The Fire Within

by Chris D'Lacey

  Fzzzn-uffn-pffn-sass! Bonnington hissed.

  “Goodness gracious!” Liz exclaimed. “That’s twice in five minutes that he spat at you.”

  David did his best to give an innocent shrug. “I guess he’s feeling a little fragile. Um, how long till dinner?”

  “About an hour,” said Liz, flicking a glance at a wide-eyed dragon on the windowsill. She frowned and threw the tenant a suspicious look.

  David responded with a cheesy grin. “Think I’ll go and lie low — I mean down — for a while. See you both later. Bye, Bonners.”

  With a hesitant wave, he retreated to his room and sank back against the door, sighing with relief. Aw, that had been close. Too close, really. If cats could talk instead of hiss …

  Best not to think about it. Work. That was the thing to do now. Forget about rat traps. Catch up on the “canceled” lecture he’d missed. Grabbing a college book from his bag, he flopped onto the bed and got back to his studies. A Hole at the Pole: The Disappearing Ozone Layer. For fifteen minutes his eyes scanned glorious, glacial pictures and skimmed over paragraphs of icy text. Distantly, he heard the thump of a hammer and the splintering sound of breaking wood. In the midst of this, the telephone rang. Shortly afterward, he heard muttered voices in the hall. The front door opened and closed. Seconds later, the back door opened and closed. David tossed the book aside. It was hopeless; he couldn’t face college work now. The words were just merging into a meaningless mush. He put his head back and let his mind wander.

  It settled on Lucy’s birthday.

  During the Sunday of heavy rain, he had secretly asked Liz what he might buy Lucy. Don’t be silly, she’d laughed. You don’t have to bother.

  “No, I want to,” he’d replied, knowing he’d feel awful if he didn’t do something.

  The trouble was, what?

  He took his wallet from his jeans and opened it wide. A cavernous gap yawned back. His mind leapt forward in time. Happy Birthday, Lucy. Here’s a postage stamp. It’s all I could afford. Send someone a letter! He snapped the wallet shut and lobbed it at his desk. It hit the mouse, making the computer screen clear. A few paragraphs of double-spaced text appeared: the beginning of an essay he’d been typing earlier.

  Might as well continue with that, he thought — when suddenly an idea popped into his head. An idea that would really make Lucy’s day.

  What if he did try writing her a story?

  It couldn’t be that difficult, could it? A little tale about squirrels? A short animal adventure? He already had the characters and setting: Conker, Cherrylea, and the bullying Birchwood chasing around the library gardens? He could type it, print it, bind it at college — make it look like a real book. A special present from David and Gadzooks. It was worth a try.

  It was also cheap.

  “What do you think?” he said, swinging up into a sitting position and taking Gadzooks off the windowsill. He ran a finger over the dragon’s snout. “We need an angle. A plot, I s’pose.”

  He closed his eyes briefly to think.

  And, in that blink, it happened again. David saw Gadzooks take his pencil from his mouth and scribble down another word on his pad:

  Nutbeast

  “Nutbeast?” David muttered. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  There was a gentle hrring noise from above.

  Suddenly, David’s door burst open and Lucy skidded in, panting for breath. Her face was as white as a piece of fish.

  “What’s the matter?” David asked, putting Gadzooks down gently on his desk.

  “You’ve got to come,” Lucy gulped. “He’s here. We’ve got him.”

  It took a few seconds for her words to sink in. “The trap? You mean it worked?”

  Lucy danced on her toes. “He’s in the box and he’s eating the nuts.”

  David jumped up and peered through the window. “You looked? It’s definitely Conker?”

  Lucy bit her lip. “Not exactly.”

  David threw her a critical stare.

  “It’s got two eyes and a great big smile.”

  “What?” said the tenant, color draining from his face.

  “It’s Snigger,” said Lucy. “We caught Snigger in the box.”

  THE WRONG SQUIRREL

  Don’t be ridiculous,” David said, poking his head around the door of his room and glancing furtively into the kitchen.

  “It’s true,” said Lucy. “Can we tell Mom?”

  “Absolutely not. Where is she, anyway?”

  “Went to see a man about a dog.”

  “What?”

  “She hasn’t really. It’s what she says when she’s buying me presents. I’ll be eleven at the end of next week, you know.”

  “I know,” muttered David, hurrying down the hall.

  “Oh, good,” said Lucy, skipping along behind him, “will you go to see the dog man, too?”

  “I’m going to see this smiling squirrel, first.”

  “It’s great, isn’t it — Snigger coming?”

  David paused at the kitchen door. “It’s not Snigger. It can’t be Snigger. Snigger is running around the library gardens.” He yanked the door open and went dashing out.

  Lucy stood still and pondered for a moment. “I don’t think he is,” she said earnestly.

  But the tenant was too far away to hear.

  When Lucy caught up with him, David was sprawling flat across the rock garden, peeking at the box on the other side. He waved at Lucy to be quiet as she crawled up beside him. Cocking their heads, they listened to the sound of acorn shells being cracked and scattered on the bottom of the box.

  “Let’s move the trap out and take a better look,” said David.

  He stood up and scrambled over the rock garden. A few loose stones crumbled out of the earth and pitter-pattered into the side of the hutch. The acorn cracking instantly stopped. David hauled the box into the open. The captured squirrel chattered loudly and hid itself in the darkest corner.

  “We’re not going to hurt you,” Lucy tried to tell it as David carried the trap across the lawn. He set it on the bench near Lucy’s swing.

  “I’ll see if I can coax him into view,” he said. He crouched down quietly and scratched the mesh. “Stay back, Luce, they can bite, you know. You’d have to go to the hospital if he bit your — waargh!” Without warning, the tenant toppled backward onto the grass.

  “Hhh!” went Lucy, clapping her hands across her nose and mouth. The captured squirrel was clinging to the mesh with his feet splayed out and only his furry white tummy showing.

  “Awesome!” she exclaimed.

  “Glad you think so,” David whined, checking his finger for signs of a scratch.

  “That was a good trick,” Lucy said.

  “It was not a trick,” David said curtly. “He jumped so fast I —” Then it occurred to him that Lucy wasn’t talking to him at all; she was chatting to the squirrel.

  “Did you come on your own?” David heard her ask. She had her head near the mesh now, blocking his view. “Was it you on Mr. Bacon’s windowsill?”

  “Lucy, don’t get too close,” said David. “That squirrel is very —” He froze midsentence as Lucy turned around. The captive squirrel was sitting forward, clamping its chisellike teeth around the mesh. It looked at Lucy and chirruped something, then squinted at David and flagged its tail. It twitched its whiskers, tilted its head, sat up proudly on its haunches — and smiled.

  “I don’t believe it,” David gasped.

  “Told you,” smiled Lucy.

  “But it can’t be Snigger. Why would Snigger come here?”

  Lucy seemed to think the answer was obvious. “To help Conker, of course.”

  David gave her a withering look. “Lucy, don’t be silly. How is he going to know about Conker?” The tenant sighed and rocked back on his heels. “What a shame. We were so close. Come on, you can do the honors.”

  Lucy stepped back, looking puzzled.

  “Lucy, whoever he is, he’s the wrong squirrel, isn�
�t he? We can’t keep him imprisoned. We have to let him go.”

  Lucy squeezed her fingers into fists. She wasn’t about to give up yet. “Where’s Conker?” she whispered, hunkering by the hutch. “Will you find him for me? It’s very important.”

  The squirrel chirruped and turned in a little circle.

  David sighed again but didn’t interrupt. In a moment or two, the trap would be open and “Snigger” would be loose in the neighborhood once more.

  “He’s only got one eye,” Lucy went on. The squirrel chattered something and flagged its tail. “Yes,” said Lucy, “horrible, isn’t it? Tell him we want to catch him, to help him.”

  Chuk, went the squirrel.

  Lucy turned to David. “I think he’s going to help.”

  “Great,” said the tenant. “Open the door.”

  Lucy raised the panel.

  Faster than a fish down Bonnington’s throat, the squirrel was out. Like a gray leaf tumbling in a blustery gale, it hopped and bounced across the Pennykettles’ lawn.

  “He’s going through the fence to Mr. Bacon’s!” yelled Lucy.

  “No, he isn’t,” said David, watching the squirrel closely. “He’s coming back toward the garden shed.”

  “No,” said Lucy, “the terracotta pots.”

  “No, look.” David pointed. “He’s running along the patio. He’s …”

  “Oh no!” they shouted together.

  The runaway squirrel had just shot into the house.

  SQUIRREL IN THE HOUSE

  Come on!” yelled David, bounding up the garden. “We’ve got to get him out before he does any damage!”

  Lucy squealed: “What if Bonnington gets him?”

  “What if he gets Bonnington, more like it?”

  Oddly enough, at that very moment, Bonnington was lapping water from his dish. He was so absorbed in his afternoon drink that he didn’t see the squirrel run into the kitchen, jump up on the table, hop along the counters, sniff at the fruit bowl, scramble down the ironing board, and whizz off up the hall. But a few seconds later when David skidded in, tipping over a chair, spilling a box of cornflakes, standing in the litter box, and kicking Chunky Chunks across the kitchen floor, the big brown tabby did the sensible thing. He slinked into his box and stayed put.

  “Have you got him?” panted Lucy, winging around the door.

  “Up here!” came a yell from somewhere near the stairs.

  Lucy rushed through, in time to see the squirrel come scampering down the banister. “Hhh!” she gasped as he leapt onto a lampshade, swung for a moment, dropped to the carpet, and bolted through her legs.

  “Your room!” she cried. “He went into your room!”

  David flashed past her and flung the door open wide. “Are you sure?” Everything seemed remarkably still.

  “There,” Lucy whispered, pointing to the bookshelves.

  On the third shelf up sat the bushy-tailed intruder. He was eating a chocolate bar with nuts.

  David reached for an empty cardboard box. “Shut the door. I’m going to grab him.”

  Lucy looked doubtful. “He’s pretty quick.”

  The tenant tapped the side of his nose. “I’ll teach him to steal my chocolate.” He got onto his toes and stalked across the room.

  The squirrel wasn’t impressed. At the first hint of cardboard moving toward it, it skipped off the bookshelf, bounced sure-footed off a gooseneck lamp, sped across the mantelpiece (launching the space shuttle into unexpected flight), and hopped calmly onto the desk. David pursued it, slamming the box against the chimney wall, but always a bounce behind. Twice he missed it, three times, four. Then he reached the alcove space — and disaster.

  “Waar!” he cried, tumbling forward and ending up in a crumpled heap on the floor.

  The squirrel chewed the corner of David’s mouse pad, then leapt onto the windowsill and paused by Gadzooks.

  “Look!” cried Lucy.

  David dragged the cardboard box off his head.

  The squirrel was sniffing at Gadzooks. And it was surely a trick of the afternoon light but … did the dragon just wink at the squirrel? David batted the box away. The sudden clatter made the squirrel leap around. It flagged its tail, chirruped at Gadzooks, smiled at Lucy, and shot out of the window.

  Lucy sprinted across the room and watched the squirrel depart across the lawn. “Don’t forget about Conker!” she shouted.

  “Aw,” groaned David. “Thank goodness that’s over.”

  But it wasn’t, not quite.

  By the door, a foot was tap-tap-tapping.

  David and Lucy looked around.

  “OK,” said Liz, with her arms tightly folded, “which of you would like to start?”

  PART TWO

  THE FIRE WITHIN

  A VERY SPECIAL PRESENT

  Get away from that door,” Liz said brusquely. “I told you twice. Don’t make me say it again.”

  Lucy stuffed her hands into the pockets of her jeans. “What’s he doing?” she said with a sniff.

  “Typing, from the sound of it.”

  “I know,” she complained. “It’s all he does now.” She flopped back against the tenant’s door in a huff.

  “He’s working,” said Liz, taking the cake from the fridge, “which is what you’re supposed to be doing, remember? Come on, give me a hand with the table.”

  Lucy moped into the kitchen. She gripped the end of the kitchen table while her mom pulled out the extending piece. “Tablecloth,” said Liz. “The pretty one, please.”

  Lucy yanked it out of a drawer. “It’s your fault for being so hard on him.”

  “We can’t have squirrels running riot in the house.”

  “It was only some cat litter on the floor.”

  Liz took the tablecloth and flicked it out. “And a secret trap. And plants uprooted all over the rock garden. Not to mention that unspeakable business with Bonnington. He’s lucky he got off as lightly as he did. If he were your age, he’d have been sent to his room for a week.”

  “Mom, he’s been in his room for a week!”

  “Well, at least it kept you both out of mischief, didn’t it?”

  Lucy sighed and pushed a finger back and forth across the counter. “Didn’t you know he was setting the trap?” She glanced past her mother to a pretty little dragon perched on top of the microwave oven. It had ears like seashells and eyes like moons.

  Liz opened a cabinet and took out some dishes. “It doesn’t matter what I know. What’s done is done. Put these out — with dessert spoons, please.”

  Lucy took the dishes and plunked them down haphazardly around the table. Bonnington, sitting statuesquely on a stool, winced with every place that was “set.” “I bet he forgot my story,” Lucy grumbled. “He promised he’d read me one for my birthday.”

  “Lucy, he’s twenty years old,” Liz said. “He doesn’t want to be pestered by a ten-year-old child.”

  “Eleven,” Lucy said, indignantly. “I’m nearly grown-up.”

  “Well, act like it then,” her mother trumped her. “Learn a little patience. You never know what might be around the corner.”

  At that moment, David’s door creaked open and the tenant strolled buoyantly into the kitchen. “Party time,” he smiled, trying to scoop a smidgen of frosting off the cake. Liz smacked his knuckles with a wooden spoon. “Ow,” said the tenant, and tousled Lucy’s hair. “How’s the birthday girl?”

  “There aren’t enough spoons,” Lucy said haughtily. “I’m going to get some more from the front.” She waltzed out with a mighty sniff.

  Liz and David exchanged a little eyebrow traffic.

  “A little frosty there,” he said.

  “Hmm,” said Liz, glancing down the hall. “This story you’re typing had better be worth it. She genuinely thinks you gave her the brush-off.”

  David let out a sneaky laugh. “Just keep her wondering for now. She’ll be gobsmacked when she knows what I’ve really been doing. It might not be the greatest story in the worl
d, but it’s the thought that counts — I hope.”

  “She’ll be thrilled,” said Liz, reaching into the fridge. “Will you finish it today? I can’t wait to hear it.”

  David shook his head. “Done the beginning and some of the middle, but I haven’t even thought about the ending yet.” He took a grape from a bowl of fruit salad and popped it into the corner of his mouth. “I’ll ask Gadzooks when it’s closer to the time. He’s very good for inspiration, your dragon.”

  “Your dragon,” Liz said, shaking a gelatin ring out of its mold. “Whatever magic he brings belongs to you.”

  Meow, went Bonnington, treading his paws.

  David threw him a cat treat. Bonnington batted it across the kitchen, then dropped to the floor in hot pursuit. “Writing the story does feel a little magical. Sometimes I get so lost in the plot I find myself forgetting which parts are imagined and which are the parts that have actually happened.”

  “Or which parts have gone under the dishwasher,” Liz sighed. She frowned as Bonnington tried, unsuccessfully, to squeeze his pink nose under the machine.

  “It’s a little like being on a mystery tour,” said David, rescuing the treat with the blade of a knife. He washed off the fluff and returned it to Bonnington. “You sort of know you’re going somewhere but you can’t be sure where until you arrive. Does that make sense?”

  “Very literary,” said Liz. “Tell me, will the story have a happy ending?”

  David shrugged and snitched another grape. “Like I said, haven’t thought about it yet. Why? Is Lucy easily upset?”

  Liz ran her hands down the front of her apron. “To be honest, I wasn’t really thinking of Lucy.”

  David gave her an inquisitive look.

  “Me,” she said, flushing gently. “I get teary at the slightest thing. Last year we watched Bambi for Lucy’s birthday. I was crying from start to finish. Very embarrassing.”

  “Mom, which spoons?” a snappy voice called.

  “There are only a few good ones!” Liz bellowed in reply. She took off her apron. “Better go and help.”