when I knew. It was Mean Ray Jenner they’d hung the banners for.”
“What happened?” Larry asked quietly, sweeping hair out his eyes.
Mr. Beckett took another sip and shifted on his chair. “I don’t know. Some said he got lost in the smoke and panicked. Other stories I heard said he pulled out two kids, then went back in for their parents. To this day, I don’t know what really happened. Guys don’t talk about it. They feel it hard. But they go back the next day and keep doing the job.”
There was awe in Mr. Beckett’s voice, and it made me think about John Logan. When Matt died, he felt it hard—that was obvious to all of us. But he did the job. I thought it was a sign of strength. Something to admire.
I didn’t think that anymore.
Chapter 11
Reece
Matt taught me everything. I learned a few things from you too. I learned to run away when my emotions got stronger than I was.
I unlocked the front door, led my dog into the hall, and unfastened his leash. I tossed my keys on the hall table and found Mom in the kitchen, groping around for coffee.
“Don’t bother.” I took her hand, put a to-go cup in it, and then poured some fresh water into Tucker’s bowl.
She murmured something I wasn’t sure was English, took a sip, and stared at me over the cup. “You’re up early,” she eventually managed to say.
I shrugged. I didn’t always sleep well, so this wasn’t unusual. “I have stuff to do. Took Tucker for a walk and bought you a doughnut too.” I opened the bag, took out a couple of doughnuts—sugar frosted for her, jelly for me—and opened a cabinet for some plates. A mug that said World’s Best Dad stared back at me. I gave it to Dad when I was in kindergarten. They’d had some lame sale at the school. We all brought in a dollar, and that’s what I’d picked out.