Blue Fire and Ice

by Alan Skinner

  Brian shook his head. ‘No,’ he admitted in a low voice.

  ‘What!’ Bligh blustered. His eyebrows drew closer together, poised to strike. ‘I think you’d better explain yourself, Brian. You were sent on a very important mission.’

  Brian hung his head. ‘I know,’ he said.

  Brian could tell from the way the other Beadles were muttering that things weren’t going well for him. At that moment, he felt even more sorry for himself than he had when he watched the magpie fly away with his shoe. He took a deep breath. ‘I hate Muddles,’ he thought to himself. And then began to tell the others what sort of day he had had.

  By the time Brian had finished his tale, most of Beadleburg were gathered round. For a few moments, no one spoke. Then Bligh cleared his throat.

  ‘Ahem,’ he said. ‘Ahem.’ Frowning, he looked at the Beadles. ‘I think we would agree that Brian has failed us. He has had an ordeal but he was foolish to be involved with even one Muddle, let alone two, without proper precautions.’

  Everyone looked at Brian the way that parents look at their children when they have scraped their knees running after being told to walk.

  ‘This is serious, Brian. Something will have to be done.’

  Brian hung his head. He was sure that Bligh meant that something would have to be done about him.

  The Beadles looked at Bligh, who looked at Brian, who looked at his feet.

  ‘Megan!’ Bligh shouted suddenly. ‘Megan! Where’s Megan?’

  Megan stepped down from the bus. She gave Brian a little smile and for some reason Brian found that he didn’t feel so miserable.

  ‘Yes, Bligh?’ said Megan. ‘I know we’re behind schedule, but -’

  ‘You’ll have to forget your schedule, Megan, I’m sorry,’ declared Bligh.

  Megan look bewildered for a moment. ‘But the bus -’ she protested.

  ‘Not this afternoon, Megan. Nor tomorrow,’ Bligh said firmly. ‘Tomorrow morning at eight o’clock you will drive Brian to Home.’

  Megan stared at Bligh in horror. ‘To Home!’ she exclaimed. ‘All the way?’

  ‘All the way,’ he confirmed. Megan started to protest again but Bligh held up his hand and continued speaking.

  ‘Now, Megan, I know that the town agreed that our bus would never travel on the roads of Muddlemarsh. I know that the roads of Muddlemarsh are not good enough for a bus as fine as ours. But this is an emergency, Megan. Brian must go back and get help from the Muddles first thing tomorrow, and you must take him. You will take him to Home and then you will bring him back.’ Bligh looked at the Beadles gathered around. ‘I’m sure that everyone would agree that we must do this.’

  All the Beadles nodded and talked at once (though very politely). It was clear they agreed with Bligh. It was equally clear that Megan was very unhappy.

  Tek stepped forward. ‘I know it’s hard, Megan,’ she said. ‘But I’ll come and help you check it over when you get back and we’ll give it a good wash.’

  Isidora, who somehow managed to scowl even when she smiling, said kindly, ‘It’s a good bus, Megan. It can stand one trip, even on those bumpy Muddle roads.’

  Other Beadles comforted Megan, saying such nice things about the bus that Megan almost felt like crying. They offered to help clean the bus when it returned and to check the tyres, polish the rims, fill the little container for washing the windscreen and generally make sure that it suffered no ill effects from its ordeal.

  This may seem to you to be a bit over the top for a bus, but you have to understand that Beadles are very, very proud and fond of their bus. And of Megan, for that matter.

  ‘OK, eight o’clock.’ She managed a smile. ‘I’ll pick you up, Brian.’

  ‘Thank you, Megan,’ said Bligh. He put the tips of his fingers on his chin and sighed. ‘I just hope there isn’t a fire tonight. Poor Bell is exhausted and needs to sleep. We shall all have to be extra alert.’ He shook his head. ‘I was hoping that we would have had the fire officer from Home with us by now,’ he continued. ‘We shall just have to stand in for Bell if there is a fire tonight. Tomorrow, we shall have help. You must convince them, Brian. Don’t fail us again.’ Bligh looked at Brian but instead of scolding him, his eyes lost their hardness and he said quietly, ‘Please.’

  At that moment, Brian would have turned round and walked straight back to Muddlemarsh, wearing just one shoe, if Bligh had asked. But Bligh didn’t ask Brian to do any such thing. Rather, he resumed his familiar bossy voice and said, ‘Everyone to their homes now. Those who are on patrol tonight should get ready.’

  Bligh rested his hand on Brian’s shoulder. ‘You had best get home and get some sleep.’

  Brian nodded and limped home alone. He felt too tired to eat. He just wanted a bath and some sleep. While he filled the bath, he put away his shoe, placing it neatly by itself in its space on the shoe rack. After his bath, he dressed for bed and fell asleep. He slept soundly until the morning, and dreamed of nothing except a small white goat with a black face standing in his wardrobe, eating his clothes.

  *

  Gwyneth’s eyes opened. She lay still, staring at the dark ceiling above her. Something had woken her, a noise out of place. She knew every creak and groan of the old mill. All her life she had lived with them until they seemed as natural as the leaves rustling in the wind, or the constant murmur of the stream that ran beside the mill. And the noise that roused her from her sleep was not one she had heard before.

  The noise came to her again. It drifted up through the wooden walls and floors of the mill. Here, in the eastern hills of Beadledom, the silence of the night was deep and the odd noise disturbed the quiet. Gwyneth cocked her head, trying to identify the sound. It was a low crackling, like someone treading on green twigs. ‘Or the noise kindling makes when a match is set to it,’ she thought.

  Gwyneth threw back her blanket and leapt from the bed just as the first smell of smoke reached her. She grabbed her dressing gown and thrust her feet into her slippers. She was out the door before the dressing gown had even settled on her shoulders.

  ‘Not fire,’ she pleaded silently. ‘Not the fire!’ A hard, tight knot of fear coiled in her stomach. ‘The storehouse is full. If it catches alight, everything is lost!’

  Her feet barely touched the steps as she flew down the stairs. Fear continued to flood through her. The wool mill had been her home since she was born. She had played her childhood games on the wooden floor while the mill workers bustled around her. On countless summer days she had paddled her feet in the tumbling stream that turned the mill’s enormous wheel. She had learned to spin and weave and she could tell by the merest touch which fleece would make the finest cloth. And when her parents died, she had inherited the mill, though she had felt that it had always belonged to her.

  Gwyneth loved the mill more than anything in the world. She loved its timbers and its machines, its people and the fabrics they made. She loved her little home above the spinning room where the coarse wool was teased and spun to make that fine, soft fabric. And now, fire was trying to take it from her. One of the oldest buildings in Beadledom. Only Worsted’s Mill was known to be older. And the blue fire had already claimed that.

  Gwyneth raced across the floor of the spinning room. Smoke drifted from the doors to her right. Her heart beat faster. That was the storeroom. It was full, Gwyneth having taken on the work that Worsted’s Mill could no longer do. If the storeroom was ablaze everything would be lost. There would be no new clothing or blankets in Beadleburg when the winter came.

  Before Gwyneth could reach the main doors, there was the dull roar of a small explosion. The building shuddered and groaned. A sheet of blue flame enveloped the wall to her left. She staggered and almost fell. At the same time, thick smoke poured between the cracks in the walls and the doors to her right. It descended on her like a living shroud, filling her nose and mouth. The smoke felt wet and oily and her mouth was filled with its bitter taste.

  Gwyneth gagged. She couldn’t breathe
and she felt the smoke fill her lungs. She tried desperately to move but her legs buckled and she slumped to the floor. A small current of clean air, driven in under the doors, swirled across the floor under the smoke and she breathed in deep gulps, trying to cleanse her lungs of the heavy smoke. Her respite lasted only a few seconds before the smoke beat back the fragile stream of air and swept into her once again.

  Flames ate the beams and rafters above her. Gwyneth could feel fiery cinders showering her. She couldn’t think or move. Gradually, the world grew darker and even the fiery pinpricks from the burning cinders ceased to hurt. Gwyneth fell into blackness.

  *

  ‘Gwyneth! Gwyneth!’ Tom spoke her name sharply, fear making his voice sound almost angry. He shook the figure lying still on the ground in front of him. ‘Gwyneth!’ he yelled again. ‘Please, open your eyes!’

  ‘Puff into her mouth again, Tom,’ said Pim anxiously. He peered over Tom’s back, watching his friend bathe Gwyneth’s face with a wet cloth. ‘Maybe there’s still smoke in her.’

  Tom’s face bent once again towards Gwyneth’s. He saw his tears drop and splash gently on Gwyneth’s face. ‘It can’t be too late!’ a small voice inside him cried. ‘She must wake up!’

  Tom had known Gwyneth all his life. His father had been the foreman at the mill and there had been a time when everyone, even Gwyneth and Tom, believed that one day they would marry. As the years passed, however, something always came up and certainty gave them a fatal patience. Eventually, Tom became Gwyneth’s foreman when she inherited the mill and somehow they settled into their roles and thoughts of marriage faded and then disappeared.

  A tear fell on Gwyneth’s cheek, washing away a small circle of the ash and grime. Gwyneth’s eyes fluttered, then opened. She saw Tom’s face close to hers and she smiled. She had no idea where she was or why Tom was leaning over her, his eyes filled with tears, but it was Tom, and she smiled.

  She tried to speak but pain ripped through her chest and she coughed and retched.

  ‘Easy, Gwynny,’ said Tom gently. Slowly and carefully, he lifted her until she sat resting against him. ‘Don’t try and talk. Hush, Gwynny.’

  ‘Oh, Tom, you did it! She’s going to be OK!’ exclaimed Pim, his face split by a huge grin. He clapped Tom on the shoulder. ‘You must have puffed all the smoke out of her!’ He gazed at his friend in admiration, though wondering why Tom’s tears fell faster now.

  Gwyneth’s coughing eased and her head cleared. Behind Tom’s head she could see the eerie blue glow of the fire.

  ‘Tom! The mill!’ she cried. ‘We have to save the mill!’

  She pushed herself to her feet and stared at the mill in horror.

  ‘It’s no use, Gwynny. We can’t save it. We tried, but we can’t put out that fire.’

  The millworkers were also her neighbours. They had rushed to fight the fire when the alarm had sounded. One had grabbed the hose near her little vegetable garden; others filled bucket after bucket with water from the stream. Each bucket of water, each drop that sprayed from the tiny hose, seemed to feed the fire’s fury and make it burn more fiercely. Gradually, they had given up on the mill and concentrated on stopping the buildings nearby from catching alight.

  Anger and sorrow filled her. ‘It’s taken my mill, Tom! It’s taken our mill!’ She sobbed and Tom put his arm around her shoulders.

  ‘It nearly took you, too, Gwyneth,’ said Pim. ‘It would’ve, if Tom hadn’t saved you. We couldn’t see you when we got here and… and…’ His voice faltered. ‘Well, we thought you was still asleep and hadn’t got out. The place was truly blazing, blue flames all over it. But Tom just broke down them doors and rushed in, bits of burning roof and walls falling all about him.’

  Pim stopped. He felt tears threaten his eyes, too. ‘I feared you was both gone for sure. Then I seen Tom come through the smoke and flames carrying you. He laid you down here and puffed into you until you woke up. He never stopped, he didn’t, until you opened your eyes.’

  Gwyneth reached for Tom’s hand. Her fingers curled around his and she felt the soft squeeze of his strong hands. Deep as her sorrow was, as his hand clasped hers, she felt a small stream of joy inside, like a new mountain brook bubbling from the land for the first time.

  The great wheel at the side of the mill continued to turn, its large paddles pushed round and round by the stream. It had been many years since it had provided the power for the mill but Gwyneth’s mother and father had kept it oiled and repaired, and Gwyneth had done the same. They watched as flames leapt from the wall of the mill onto the wheel. The old wood was easy prey for the fire and in moments the wheel was ablaze with blue flames. In awe they watched as the flaming paddles dipped into the water. Instead of spluttering and dying, the flames grew stronger under the water, giving the stream a frightening glow.

  Like a giant, flaming Catherine-wheel it turned, until the fire had done its work and the mill wheel crumbled into the water that had played with it for hundreds of years.

  ‘We’d better help the others,’ said Gwyneth. Her voice no longer trembled. Tom looked at her small, round face. Sad but determined eyes looked back at him. ‘We have to save what we can or there’ll be no cloth to be had in Beadledom for love nor money this winter.’

  ‘Here,’ said Tom. He took off his coat and draped it over her scorched and ragged dressing gown. Pim stared at his feet as Tom took Gwyneth’s face between his hands and pressed his lips on her hair.

  The three of them turned. Lit by the blue glow of the fire, they went to save what was left of Melton’s Mill.

  *

  Atop a hill not too distant, cloaked by the night, a shadowy figure watched the mill turn to ashes.

  Chapter 3

  Sticks

  The firehouse in Muddlemarsh is a small building made of red brick. Like any true firehouse, it has two storeys, with a shiny pole down which one would slide to get from the top to the bottom. Crimson, Muddlemarsh’s fire officer, lived in the upper storey, where she had a small kitchen, a cosy sitting room, a bedroom, a guest room and, of course, a bathroom. Crimson loved things to be clean and bright and the firehouse was always as neat as a pin. In the lower storey was the fire equipment: hoses, pumps, ladders, axes, coats, hats, boots, a whole shelf of books on the proper way to fight fires and keep a fire station tidy and ready. The books on maintaining a fire station were Crimson’s favourite, especially Effective Techniques for Polishing Brass, which she had read at least a hundred times.

  The fire engine had pride of place in the building. It wasn’t exactly a fire engine. Rather, it was a fire pump; a large metal tank on a small cart, which was pulled by the firehouse horse, a lively little mare named Sparkle. It took two people to work the pump while Crimson held the hose. As she was the only fire officer in Muddlemarsh, she relied on volunteers. So far, that had never been a problem, as there had never been a fire in Muddlemarsh. Nonetheless, they were proud of their firehouse, their fire pump and, of course, Crimson. Each Saturday, a group of volunteers would arrive at the station and they would practise hitching Sparkle to the fire cart and working the pump and watering the gardens of the nearby houses.

  At the moment, the guest room had a guest and as Crimson polished the brass on the fire equipment, she could hear him on the floor above her. A strange noise, like metal barrels falling and clanging, came from the guest room.

  ‘Well, that’s sounding better. Grunge certainly is improving. A town couldn’t want a more dedicated musician,’ she said to herself. Inspired by Grunge’s dedication, she hummed a little tune of her own as she polished the nozzle of the hose.

  The sound of the metal barrels was replaced by a loud but quite pleasing metallic wail, which ended abruptly in a thump and a cry of ‘Owww!’ Crimson stopped polishing and turned round.

  Grunge sat at the bottom of the fire pole, his guitar in his lap, clutched in both hands. His face scrunched in pain, then erupted in a wide smile.

  ‘Hello, Grunge,’ Crimson said. ‘You real
ly should hold on to the pole, you know.’

  ‘Crimson! Did you hear that? What a wicked noise! Did you hear it?’

  Crimson smiled. She liked Grunge and she felt happy when he felt happy. ‘Sure did. What was it?’

  Grunge stood, excited. ‘Watch!’ he said. Grunge held the neck of the guitar against the metal pole, pressing the strings hard against the metal. With one hand, he strummed all the strings, then slid the neck of the guitar along the pole. The same wailing filled the firehouse. Then Grunge hit the guitar strings again and slid the neck of the guitar back the other way along the pole.

  ‘It happened when I slid down the pole! I didn’t want to let go of my guitar. I was afraid of breaking another one. The pole rubbed against the strings as I slid down and … wow!’

  Crimson beamed at Grunge. ‘I heard you practising just before. You’re getting better all the time. Muddlemarsh is lucky to have a musician who practises so hard. You’re a credit to musicians everywhere, Grunge. I’ll bet it won’t be too many more years before you can actually play one of your instruments.’

  Grunge beamed back at Crimson. It was pretty obvious to everyone else in the town that they liked each other a lot.

  Grunge was a musician. He had a house full of instruments: cool guitars, hip pianos, funky saxophones, thunderous tubas, really rocking drums, smooth clarinets and haunting flutes. He couldn’t play any of them yet, though every day he practised, going from one to another from sunrise to beyond sunset.

  In fact, it was a rather noisy and enthusiastic session practising the drums, during which he managed to shatter nearly all his windows, that led him to be staying at the firehouse. ‘Ah, like, it’s … ah, nice of you to let me stay here a few days while they, like, put new glass in my windows. I hope the practising doesn’t, like, disturb you,’ Grunge said.

  ‘Not at all,’ replied Crimson. ‘If you can put up with me testing the fire horn!’ The firehouse had a large black horn on the roof which Crimson could sound by pulling on a rope. Every day at 10.00 a.m. sharp Crimson pulled on the rope three times, making the horn roar throughout Muddlemarsh. And each day when they heard the horn, all the Muddles stopped what they were doing and sat down to coffee and biscuits.