Coming soon—Runaway Fire Read Chapt 1

Read the first chapter from the next book in the series:

I rolled over on top of the sagging mattress as Joey pulled on my

sleeve and let out one choked cough after another. “You okay?” I

mumbled, sitting up to rub my stinging eyes. I felt dizzy and sick

to my stomach. It seemed too hot in the cabin after a cool September

day. I tried to focus my sleep-muddied brain.

“What is it, you sick?” I asked.

“It’s real smoky, David.”

I stumbled to check the stove. Maybe the pipe was half closed.

I felt for the lever. Eyes burning. Thunder in my ears. The orange

flashes at the window finally registered. Not a reflection from the

stove. Fire outside. I ran for the door and threw it open.

Fire was devouring the tops of the trees and descended on us like

an angry hive. Smoke and embers swarmed, blinding and stinging.

I ran back inside the cabin. “Fire,” I croaked through my smoke-infested

throat as I hauled Beagle to his feet.

“Shoes. Then out!” I hollered at both boys. “Head for the boat.”

There was only one thing I couldn’t leave behind. I bolted to

the corner behind the door, grabbed Grampa’s guitar case, and

sprinted after them.

We stumbled toward the shore by memory alone: eyes burning

blind, hot wind lashing us with blistering embers, the stench of

ashes like acid in my nostrils. I never knew that fire was so loud.

It screamed and hissed, gnashing at our backs while tentacles of

smoke strangled us. We weren’t the only ones running. A deer cut

me off, plunging into the water as we dragged the rowboat across

the sand.

Beagle jumped in, then Joey. I handed over the guitar case,

pushed the boat off, and clambered aboard. Pulling hard at the

oars, I finally got past the fallout area of embers and felt the temperature

drop. The air became breathable—almost. I picked up the

bailing bucket, scooped seawater, and dumped it on a few orange

embers in the bottom of the stern. I passed the bucket up and the

boys did the same in the bow. At least the boat hadn’t caught.

We were safe enough, for now, but homeless again.

Hour after hour the glow from the fire pulsed against the sky

behind us as we drifted toward the mainland. I glanced down at

Beagle and Joey sleeping curled against each other in the bottom

of the boat, half covered by the moth-eaten sail. The engine had

died an hour earlier, but I saw no point in waking them to rig it.

There was no wind.

The water lay like a rusty sheet of iron. No waves disturbed the

reflection of the eerie burning light. Even as the sun began to rise,

when I closed my eyes, I could still see the glow. My clothes clung

to me, damp and stinking like a smoldering log.

What was Grampa’s crazy old saying about a red sky? He used

to have a line for everything. I could hear his crackly voice in

my head.

“Pay attention to the warning signs, Sonny,” he’d say, then boom:

“Red sky at night, sailor’s delight. Red sky in morning, sailor’s

warning.”

“Red sky, red sky!” his crazy parrot would screech from her perch

by the open window, then fluff up her feathers and flap. Why that

bird never flew away was beyond me, with all the ranting Grampa

did. Sometimes I wanted to fly right out that window myself.

“Birds of a feather stick together,” Grampa would say, petting

that mangy old bird.

“Stick, stick, stick,” the bird would squawk, followed by, “Warning,

warning, warning.”

“Red sky in morning, sailor’s warning,” I muttered, hoping if I

said it out loud it would quit haunting me. A shiver zipped up my

back. I tried to shake it off.

As the sun came up, the red glow faded and a wind rolled off

the mainland, pushing our boat back toward the islands. I reached

down and gave Joey a shove.

“Up and at ’em, boys.”

Joey sat up, rubbing his eyes. I could tell my little brother didn’t

know where he was. “We’re drifting,” I said. “We need the sail.”

“Can we head back now, David?” Joey asked. “I bet they got the

fire out.”

“There’s no going back,” I said, and his boney, eleven-year-old

shoulders sagged. “I saw the fire come right down the hill. Our

cabin is toast for sure.”

“Couldn’t we build another one?” He wasn’t able to keep the

note of pleading from his voice.

“We can’t hide out there forever,” I said. “We never could.”

Beagle yawned and stretched beside Joey. “We’re not going

home?”

“Home?” I reached for the sail. “That cabin, that island was only

home for the summer, guys. It wasn’t reality.”

“But what about all our stuff?” Beagle asked.

“Most of it was crap. Anyway, it’s all ashes now.”

Beagle pouted. “I liked my crap.”

“Yeah, me too, and I could use my crappy sweater right now,”

Joey said, frowning at me like it was my fault.

“I saved your crappy hides. Just be happy we didn’t all end up like

grilled hot dogs,” I said. Beagle glanced toward the island. “When

I grow up, I’m gonna save all my money and buy a house over

there.” He squinted hard, but we were too far from Galiano for the

island to look like anything but a gray smoky blur.

“I’m gonna make it my forever home,” he continued.

“Cool,” Joey said. “I’ll come live with you. We can go crabbing

and fishing every day.”

I couldn’t help smiling. “Me too,” I said. “Only I’ll buy the land

next door and build my own house. Then I won’t have to take care

of you guys forever. But right now we need to rig that sail or we’ll

end up in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.”

When we grow up, I thought, hammering the rudder into place.

Maybe I should say if we grow up. Somehow, I’d become an adult

to my brother and his pal. Only, at seventeen, I didn’t feel grown

up. I wasn’t always sure I could take care of myself—or even wanted

to. Yet Joey and Beagle were counting on me like I was their dad or

something. I needed to keep them safe. I needed to keep them fed.

And I’d sworn to myself that they’d never land back in foster care

as long as I could help it.

The summer had been easy enough. Just one long camping trip

on the island: away from the city, away from the police and social

workers, and away from druggies and boozers. Away from the

memories of our old life: when we’d actually had a mother and, for

most of it, a father who cared about Joey and me.

Beagle hadn’t had a life before foster care. He thought his crappy

foster mother was pretty okay. Now, even I knew she wasn’t so bad.

She was half brainless on something most of the time, but at least

she left him alone. He could always dig out something to eat, even

if it was only stale cereal, and he didn’t mind being locked in the

basement as long as the TV worked.

It was at that house that Joey and Beagle met after we got tossed

into the system. By the time I’d ditched the group home where

they’d dumped me, Joey and Beagle were crazy-glued together.

There was no leaving him behind.

………………

Fire. That had been the excuse in my head for grabbing them and

running. What if their drugged-up foster mother left them locked

in the basement and there was a fire? Kind of a joke, now; they’d

just come pretty damn close to dying by fire with me in charge.

A part of me had wanted life on the island to go on forever, even

though I knew it wasn’t realistic. It was easy to pretend because

the boys felt that way too. We took care of ourselves and kept to

ourselves. There was never next week or next month, just a series of

tomorrows. Who needed to plan beyond tomorrow?

Just then the sail filled and we glided forward. As the city grew

in front of us, I could hear its angry buzz swarming as though

to swallow us whole. Another shiver twisted my spine. How the

hell was I going to keep Joey and Beagle away from the city vermin?

Where were we gonna sleep? How was I going to feed all of

us? My charges might be small, but they had appetites like grown

lions. And who was I kidding? I wasn’t street smart. Hell, I wasn’t

sure I was smart, period.