Safety Tips for Fires
1. Check your smoke alarms every month to be sure the batteries work.
2. Make an escape plan, including where your family will meet outside. Practice it.
3. If you’re in a fire, crawl. Smoke and heat rise.
4. Stop, drop, and roll—and keep your hand over your mouth.
5. Sprinkle baking soda, not water, on an electrical fire.
After our Sunday casserole lunch, Dad headed right back to church to change the sign. “My new Kansas Sunday routine,” he said.
In Colorado our Sunday routine was driving up into the mountains. Sometimes we hiked in wildflowers, all tiny and red or purple. Sometimes we saw deer with velvet ears. Sometimes Grandpa met us with surprises—a zip line or balloon or train ride. “What will your special message be?” I asked.
“Wait and see.” He gave me a grin.
“Can you help me find the right place for the new fire extinguisher?” Mom asked me. “Right after I put Isabella down for her nap?”
Of course. “But wouldn’t you rather write?”
“Oh, well.” She took Isabella’s hand. “Some change can be good.”
Really? Because what we already had in Colorado was perfect. I didn’t believe what she’d said, and I knew she actually didn’t either.
That afternoon Dad came home one time, to load boxes of books into the car and drive them back to the church. Mom and I were putting the fire extinguisher right by the kitchen door because the directions in my Safety Notebook said to put it in the room where most fires happen, in plain sight and easy to reach.
“We need one for upstairs, too, right?” Mom asked. She was very smart and usually very helpful.
When Isabella woke up, she and I played hide-and-pounce with Midnight H. Cat while Mom made her salad. Then we practiced SMART in case we saw a wolf or feral hog.
1. Stop; do not run.
2. Make yourself look big.
3. Announce, “Leave me alone!”
4. Retreat; back away slowly.
5. Tell an adult.
On the walk to the church that evening, the air smelled green and warm. Mom had her arms wrapped around a big painted bowl, and she looked nervous.
I showed Isabella things: prickly brown pods like tiny troll heads; a worm squiggling on the sidewalk. “Do worms have teeth?” Isabella asked.
I told her they didn’t, but she grabbed Mom’s leg anyway. At the corner I read the sign. BLESSED ARE THE PURE IN HEART. My heart was pretty pure, I thought.
I wanted to ask Mom if people were going to watch us actually eat. Because chewing can be pretty disgusting. Instead, I said, “I’ll help Isabella down the stairs.”
Step. Step. The basement smelled like ham. Adults and kids were covering tables with white paper. “Stay here,” I told Isabella. I went over to the dessert table to check if my pies were there.
Not yet.
Behind me I heard a man say, “Hold on there, young lady.”
I whirled around. Isabella was on a chair by the salad table. “But I like those hairy green things,” she said.
Two kids putting forks on tables laughed. I hurried over to her. “Kiwi,” I said. “Not hairy green things. And we have to wait.”
Her face started to crumple. I managed to lift her—even though she was as heavy as a full dresser drawer—and stagger away. Isabella’s head blocked my view, which is why I didn’t know something was in front of me until it snagged my ankle.
I yelped. As I was going down, I caught one tiny glimpse of Simon. Then I fell flat on my sister.
Isabella let out a howl and grabbed my shirt. I rolled off—and heard a ripping sound. Shiverydee! I pinched her, because sometimes it’s good to do something stupid so you won’t do something even stupider. Suddenly Morgan’s face was right there. “Help,” I gasped out.
I managed to get Isabella’s arms. Morgan grabbed her legs, hollering, “Ouch! Don’t kick.” We hustled Isabella up and out onto the lawn, where she kept screaming and her nose started bleeding and where Mom and Cousin Caroline found us.
“Help me get her home,” Mom called over Isabella’s screaming. As we hauled Isabella off, I saw Aunt Dorcas. Pinch mouthed.
No one tried to talk until we got onto the porch, and Morgan, who was the only one not hanging on to some part of Isabella, grabbed her nose. Isabella shut up. “Stinky worms.” She let out a huge hiccup.
I looked at the slime streaking our door. She was right about the stinky. It wasn’t worms, though. Someone knew where to find eggs that had been laid a long, long time ago and had sat around somewhere getting rotten.
I had a feeling I knew exactly who that someone was.