Even from blocks away, I can see smoke clouding above the buildings and clogging the air, turning the smell of baking Cheerios into soot. I can feel it scratch at my lungs.
Dad pulls the fire truck over and stops right in front of the pizza shop. The lights flash red and blue, and the black smoke rises higher and higher in the sky.
I keep running and running, coughing into my sleeve, my eyes burning, and when I get closer I see loud orange flames punch through the side window of the shop with a pop! Glass shatters, and the force of the fire spits little shards across the ground, toward the humane society. The flames blast brighter and hotter, reaching.
The fire is big and angry and growing.
My legs stop running.
Half a block away, I slip behind a tree and watch.
Chief Reynolds is there and everyone’s moving fast, shouting demands. Passersby stop to watch, and my Dad yells for them to keep moving as he tries to organize the volunteer firefighters who are rushing toward the truck to set up cones and direct traffic, and I can’t take my eyes off the stretching flames.
It feels like night already because the smoke is filling the sky and smothering the sun and I have to squint to see all the workers moving fast.
I know exactly what they’re all doing too, because I’ve heard it a hundred times in their trainings at the firehouse. They’re assessing the fire and finding a good entry point. Then they have two things to do right away: One, find any victims. Two, locate the source of the fire and make a plan to snuff it out.
The flames are spilling fast out of the pizza shop window and licking long tongues toward the humane society, and I want to sprint and push through the front door and get all the dogs out of their crates and let them run after me down the hall and outside and across the street where they’re safe and get down on my knees so Parker can find my shoulder easy.
But the more the fire pours from the side window, the more my feet feel like they’re stuck in ice.
I’m frozen.
And I can’t thaw out. I can’t make a move toward the humane society, toward Parker, toward the fire.
Then I see my dad. He’s facing away from the fire, taking in a big breath. I know because even from here I can see his big shoulders rise up. And then he straps on his mask, turns, and rushes right through the front door of the pizza shop.
Leo is pulling a hose from the truck, and Sam takes that same big breath that lifts up her shoulders and disappears fast right through the front door of the humane society.
I try to run after her so I can tell her where they keep the leashes and how Parker doesn’t like if you pull him by the collar, but my feet won’t move, and I can’t take my eyes from the front door of the pizza shop.
Because I’m watching for the door to fly back open.
I’m watching for Dad. Like when a player goes down on the field and all you can do is take a knee and wait and wait for them to get up and be OK while your heart beats loud in your ears and you can hear your own blood swooshing around and echoing off your helmet.
The red and blue lights keep flashing across the front of the pizza shop, right over the door, and without even trying I can hear my grandma’s one-and-two-and-three-and-four-and, so I count along with it—one-and-two-and-three-and-four-and-one-and-two-and-three-and-four-and. The rhythm slows down the pounding in my ears and I try to take in those deep breaths that lift my shoulders up, but even from here I can smell the smoke and it makes me cough.
One-and-two-and-three-and-four-and. I know it’s only been sixteen seconds, but it feels like minutes.
One-and-two-and-three-and—then the door flies back open and Dad comes out. He gives quick all-clear signals to Leo and two volunteers at the truck. Then Sam rushes back out of the humane society with Max and the veterinarian and a herd of dogs wiggling and wagging and sending their yips and barks into the smoke-choked air.
I peek around the tree and squint my eyes and there’s Parker, panting and yipping.
I almost get my feet unstuck when there’s a loud pop! and snap! And something falls and the dogs bark and Max’s trying to clip them all into their leashes and Sam is opening her arms wide and herding them all down the sidewalk away from the fire, and Leo and a volunteer start unrolling yellow caution tape that tells me to stay back, turn around, hurry away. So I do.
I turn around and run. And the whole way I’m thinking, I’m not brave like that. Brave like put-out-a-fire brave. Brave like break-through-the-caution-tape brave. Brave like my dad.