Nothing happened in the night. Ada forgot to stay awake and see if Tilly snuck out to have sex with Raff.
The next day she walked home from the pool. It was too hot to skip, it was even too hot to walk but she had to so she clung to the fences where there was sometimes shade from trees. It was like walking in an oven, the sun baking her as if she was a biscuit and the sky just tired out and sucked of all colour. Everyone had said the cool change was on its way. As far as Ada could tell, the heat was fighting it. But her thoughts were drowned out by the wail of a siren, and a fire engine sped past her. Ada took off her hat and looked up. A funnel of dark smoke dirtied the sky. Another fire engine sped past.
It occurred to Ada that her house may have burnt down. But then she shook her head. Her dad said fires come from the north. And fires don’t jump the train tracks either. So it couldn’t be her house that was on fire.
She stared at the great cloud of dark smoke. Ada wasn’t sure. She used to believe her dad knew everything, but she didn’t believe that anymore. The air was solid as a wall and now it smelled of burning leaves and charcoal. Specks of soot swirled in the sky. Ada remembered the stalking death and the fox and the chickens. She remembered the terrible thing in the living room. And the terrible thing she had done to Toby Layton. She stopped. Her swimming bag slid off her shoulder. Now Ada was frightened, not for herself, not for Toby. Ada was frightened about the fire and where it was going and who it was aiming for? Someone in her house? Or PJ?
Ada marched up the street. She would need to protect that person, or PJ, with a blanket. The foreboding jiggered inside her. The fire was the terrible thing. It was there. Finally. She had known it all along. She had to get PJ out of the house. Or someone.
People were coming out of their houses. They could smell the smoke and hear the fire engines. What if it was Tilly who was up there? It wouldn’t be Ben because Ben would have known how to get away. If the fire was to get anyone it would be Tilly.
Ada had to get a blanket. They were in the laundry, in the cupboard, on the top shelf. She would need a stool. The smoke wound around her. Her eyes began to sting. Tilly had told her of the blackened skin. She shouldn’t have. But Tilly had changed; Tilly was sly now and pretty, but she was still Tilly. And she didn’t mean to change. She didn’t mean to love Raff. She just did it because life had put its weight behind her.
But what her dad and Mrs Layton had done in the living room was on purpose. The fire was not because of Tilly, but because of them in the living room. God had seen it and thorns of rage had sprouted on his back and he breathed a hellfire down on them, on their house. Now the sky was grey, the road stank, the grass was scorched yellow and brittle as paper. People stood in their dry gardens, sheltering their eyes. Ada began to run. It had happened: the fire had exploded; the flames were licking up the trees and burning them into nothing. Their cinders already twirled in the air like falling confetti. Ada had to get the blanket. She could see it in her mind’s eye, a ball of flames hurling through the sky.
‘Ada!’
Ada spun around. Ben was on his bike coming up the hill. He was shouting. His face was red.
‘Ada, don’t go up there.’
But Ben wasn’t the boss. Ada shouted back. ‘I’m going to get PJ. And Tilly.’
Ben caught up with her. He stopped and wiped his forehead and swore. He said it was too fucking hot. He told her not to be bloody stupid. There was a fire. She had to wait. He would get PJ. But he didn’t say anything about Tilly.
‘Where’s Tilly, though?’
‘I don’t know, probably on her way home.’
Ada shook her head. She was going for the blanket. Cars were coming down the street. Mr Staum tooted at them and leaned out his window and told them to go back.
‘Dink me,’ Ada ordered. She climbed on. Ben scratched his head and swore again. He said the deal was if he turned back she was coming with him. Ada didn’t care for deals.
But then the fireman came striding down the street, waving his arms wide like windscreen wipers. ‘Hey,’ he shouted at them. ‘Go back.’
Ada squeezed Ben like a horse she was giddying up, but Ben stopped. Ada pressed him forward. ‘He’s not the boss of us,’ she whispered. But Ben didn’t move. Ben didn’t really understand. He didn’t realise the fire’s intention. He didn’t know about the living room. He hadn’t felt the dry sucking of death in the air. He didn’t even know they needed the blanket.
Once the fireman was close enough, Ada yelled, ‘We have to go home. It’s our house just up there and our dog PJ could be there, and he only has three good legs. And we don’t know where our sister is.’
The fireman wore a hard hat and a shiny yellow coat. He had brown skin and grey hair on his face, just like Mr Layton. He put his hands on his hips. He wouldn’t let her through. He wasn’t as nice as Mr Layton. He was closing the street. He told them to go and wait at the oval. He said all the houses had been cleared already. No one was there. He said the fire was in the bush block. It was the one between their house and Toby Layton’s house. Ada paled. Her patch of bush. William Blake would die. And Emily Dickinson. She shook her head. The fireball was after them. She climbed off the bike and began to run again. Ben called her back. The fireman grabbed her by the arm.
Ada shouted at him. ‘What about our sister, Tilly? She’s always in trouble. And our dog, PJ. He only has three legs!’ Ada couldn’t tell him about William Blake. The fireman wouldn’t understand.
He let her arm go, and looked at her with a frown. His voice softened. ‘Your sister can’t be in the house. Everyone has left. I’ll make sure your dog is taken away too. But I’m not going to let you through.’
Ada didn’t know if she could believe him. She was too afraid, and her mind was twitching. She couldn’t hear herself. Ada felt it in her bones. She couldn’t explain about the terrible thing, the old windmill’s doom, because no one would understand her. No one could see it except her. Ada pointed up the hill. ‘Our house is the one on the corner just up there. The one with the pointy tree by the gate. PJ will be on the veranda. Call out his name loudly because he doesn’t hear well.’
The fireman nodded. ‘Where’s your mother? I bet she’s on the oval with PJ now wondering where you are. You should get going.’
Ben began to turn the bike around. Ada twisted back and watched the red glow spread like a stain over the sky. Now the fireball would come. And she couldn’t get the blanket. She pressed her hands to her eyes, but the tears came anyway, so she closed them, and in her mind she began to plead with the fire-breathing god.