Previous Challenge Entry (Level 1 – Beginner)
Topic: Fire-fighter (10/05/06)
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TITLE: Tongues of Flame | Previous Challenge Entry
By Mary Smith
10/05/06 -
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“The tongue is also a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.” James 3:6 NIV
“Have you done your homework?”
Adam looked at me through the carefully styled disarray of his bangs, his eyes speaking just about every eighth-grade epithet I could remember from my own stint in middle school, before he went back to mashing buttons on his game controller.
I pushed his feet off the coffee table. “At least keep your disgusting socks off the furniture.”
“They’re not disgusting.”
“I don’t care. Off the table.”
He sighed heavily and humped his way out of his usual slouch on the sofa. “Don’t you have something better to do than wreck my afternoon?”
I huffed and looked into the kitchen where Mitzy, our pudgy calico, was carefully preening one stumpy leg. Mom had left instructions for supper, which meant she expected me to peel the carrots, boil the potatoes and preheat the oven for the casserole in the refrigerator before she got home at six. Plus do my own homework because I was leaving tonight with my youth group for a cottage getaway and I definitely didn‘t want to bring my homework along.
“Well, could you at least turn down the volume on your stupid game? It’s giving me a headache.”
“It’s not stupid. You’re stupid.”
“Shut up, cheese-head. Who‘s the one getting D‘s in English?”
This earned me a heavy glare. Adam had gotten nearly all A’s in grade school, and it had become a real point of sensitivity with him that he hadn’t been able to carry his average with him into middle school. But I merely smirked and headed into the kitchen. Right now, I was in no mood to be nice. He got to goof off while I scrambled. It wasn’t fair.
Half way through peeling the carrots, I realized that I’d been staring blankly for minutes at a picture-magnet on the fridge. The picture was of me, Mom and Adam, the summer after Dad died, at Grandma’s farm in Orangeville where Adam and I had spent most of our free time trying to coax her horses to eat things from our hands.
The part I remembered about that visit, however, better than any picture could remind me, was the night of the huge thunderstorm when the hundred year old oak in Grandma’s back yard had been blown over. The night Adam had crept into my attic bedroom, wondering if I would come and sleep in his room. Not because he was afraid, he’d insisted, but because he kept thinking that the roof would come off of the old farmhouse and I’d be sucked out into the swirling darkness by the unruly wind.
Now, though… I smirked sardonically. Now, Adam probably hoped I’d be swallowed up by a tornado. Something had changed in him -- in both of us -- after that summer. We’d stopped being friends. We’d learned how to hurt each other.
“Laura?”
I’d stopped peeling the carrot in my hand at some point; this was going to take forever.
“Laura!”
“What?”
“Do you smell that?”
“No.” But I dutifully sniffed the air.
“Smells like smoke.”
It did smell like smoke. Frowning, I stepped into the living room to find Adam on his feet, his nose working.
“Is it from the T.V.?” I asked.
“No,” he answered with a surprising amount of calm, considering how my heart was pounding. My mind began to race suddenly as I tried to recall where Mom kept the fire extinguisher.
And then we heard the sound of approaching sirens.
Outside, we realized that the smoke was coming from a house across the street, apparently empty. We watched as fire-fighters piled out of their trucks and went about hastily trying to put the flames out before it was too late.
Adam was shaking. So was I. When he took a breath a second later it almost startled me.
“I still want to be a fire-fighter,” he said in a tone I hadn’t heard in at least three years. “Like Dad was.”
A part of me yearned to reach out and take his hand. I put a palm on his shoulder instead and pulled him into something that was almost a hug. And suddenly, I knew: it was time to put away childish things. The idea made me smile.
“Me, too.”
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