Sharon nodded. “I feel the same way.”
I wasn’t so sure.
The chief spoke into his radio, asking for two volunteers to escort us inside. A few minutes later, a short blonde woman who introduced herself as Pat showed up. “Eric’s coming too,” she told the chief. While we waited for him, Pat asked us friendly questions about things such as how long we’d lived in Stoneybrook. My dad answered them. I still wasn’t interested in talking to anyone.
Soon, Eric, a tall African-American firefighter, appeared. “We checked and it’s safe now to approach. Are you folks ready to check things out in there?” he asked, nodding toward the house.
My dad and Sharon said they were.
I felt like screaming, “No! I’m not ready and I don’t know if I ever will be!” But did I?
No way.
I stood up and followed the others. Feeling numb, I walked toward the house. Kristy followed me.
We didn’t have to walk up the porch stairs; the porch was pretty much flattened. And the front door was nothing but a splintered frame. Pat led the way through it as Eric stood back, waiting for us to pass. Two of the outer walls still stood — the one facing front and the one on the left. The back wall and the one on the right, where the kitchen had been, were gone. The ceiling was gone too, at least where my room had been. Sharon and Dad’s room didn’t exist anymore either. Nor did the attic. That ceiling had fallen in too. The corner of the house where Dawn’s room was, the one nearest to the barn, still stood. That meant that the secret passage might still be there.
The floor was covered with wet, blackened debris — pieces of the ceiling, chunks of wood, partially burned objects I couldn’t identify. I had to watch every step I took. Pat and Eric led the way, pointing out the gaping holes in the floor.
There was a terrible blend of smells in the air. It didn’t smell like the nice kind of fire you have in your fireplace. Most of the smells were completely unfamiliar. There was one like burned rubber — maybe from the upholstered chairs? — and one like a huge wet dog. That must have been from all the water the firefighters had poured onto the house.
I stood in the middle of what used to be the living room and looked up. With the second floor and the attic gone, and the roof torn open, I could see straight up to blue sky.
It was the strangest feeling.
“Wow,” breathed Kristy. She was standing next to me, staring upward. “That is so weird.”
“You never get used to it either.” That was Pat, who was standing nearby. Her firefighter’s coat was hanging open, her hair was falling out of its ponytail, and her face was smudged with soot. She looked exhausted.
“This is where the couch was,” Sharon said in a bewildered voice. She had picked her way through the debris covering the living room floor and was staring at a spot in front of her. A bulging lump on the ground with a couple of springs poking out of it looked as if it might once have been a couch. She waved a hand around. “And the TV was over there, and the bookshelves —” Her voice broke. “The bookshelves,” she repeated. “All my favorite books. And the pictures of Dawn and Jeff.” She put her face in her hands and I could tell that she was crying again.
My dad found his way to her and put an arm around her shoulders. “This won’t be easy,” I heard him say. “But we’ll get through it.”
Sharon nodded. “Go ahead and check your study,” she told him. “I know you want to see what’s left.”
“If anything,” he said grimly. He gave her one more hug and then headed toward his study, which is — or rather, used to be — off the living room. I headed that way too, and so did Pat.
My dad looked devastated as he glanced around at what was left of the room. “I — I just can’t believe it,” he said. “How can all of this be here one moment and gone the next?” He shook his head. “I never should have kept my files here. They would have been safer at the office.”
“Maybe,” said Pat. “But a fire can strike anywhere.”
My dad started poking through some of the piles of debris on the floor. “Maybe I can salvage some things,” he said. “Maybe some of my computer disks will still be readable.”
Pat frowned. “I hate to tell you, but disks melt even before paper burns. Do you have files backed up on your office computer by any chance?”
My dad brightened a bit. “Actually, I do. Not everything, but a lot.” Then his face fell. “But I’ve still lost so much.” He looked over at me with a little smile. “Remember that pencil holder you made for me when you were in kindergarten? I still had that on my desk. I never found anything I liked better than that tin can covered with macaroni pieces.”
I tried to smile back at him. “I’ll make you another one,” I wanted to say. But the words wouldn’t come out.
“Well.” My dad sighed. “I guess I can spend some more time in here later. We should probably look over the rest of the house first.”
Pat agreed. Eric and Sharon joined us as we picked our way into the kitchen, which was in even worse shape than the rest of the house. There was really nothing left in there except for the burned-out shells of the refrigerator, stove, dishwasher, and sink. There were more gross smells in the kitchen, smells I couldn’t identify. I thought of all the delicious smells there had been in that room over time. My dad’s waffles. Sharon’s vegetable stir-fry. A pan of brownies. The kitchen had been the center of our home, and now it was gone. Just gone.
“These old kitchens,” murmured Pat. “I’ve seen it happen before. The wiring just isn’t set up for all the appliances we use nowadays.”
“We had it checked —” my dad began.
“I’m sure it was up to code,” said Eric. “But things can still go wrong.” He shrugged. “The investigators may be able to tell you exactly what happened, depending on what they find.”
Sharon reached out to touch the stove. “It’s still warm,” she said. “The stove feels as if I’d just been cooking on it.” She turned to look around her. “All my spices,” she said. “My cookbooks. I’ve had some of those since college.”
It was overwhelming. How could we begin to remember everything that we’d lost? Think about it. Close your eyes and try to picture every single thing in your kitchen. The boxes of cereal. The pictures on the walls. The clock. The coffee machine. The can opener. Hundreds of other items — maybe thousands!
And that’s just the kitchen.
“Cookbooks can be replaced,” my dad said, hugging her. “Remember, the important thing is that we’re all safe. None of us was hurt. That’s all that matters.”
He kept saying that, but I wasn’t convinced. Somehow, even though none of us had been hurt, I felt as if someone or something had died.
I looked down into a pile of charred junk and saw something glinting. I bent to pick it up. A fork. It was covered in soot and sort of bent, but I recognized it as one of our forks. One of the ones my dad and I had brought to this house when we moved in. It might have even been the fork I had eaten dinner with the night before. I handed it to Sharon. She took it, tears rolling down her face.
We moved through the house, looking at what was left. The bathtub. The fireplace (funny, huh?). Two toilets. Piles and piles of junk that we would have to dig through.
“I left my wedding ring on the bedside table,” Sharon told Pat at one point. “Do you think there’s any chance I’ll find it?”
“You never know,” Pat said. “The strangest things can turn up when you start shoveling. One woman found her son’s bronzed baby shoes at the bottom of a huge pile of debris.”
I thought of the things that were most precious to me. My journal. My pictures. The small cedar box where I keep letters and certain sentimental things such as ticket stubs from movie dates with Logan. I could see now that I wasn’t likely to find any of it.
Suddenly, I felt too tired to stand. Kristy must have noticed. “Want to come back to my house for a while?” she asked.
I shook my head. I wanted to keep searching. But Sharon
and my dad, who had overheard Kristy, insisted.
“You go on and get some sleep,” Dad told me. “You need your rest.” He hugged me, and so did Sharon.
Then I let Kristy lead me away.
Who’s Sparky? Good question. He’s a dog, a dalmatian. And he’s the Pike kids’ new best friend.
Abby and Jessi didn’t know anything about Sparky when they arrived to sit for the Pikes on Saturday morning. All they knew was that as soon as they’d heard about the fire, Mr. and Mrs. Pike had called Claudia’s number to arrange for a sitter so they could go to my house and help out. Claudia had called around to see who was free and Abby and Jessi ended up with the job. They were volunteering their time as a way of helping my family.
By the time they arrived, every one of the Pike kids had heard about the fire. The interesting thing, Jessi told me later, was how each of them was dealing with the news. “All of them were upset,” she told me, “and they were really worried about you and relieved to know that you were all right. But beyond that, they each had their own way of coping.”
“Jessi, Jessi, have you seen Mary Anne yet?” asked Claire, the youngest Pike (she’s five). She threw herself into Jessi’s arms when she and Abby walked into the dining room, where the Pike kids were finishing up a late breakfast. “Is she really okay? Really? The fire didn’t burn her?”
“She’s fine,” Jessi told her. “I saw her a little while ago. She’s just fine.”
“Is she going to have to move away from Stoneybrook now?” Claire asked worriedly.
“No way!” said Jessi. “Of course not.” She and Abby found seats at the table and settled in to answer more questions.
“But what about her house?” asked Margo (who’s seven). She was pushing a half-eaten pancake around on her plate. “What about Tigger? What about all her things?”
“Her house —” Jessi didn’t know exactly what to say about that. “She won’t be able to live in her house for a while,” she explained finally. “She and her dad and stepmom are going to stay at Kristy’s, did you know that?”
Margo nodded. “What about Tigger? Is he okay?”
“He’s fine,” Jessi assured her. “He’ll be with Mary Anne at Kristy’s.”
“But what about all her clothes and her favorite things?” asked Margo. “What about them?”
Abby spoke up. “A lot of Mary Anne’s things were burned up,” she said matter-of-factly. “But that’s not important. What’s important is that Mary Anne and her family are okay.”
Margo didn’t look convinced. “I know it’s good that they’re safe,” she said. “But if it was me, if my house was on fire, I would try to grab all my favorite things, like my shell from Sea City, and my best Beanie Babies, and —”
“You can’t do that,” Abby interrupted. “Fire is very dangerous. If there’s a fire in your house, the most important thing is to get out.”
“I know,” Margo admitted. “Mom and Dad taught us about that. We know what to do.”
“Stop, drop, and roll!” yelled ten-year-old Jordan, one of the triplets. He waved his fork around, scattering drops of maple syrup. “That’s what you do if your clothes catch fire.”
“We learned that at Fire Prevention Day,” said Adam (another of the triplets), “when they burned that car out on the recreation field. Remember? That was so cool.” He stuffed an entire small pancake into his mouth and chewed noisily.
“But I bet the fire at Mary Anne’s house was way cooler,” said Jordan. “I heard the flames were, like, a hundred feet high. And you could feel the heat a couple of blocks away.”
“And six fire trucks were there,” said Adam enthusiastically, swallowing his gigantic bite of pancake. “Even a ladder truck. That is so cool.”
Byron, the third triplet, was a little less swept up in the excitement. He tends to be more fearful than the other two. “How did the fire start?” he asked. “Was somebody playing with matches?” His plate was still stacked with pancakes. He didn’t seem to have much of an appetite.
“I don’t think that was it,” answered Abby. “But you’re right that playing with matches is really dangerous. So far the fire department thinks the fire at Mary Anne’s had to do with something in the electrical system.”
Byron nodded. He still looked worried. “How did they know when the fire started?” he asked.
“I guess it was because the fire alarms went off,” Abby told him. “Fortunately, Mr. Spier is one of those people who follows all the directions about keeping your alarms’ batteries fresh.”
“I’m going to tell Dad to check ours,” said Byron.
Adam and Jordan were still excitedly comparing notes on things they’d heard about the fire. “It took hours to put it out,” said Adam.
“I heard that one of the firefighters was almost hit by a falling beam,” said Jordan. “Those guys are so brave!”
“I might want to be a firefighter when I grow up,” put in Nicky, whose face was smeared with the raspberry jam he prefers on his pancakes. He’s eight.
“I used to think that,” said Adam. “Like, when I was in first grade. I thought it would be so cool to turn on the siren. But there’s a lot more to it than that.”
“I know,” Nicky said defensively. “It’s not just the siren part.”
But Abby had a feeling that the siren was, actually, what attracted Nicky the most. “How about sliding down the pole?” she asked.
“Yeah!” Nicky’s eyes lit up. “I always wanted to do that. And then they have their boots waiting at the bottom of the pole. They jump into those high boots and pull up their firefighter pants all at the same time. I saw it on a video.”
“I can’t believe the way you guys are talking,” Vanessa said. “It’s like all you care about is how cool everything is. What about Mary Anne? What about the tragedy of her life?” She held up a pad on which she’d been scribbling. Her plate of pancakes was untouched. “I’ve started a poem about it. I think it’s going to be really good too. It’s going to make everybody who reads it cry.”
Vanessa, who’s nine, wants to be a poet when she grows up. She’s known for creating epic poems for every occasion. Her siblings are sometimes a little impatient with the ones that go on for more than two pages.
“I’d like to hear your poem when it’s done,” Jessi told Vanessa, reaching out to pat her hand. “I bet it will be wonderful.”
Soon, Abby and Jessi could see that breakfast was over, so they organized a cleanup. With all the kids helping, it didn’t take long. At one point, when the kids were busy loading the dishwasher, Jessi pulled Abby aside and whispered an idea to her. Then she slipped off to make a phone call.
“Guess what?” she asked the kids when she came back to the room. The kitchen was now tidy and everything had been put away. “I know about a little field trip we could go on.”
“Where?” asked Claire.
“To the fire station!” Jessi told her. “I just called and asked if we could drop by, and they said they’d be glad to see us.”
Jessi had noticed how the news of the fire at my house was affecting the kids. She figured a trip to the fire station would give them a chance to talk about their fears and learn some rules about fire safety. She’d remembered hearing that the fire department welcomed visitors anytime. Sure enough, when she’d called to explain the situation, the firefighters on duty had been happy to invite them to drop by.
“Really?” asked Nicky.
“Cool!” Adam yelled.
“When can we go?” Claire looked eager.
“Right now,” said Jessi. “They’re waiting for us.”
And so they were. By the time Jessi and Abby and the Pikes arrived at the station (it’s quite a walk), the firefighters were set for visitors.
“Come on in, come on in,” said a big man who introduced himself as Mike. The kids walked into the station, looking around with interest at the trucks, the equipment, and the racks of coats. “The crew just finished cleaning our trucks,” Mike told us.
Sure enough, they were shiny and bright, gleaming as if they were brand-new. “That’s one of our big jobs, keeping our equipment clean and in working order.”
He introduced a couple of other firefighters, including a man who was on phone duty. Then he began a tour of the firehouse. He showed the kids where the firefighters cooked and ate and slept, and explained how they had to be ready at a moment’s notice if a fire was reported.
“Then you slide down the pole, right?” Nicky asked eagerly.
“Unfortunately, we don’t have a pole here.” Mike sighed. “We have to use the stairs.”
Nicky looked disappointed.
“We run down pretty fast,” Mike continued, “and jump into our boots. Want to try on a pair of boots?”
“Yeah!” Nicky’s face lit up. The other kids were excited too. Mike led them all through the firehouse, letting them try on not only boots but the heavyweight coats and pants the firefighters wear. He showed them how an oxygen mask works and let them try one on.
“We can’t let you try on our hats because they’re too heavy for young heads,” Mike explained. “But here are some hats you can have for keeps.” He handed out red plastic firefighter helmets that said FIRE CHIEF on them. Jessi wondered for a second if the kids would think the helmets were babyish, but they accepted them happily.
Mike handed out pamphlets too. “Ten Tips for Fire Safety,” said one. It told about installing smoke detectors, making a fire escape plan, and other things families can do. He even had a pamphlet for Jessi and Abby called “Fire Safety Tips for Baby-sitters.”
Then he let the kids climb all over the truck and showed Nicky where the switch was for the siren. “That’s the best part of being a fireman,” Abby heard Mike confide.
Just as the kids were finishing their tour, Abby heard barking. “That’s Sparky,” said Mike. “One of the other guys took him home last night. I’m glad he’s back.” A door opened, and a wriggling, happy dalmatian ran in to greet Mike. The kids gathered around.