Pyro by Monique Polak Read Free Book Online

concentrate. Tracy is telling me about how she got into playing ukulele. I’m nodding and saying “Uh-huh,” but nothing registers.
    When we get to Tracy’s house, she punches my shoulder and disappears inside before I can try to kiss her good night. Maybe it’s just as well. This doesn’t feel like the right kind of night for kissing.
    It feels like the right kind of night for starting a fire.
    Since we ran into Mom and James, I haven’t been able to think of anything else. I fly home on my skateboard picturing that canister in the garage. I can feel its weight and smell the gasoline. It’s not that I want to start a fire. I need to.
    I’m skating so fast I nearly crash into the garage door.
    When I hoist open the door, my eyes land on the canister. I’m breathing quickly now, and my heart is pounding. Ba-dum . Ba-dum .
    It isn’t easy to skateboard with a canister of gasoline. It requires good balance. Luckily, I can do it. I can’t go as quickly as I want to, but nothing can stop me. The impulse is bigger than me.
    My breathing starts to settle down, but my heart is still pounding. I’m already halfway to the old golf course. When I hit a crack in the road, a little gasoline spills on the pavement.
    It’s dark at the golf course. It’s a good thing I grabbed a flashlight from the garage. I wade through the tall grass. There’s no grass where I started my last fire. The old shed isn’t far. Long ago, when the golf club had lots of members, they came to the shed for drinks and snacks.
    The beam of my flashlight lands on the shed, or what’s left of it. There’s a stone foundation and remnants of the structure. It’s basically a lean-to of old gray boards. They will be perfect kindling.
    For a second, I think I hear someone humming. But when I strain my ears to hear better, I decide it’s a bird. Maybe birds make their nests in the tall grass.
    I drop my skateboard and make my way to the shed. It’s hard to imagine that fancy people used to hang out here. I wonder where they all are now. Dead, probably.
    I hold the canister like I’m watering plants. This reminds me of James and his stupid tomatoes. A drop of gasoline lands on one of my sneakers, and I rub the toe in the dirt to get rid of the oily spot.
    It doesn’t take long to empty the canister. I’m on autopilot when I reach for my matches. I kick at the old wooden boards to create space between them. Like Dad used to tell me, a good fire needs oxygen.
    I can already imagine the whoosh this fire will make when it ignites. I’m about to strike the match when I notice something on the ground I didn’t see before. It’s a dented steel thermos and a blue tin plate. The plate has bits of dried food on it. Someone must have used it not long ago.
    A terrible thought crosses my mind. Could this abandoned lean-to be somebody’s house?
    Bob. This could be where Bob comes to sleep! That thermos and plate might belong to him. And if it isn’t Bob’s place, it must belong to somebody like him.
    I remember my conversation with Tracy. So Bob’ll finally have a roof over his head. But this abandoned clubhouse is the roof over Bob’s head. Don’t you have a heart, Franklin? Do I?
    When I hear the fire engine’s siren, I think I’m dreaming. Why is the fire brigade coming here? I haven’t even started the fire. It’s as if they knew what I was planning.
    I look toward where the sound is coming from. I expect to see the fire engine’s red, white and yellow lights burning in the night, but I don’t see them.
    The fire engine is headed somewhere else.
    Someone has set another fire in Montreal West.

Chapter Thirteen
    I grab my skateboard and jump on as soon as I reach the road. At first, I follow the siren’s wail. The air is warm, but my arms get cold when I see the fire engine’s lights and realize how close this fire is to