by Gin Phillips
“Aggghhhhhh,” yells the kid.
“Justin!” yells some woman who must be his mom.
“Call 9-1-1!” yells someone else.
The kid, Justin, unfortunately has: a) poofy hair, and b) no sense of direction. Still holding his sparkler, he turns and runs right into the tree, into the fiery branches. They’re not long enough to burn his face, but they do drag across his thick, curly hair. His head is smoking, the tree is burning, and the sparkler is still going strong.
Two adults have reached the tree, and they both grab for the kid. One has a blanket that he’s trying to cover him with. But the kid is panicked and quick, and he scoots through their arms. He’s zigzagging toward the tree trunk now, scattering sparks everywhere, screaming his head off.
There’s a carpet of dead leaves under the tree, and sparks are raining down on them. I think I see smoke rising from them like fog. Smoke is everywhere—leftover in the sky from the fireworks, rising from the tree branches, floating up in wisps from the dead leaves.
Everything is going to go up in flames.
I yell the first thing that comes to mind: “Stop, drop, and roll!”
And the kid actually does it. He must have had the same lesson I had in kindergarten. He immediately falls to the ground in a heap and starts rolling around. He rolls right over the lit sparkler and all those bright, scattered sparks. Maybe it hurts, maybe it doesn’t. But he’s much calmer when he sits up, dead leaves in his hair, panting. His head isn’t smoking anymore.
Adam has reached the tree, and he helps a bearded man pat down the drooping tree branches with the blanket. The blanket looks scorched, but the flames die out quickly. Then even the smoke drifts away. It all takes maybe two or three minutes.
“I called 9-1-1,” says one of the adults.
“No!” I yell. Maybe a little louder than I mean to. Because we really don’t need the fire department snooping around the golf course. What if they head over to the putt-putt holes? What if they walk down the stairs at Hole Nine and see beds and a sofa?
Before I can go find which of those adults called the fire department, Adam leans into me. His elbow is touching my arm.
“Stop, drop, and roll?” he asks.
I shrug. “Didn’t they teach you that in school?”
He seems to be trying very hard to keep a straight face. “I believe that, uh, you’re supposed to do that if you’re actually on fire. I’m not sure it’s an approved way of putting out a sparkler.”
“It worked, didn’t it?”
“I’m not criticizing you. You might be kind of a sparkler genius.”
I hear the sirens then, and I’m furious that I’ve wasted these few seconds. I’m not the only one who looks disturbed by the sirens—none of these people are supposed to be here. This is private property. I think it’s occurred to most of the grown-ups that we’ve all totally trespassed and then set fire to a place that doesn’t belong to us.
I see the flashing lights of the fire trucks—so many fire trucks!—through the trees. They’ve stopped on Clairmont. Now everyone’s grabbing their things—I watch them streaming like ants toward the sides of the golf course that do not have fire trucks parked beside them. Instead of dozens of people, there are maybe ten still standing here, ready to face the consequences. I notice that the boy with the sparkler is gone, and so is his mother.
“Should we run for it?” asks Adam. And the thought of that is so appealing—to laugh and sprint and hide in the trees together. To have a big adventure, just me and Adam. On the run from the law. But if we leave—if everyone leaves—the fire department and the police will surely take a look around. Maybe they’ll take a careful look around, so careful that they explore the putt-putt course. I can’t let that happen.
“I can’t,” I say. “You should go. I’m gonna stay here and explain what happened.”
He doesn’t take a single step.
“I’ll stay,” he says. “It’s no fun escaping alone. And it looks like my mom’s waiting around anyway. She doesn’t scare easy—she’ll probably talk to the firemen.”
I see bright lights bobbing through the trees, then I see three men in uniforms walking toward us, their helmets tipped back. They all carry flashlights. I have to get rid of these firefighters as fast as I can. No questions, no curious glances, no investigations. An idea flashes across my brain like fireworks, and I suddenly know how to make that happen.
I kneel down by Adam’s little brother and tip his face up toward me.
“Uh, this is Thomas,” says Adam. “Thomas, this is Nell.”
I’m not looking for introductions. I study the kid’s face a little more. No good. He’s sort of surly looking. I scan the few people still standing nearby, and I spot a little girl with pigtails. Big dark eyes, dimples. Adorable.
“I need that little girl,” I say to Adam. “Any idea who she belongs to?”
“Ah, she’s my cousin,” he says. “Almost everybody still here is related to me. I think my mom is the only adult who didn’t take off.”
“How do you think your cousin is at playing pretend?” I ask. “Like at acting?”
“You’re going to have to give me more than that to go on,” says Adam.
So I do. Talking as fast as I can, I explain my plan to him. Then we sit down next to his adorable cousin and tell her what she needs to say. I’ve just finished explaining when the three firemen approach our group. The three of us stand up and walk over to meet the firemen. One is big, one is bigger, and one is totally huge.
“We received an emergency call from a cell phone,” says the big one. “Do you kids know anything about that? The caller said there was a fire on the Lodema golf course.”
The huge one says, “We don’t see any sign of a fire. If this was some sort of prank, that’s a very serious offense.”
He’s looking right at Adam as he says the words “serious offense.”
I step up, lifting up Miss Adorable. Her name is Lisa, and she is four years old.
“It wasn’t a prank, Officer,” I say, even though I’m not sure you’re supposed to call firemen “officer.” I look sternly at the four year old. “Lisa, do you have something to tell the man?”
“I had a sparkler,” she says. Her eyes are so big that she looks like a cartoon.
The huge firemen suddenly looks less fierce.
“You had a sparkler?” he repeats.
“I did,” she said. “It was a big, fat one. But I didn’t mean for it to hit the tree.”
She smiles, showing a missing tooth, and it occurs to me that she might have a future in Hollywood.
It’s time for my part. “We didn’t know she headed this way,” I say. “We didn’t mean to come on the golf course. But she ran this way, and she’s really much faster than she looks. . . .”
“Are you fast?” asks the big firemen. He looks hypnotized.
“Pretty fast,” Lisa says.
“We just lost her for a second,” I say, trying to make my eyes big like Lisa’s and having a feeling it doesn’t work the same way. “And the sparks started to catch fire, but then we put them out.”
“You and your boyfriend were watching her?” asks the bigger one.
I’m glad it’s dark because I can feel the pink spreading across my cheeks. “Aghhhh . . .”
“Yeah,” says Adam. “That’s right. We were watching her.”
“Well you’re lucky nothing worse happened,” says the big one. “No sparklers allowed in the city limits.”
“Next time we might have to take you to jail, little lady,” says the huge one. But he winks at her. I know we’ve won then.
Pretty soon the firefighters leave, and we promise to buy Lisa an ice cream sometime soon. Actually, I promise to buy her a horse. Adam makes me downgrade it to an ice cream. She scoots back to the small remaining circle of people, and we wat
ch the fire trucks slowly pull away.
“Oh,” says Adam. “Looks like you’re about to meet my mom.”
I follow his gaze and see a slender woman with short spiky dark hair coming toward us. She’s a fast walker. I will not have time to escape. She grins at me, then gives Adam a shove, shoulder to shoulder. She knocks him slightly sideways, and he gives her a little shove with his own shoulder. I watch his face to see if he’s embarrassed by this.
“Hi, Mom,” he says. He seems to be perfectly comfortable with his mother tackling him.
“What did y’all say to the fire department?” she asks. “I was just getting ready to come over and accept a fine. Or a ticket. Or whatever they do to you when you sneak onto golf courses.”
She looks like she wants to ruffle his hair. Or hug him. But she doesn’t do either. She sticks her hand out to me and says, “Liz Cooper. Adam’s mom.”
I notice she has dimples.
“I’m Nell,” I say, shaking her hand. “It’s nice to meet you. I go to school with Adam.”
“Pleased to meet you, Nell,” she says. “I’ll let you two talk—I’ve got a dozen or so kids to round up. I’m hoping they didn’t get any ideas about starting fires. They seem like the kind of kids who would start fires.”
“She means my other cousins,” says Adam. “And she’s right.”
His mother is weaving through the few remaining kids and teenagers still packing up their food and their drinks and their blankets. Adam watches her as she kicks a stray soccer ball out of her way. He smiles.
“You like her,” I say. This has just occurred to me. It’s not that I thought he didn’t like her. I just hadn’t thought about it one way or the other.
“Mom’s okay,” he says.
“She seems, um, nice.”
I am not totally sure what you say about people’s mothers. Other people’s normal, friendly mothers.
“She’s all right. She’s really into fireworks. And she really wants all of us—my sister and little brother and me and my dad—to come together. As a family.”
“I thought the movie night at the park was family time,” I say.
“She really likes family time. I mean, it’s . . .”
I look back at his mom, and she’s rounded up another sibling or cousin of Adam’s. His mother has her arm thrown around the girl’s neck, and the girl is not resisting.
“It’s all right,” he finishes. “It’s family, you know?”
“Um, not exactly.”
He shrugs. “My family’s not bad. They’re the ones who know you. You know? You don’t have to try. Like I got my wisdom teeth taken out last year, and my whole mouth swelled and I couldn’t stop drooling. I had to carry around a towel with me to mop up the drool. Mom didn’t care. My brother and sister called me a Saint Bernard for a few days, but they didn’t really care. I didn’t even try to keep the spit in my mouth. Family’s, like, the ones who stick with you even when you drool.”
I look back at the sky, which seems so empty now. I did not know that about family.
CHAPTER 19
TO STAY OR NOT TO STAY
Even if I didn’t have my phone to tell me the date, I’d know it was nearly August. The blossoms are scattering off the crape myrtles every time the wind blows, falling like hot pink confetti. Spiders or worms or something must be infesting the hedges because there are cobwebs spun across them, making them look like they belong outside a spooky old house. The pink crape myrtles fall into the webs, though, and in the sunlight, it’s beautiful.
I have three more days here before my remedial social studies lessons are over. Three days before, in theory, I should be going home for good.
Every other day Lydia and I meet at the honeysuckle tree at ten A.M. This morning I see her when I’m still twenty or thirty steps from the tree. She’s sitting with her back to me, hunched over the grass. I think she may be hunting for four-leaf clovers.
“Feeling lucky?” I call.
“No,” she says, looking over her shoulder at me. “If I felt lucky, I wouldn’t need to find a clover.”
I settle next to her against the tree trunk. Soon I hear the sound of plastic or aluminum foil rattling.
“Here,” she says, and when I turn, I see she’s holding out a crescent roll through a hole in the fence. I take it, and it’s still warm against my fingers.
“I’ve got four,” she says. “Leftovers from breakfast.”
“Thanks.”
“Sure.”
“You miss me?” I ask, mouth full of bread.
“Of course.”
“Come out on the course with me today,” I say. “Just for a few hours.”
She shakes her head. “You know that won’t work. Mom will check to see where I’m going. She’s home today.”
I swallow. “I know.”
“And I never liked Lodema like you do. Not really.”
“I know.”
She passes me another roll, and I gobble it up in two bites.
“Is your mom still mad at my mom?” I ask. “Is she going to try to keep us from seeing each other?”
“I don’t know.”
“That means yes.”
She doesn’t say anything.
“I do miss you,” I say. “It was better when you were here.”
“So three more days,” she says. “Then you’re coming back, right? You’re not running away from home to live at Lodema?”
She’s trying to keep her voice light, but she doesn’t exactly sound like she’s teasing.
I lick my fingers slowly. I stare out at the golf course.
“What if I did?” I ask.
“That’s not funny.”
“It’s not supposed to be.”
“You’re coming back,” she says, standing up now, turning to stare at me. “You have to come back.”
Her shadow falls over me, and I turn toward her. I sit there, my hands in the dirt and the weeds, looking up into her green eyes. I don’t want to stand. I don’t want to see her more clearly. I wish she would turn back around. When she left, it was like the last thing connecting my old life to Lodema vanished with her. It got much easier to imagine not going home again. Or maybe I should say it got easier to imagine Lodema becoming my real home.
“I could stay gone six months,” I say. “Then I could come back to school. I might make it a year out here. I don’t think Mom would think to look for me so close. Gloria would be around. She’d help me if I needed help.”
“Does Gloria know about this?”
I ignore her question. “Maybe I could make it three years, and then, when I’m sixteen, I could get a job,” I say. “I could get my own place and go back to school then. You could move in with me. No parents, no rules.”
“What are you talking about?”
“It’s true. It could work.”
I’m not imagining me and Lydia, though. For some reason, she doesn’t fit. Instead I picture me and Alexia walking to work together, opening envelopes that have our paychecks tucked inside, eating sandwiches during our lunch break. It is a blurry image. And when I try to make Alexia’s face come into focus, she looks tired and sad, not at all how I want to see her. Lydia speaks and the image shatters.
“No, it could not work,” she says. “You can’t live here for years. And no one’s going to rent an apartment to a sixteen-year-old. You won’t ever make up years of missed school. You’d blow your chance at a scholarship. You know that.”
I don’t know why she’s being so difficult. She never has any solutions—she just points out problems.
“There’s no reason I have to make up my mind in three days,” I snap. “I’ll make up something to tell Mom. And I’ll take a few months to decide.”
“She’s not stupid. She’ll report that you ran away.”
“Only if she w
ants me back.”
That only makes her pause for a second.
“Your dad will report it.”
Now I do stand up. “Shut up, Lydia! Leave me alone. This isn’t about you.”
She tries to laugh, but it comes out more like a sob. “Of course it is. If it’s about you, it’s about me, too. How could you leave me here by myself?”
“I’d still see you,” I say. But I look away as I say it.
“Nell, do you really want to be alone?” she asks. “Do you really want to do this by yourself?”
“I wouldn’t be alone.”
I know that’s true. Whatever I decide, I will not be alone.
Lydia flexes and then tightens her fingers. “Look, you’re right—it’s not about me. Forget me. You really think you’re going to be happy if you run away?”
“You really think I’m going to be happy if I go back to Mom?” I put my hand next to Lydia’s, close but not touching. “Lydia, she doesn’t even care. Does she get to be my mother no matter what? No matter what she does? Isn’t there a point where I can say, okay, enough. You struck out. You’re off the team. I’m now advertising for a new mother. Don’t I get to decide at some point that I’m done being her daughter?”
“No,” she says. “I don’t think so.”
“That’s not fair.”
“It sucks.”
“I want to be done.”
She smiles, but there’s nothing happy about it.
“Do you?” she asks.
Lydia’s fingers brush mine as she takes a couple of steps, pacing.
“So are you staying here?” she asks.
I know the answer, of course. I’ve known the answer for a long time, but I haven’t wanted to admit that I know it. I can’t stay. Of course I can’t stay. But the thought of being shut in that apartment with my mother again, of having her moods weighing down on me every second—it’s just unbearable. It’s the only answer, but I can’t stand it. I can’t say it.
Instead I say, “Do you think maybe I could still advertise for a backup mother? Just to pick up the slack?”
“A backup mother?”