The Fire

The Fire Leslie Hughes

It was springtime again. Sara loved springtime, because it meant playing outside, skipping rope, riding her bike, and most of all the end of school. She hated school; it meant having to sit still all day, staring at the blackboard and books, and too many kids who were bigger than she was. However, next year she would be in grade five, and in her small town school that was the oldest grade. Nobody ever picked on the grade fives; they picked on everyone else.
During the last two months of the school year, Sara would ride her bike everyday. There was no bus system for the kids who lived in the town and it was the quickest way to travel the mile to and from school. This particular day, when she rounded the corner on her way home, she realized that she was catching up to three other girls. It was Kelly and Marie, who lived two doors down, and Diana, who lived a few blocks away. Sara only vaguely knew of Diana. Her family was well-off. Sara’s mother thought they were snobs.
As Sara approached on her bike, she saw Diana turn her head and look back, and then she tugged on Marie’s sleeve and said something to her. They stopped and turned around, each assuming a particular position on the street.
“Oh no, not again,” thought Sara, but continued pedaling toward her house.
The three girls put their arms out, creating some sort of human fence. Sara stopped pedaling, dreading what was to come. She back-pedaled to brake as she approached them. Their faces were amused and devious.
“Hey, little girl,” said Diana, “Where are ya goin’?”
“Home,” said Sara, timidly.
“Oh yeah? Well, maybe we’re not gonna let you.” Diana’s voice was mocking. Sara felt her heart start to pound, but she remained quiet.
“Yeah, we’re not gonna let you,” Marie echoed, trying to sound as tough as Diana, but not quite pulling it off.
Diana spoke up again. “You have to tell us the password.”
Sara was still quiet; shocked.
“Well?”
“I-I don’t know it.” Her heart was in her throat now.
“Well, maybe you’ll have to give us something then. How about that bracelet?”
Sarah clutched her wrist. “No!” It had been a gift from her best friend Rachel, before she moved away last year.
“You’re not going anywhere then.” Her voice was resolute.
“Yeah, you have to stay here,” Marie said.
Kelly was quiet. She just stood there uncomfortably holding up her end of the fence. Sara remembered when they used to play dolls together in Kelly’s back shed. That was years ago.
“Let me go home!” Sara tried to put some assertion into her voice.
The girls looked at each other, clearly at a loss.
“Let’s just go home,” said Kelly. “This is boring.”
Diana conceded. “Yeah, we have better things to do, but next time you’d better know the password, or else.” She looked at Sara’s wrist with a wicked smile.
“Or else?” Sara thought. From now on she would leave her bracelet at home, just to be safe.
The three girls looked at each other with amused pride as they finally let her pass. Sara raced home. Her father’s garage was straight ahead. She saw his expressionless face looking from the bay door, but then he turned back to his welding. He was a mechanic, and a handyman. He could build cars from the ground up; the neighbourhood boys loved him.
Sara entered the yard and put her bike behind the house. Dad didn’t greet her; he had his welding mask on. She went inside and upstairs to her room to wait for Mom, who would be home from work soon. She worked at a fancy hotel in the city. From her bedroom window Sara could see Kelly, Marie and Diana going into their shed. Kelly and Marie played in there often to stay away from their brother Lucas. He was a few years older than they were and went to junior high in the next town over. Last year when Sara was walking home from school, she passed him on the street and he snuck into someone’s yard and picked a tulip for her. Now he mostly didn’t notice her when he got off the bus with his friends.
A car door slammed in the driveway, signaling Mom’s arrival and Sara knew that she’d have to help with supper. The next half hour was a flurry of peeling potatoes and chopping salad, and Sara talking about school. She left out the bike ride home; however, as her happy times with Mom were so few and far between.
She sensed the screen door open and the air get stiff as Dad walked into the house. Sara abruptly ended her story about one of her classmates and absorbed herself in mashing the potatoes. Dad washed his hands for what seemed like an eternity, and then went into the living room. The air lightened somewhat and Sara finished her story.
They always ate supper in the living room. Mom liked it that way because Dad could focus his cold, blue eyes on the television, rather than on them. Sara ate her vegetables and minute steak methodically, while watching people passing by the picture window, walking their dogs or having a stroll before dinner.
Dad finished eating, pushed back his TV tray and lit a cigarette with the matches that Mom always brought home for him from her work. The red logo of the hotel where she worked contrasted against the black background of the matchbox. When she was younger Sara would make the empty matchboxes into tiny cars and string them together to make trains in which to put her miniature dolls. There were probably still some lying around in her closet.
Sara started picking up the dishes to bring into the kitchen when she noticed Lucas and his friend Danny walking down the street with their baseball gloves. Sometimes Sara would see them playing ball at the park after supper when she passed by on the way to her friend’s house. They didn’t seem to notice when she would stop briefly to watch. She turned slightly to watch them walk down the street.
“Dammit, Sara!” Dad let out a thunderous roar. She snapped her head back to see her father covered in coffee. She must have knocked it over as she was picking up his plate.
“I’m sorry,” she muttered, “I’ll get a cloth.”
“Sorry? You think sorry’s good enough when you damn near scalded me?”
Dad threw his TV tray against the wall. His blue eyes bored into her face. Sara took a few steps back, his plate still in her hands.
“You have to pay attention to what you’re doing, not staring at those boys. Is this how you were brought up?”
“No, I guess not.”
“You guess not?” Dad’s voice raised an octave.
“John, calm down,” Mom said, her voice shaking, as she stood up from the couch.
Dad turned his fury toward her. “Helen, stay out of this!” He shoved her back down on the couch.
“Sara,” he said, clenching his fists, “go upstairs to your room, before I get any angrier. I don’t want to see your face right now.”
Sara gingerly placed the plate down on the coffee table and climbed the stairs to her room. She knew better than to disobey. Dad had hit her only a few times, but the last time he did, she’d fallen down and sprained her wrist. He’d made her tell the doctor that she fell off her bike.
From her bedroom Sara could still hear the commotion coming from downstairs, so she put on her headphones and turned the music up loud. She knew eventually Dad would be finished and go back outside and Mom would come up and try to convince her that he didn’t really mean to act that way.
“You know your dad had a really hard time of it growing up,” she would say. “Your grandfather used to hit him all the time, sometimes with a belt.”
“Mom, why can’t we just move away by ourselves?” Sara would answer. “I’ll get a job to help out and I’ll do all the housework…please…”
“No dear, there’s no way I could get by without your father.”
Sara closed her eyes, hoping she’d be asleep by the time Mom came up. She just didn’t want to hear it again.

The next day was beautiful, sunny and warm. By the time Sara walked out of school in the afternoon, she didn’t even need her sweater. She walked over to the bicycle racks and unlocked her bike. The air smelled wonderful, like it often did in the springtime; like baby leaves and new flowers, but today Sara didn’t care to appreciate it. Mrs. Richardson, her teacher had just finished chastising her for not doing her homework again. She was always picking on her for something. Then one of the boys, overenthusiastic about getting out of school on such a nice day, had accidentally shoved Sara into the door on his way out, hurting her hand. She climbed on her bike and headed for home. The sun and the warm breeze made her feel better and she actually started enjoying her ride, despite the dull ache in her fingers.
And then there they were. Diana, Marie and Kelly turned to face her as she rounded the last corner almost as if they’d sensed she was coming. Sara’s muscles tensed, and she would have turned around, but this was the only way home. She thought about hanging back and waiting until they got home and went in their shed before going home herself as she’d done other times. They’d already seen her though and she was sure they would just wait for her.
She stopped her bike at the end of the road and watched them as they made their line across the street, arms outstretched.
“Hey little girl,” Diana’s nasal voice drifted through the air toward Sara and she cringed.
“Are you coming little girl?” asked Marie
The ache in Sara’s hand became a nagging throb. She couldn’t take it from them one more time. She started pedaling again, faster and faster, trying to pick up as much speed as she could, thinking maybe they’d get out of her way then, or maybe she could just plow right through them. The girls saw the speed at which she was coming and looked hesitant for a moment, but then Diana and Marie held their arms out in front of them each grabbing one of her handlebars and stopping her as she tried to pass. Sara was flustered. She hadn’t been going fast enough. Her bike was too little. She was too little.
“Whoa! Where do you think you’re going?” Diana laughed at her attempt.
“Let me go by! Why don’t you just leave me alone?” Sara gasped.
“How can we let you go by when you never know the password?”
“Yeah, you need to tell us the password.”
“I told you I don’t know the password; I don’t think there even is one.”
“Do you think we’re stupid? Why would we ask for the password if there wasn’t one?”
Sara didn’t answer. She looked at her shoe.
“I think she thinks we’re stupid Marie,” Diana turned back to Sara. “Do you know what we do to little girls who call us stupid?”
Sara shook her head. She could see Dad at the end of the road, standing outside of his garage. He watched them do this to her everyday, and never did anything about it, just stared with a scowl on his face. She hated him for that almost as much as she hated him for hitting her.
Diana paused for a moment, and then looked at Sara’s bare wrist.
“Well if you don’t want to find out, you’d better bring that bracelet for me tomorrow. And don’t ever think about mouthing off to me again.”
She came toward Sara and shoved her off her bike, causing her to land on her sore hand. The girls ran off laughing. She had a knot in her throat and could feel the tears welling up in her eyes, but she couldn’t fight them back this time. She picked up her bike and walked into the driveway with it, sobbing uncontrollably. Dad was still standing there in front of the garage, but Sara refused to look at him as she put her bike away. He followed her to the back of the house.
“Why do you let them do that to you?”
“What do you mean?” Sara was baffled by his interest.
“Pick on you like that? Why do you let them do it? Why can’t you just stand up for yourself?”
“They’re bigger than me,” she mumbled, eyes downcast.
“Some excuse! Sara you can’t let people walk all over top of you! Where are you gonna get in life that way?”
Sara’s hand ached. His questioning was becoming irritating, and she didn’t know where he was going with it. She turned to go into the house, but he reached out and grabbed her arm, hard.
“Doesn’t it hurt you that they do this? Don’t you hate them for it yet? Obviously not enough, not enough to stand up to them!”
She couldn’t deal with this anymore. She couldn’t stand him touching her, so she wrenched her arm away and jumped back.
“You’re telling me to stand up to them? What are you thinking? Do you think that I actually believe that you care about me? Look at what you do! You’re the one that hurts me! You’re the one that I hate!”
Sara couldn’t move, only stand there with tears streaming down her face. She was too stunned by what she’d said to think about what she should do next. So was he.
His blue eyes blazed. She kept thinking that she’d better run; she’d better get out of there now. Who knew what he’d do to her this time.
But Dad didn’t do anything. He stared at her for a long moment, then turned around and walked away. Sara fought to catch her breath. She didn’t dare move from where she was, so she only peeked around the side of the house to see what he was going to do. He stood in the driveway for what seemed like an eternity, then lit a cigarette and walked down the street. As soon as he was out of sight, Sara ran into the house and up to her room. She huddled in a ball, shaking uncontrollably, wondering what was going to happen when he came back, wishing Mom would hurry up and get home. She sat like that for a long while, rocking back and forth to calm herself down.
Suddenly there were a lot of agitated voices on the road, followed by a great deal of commotion. Sara could smell smoke.
“Oh my god, he’s burning the house down with me inside,” she thought and immediately jumped up. When she looked out the window; however, she saw that it wasn’t her house that was on fire, but the shed that Kelly and Marie always played in, and it was spreading very rapidly to the back of their house. The sound of sirens was in the distance.
She really wanted to get a better look at what was happening, so she carefully climbed down the stairs, making sure Dad wasn’t in each room before passing through it. She went through the front door and out into the street. Black smoked filled the air. The fire engines were already there, and so were most of the neighbours.
As she got closer, she saw Lucas and Danny. They were coughing, but their mom was yelling at them anyway.
“What do you think you were doing in there? Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
“We didn’t do anything, honest,” Lucas wheedled, “We were just reading magazines in there. How could we have started a fire?”
“Don’t play dumb with me, young man! Kelly told me what you were doing in there. She said you two kicked them out of the shed, and then went in there to smoke cigarettes.”
Lucas wrung his hands. It was obvious she knew he was lying.
“But we didn’t start a fire,” he said, “We were inside and the fire came from outside. We smelled it before we knew! We just thought it was somebody burning leaves at first. It wasn’t us; it really wasn’t Mom!”
“Quit lying to me, Lucas! I hate it when you lie to me! Look, I even found your matches, see! Oh boy, wait ‘til you’re father gets home and sees this.”
She cast a forlorn look at her house. They had the fire under control now, but the backside of the house was charred black and the shed was destroyed. Sara didn’t look at the house for long though, when she noticed what was in his mother’s hand. The matches she’d been waving in their face as she was scolding them, the one’s that she thought they had started the fire with, were from her mother’s work! The logo from the hotel was scrawled across the front in bright red. She brought those matches home for Dad all the time. No one else in her small village would have them.
Sara looked around and through the crowd of people she saw her father standing alone, behind everyone else. His piercing blue eyes locked with hers and she felt a knot form in her stomach as she came to the sudden realization. In the years to come the two boys would still be blamed for the fire, no matter how many times they denied starting it. Lucas was not allowed to play with Danny for years afterward. No one else ever knew what Sara knew. She watched her father as he turned toward home, fumbling, as he opened a new box of matches and lit another cigarette.

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