Nothing to See Here (21)

“We have a pool at our place,” I told them. “Bigger than this one.”

“Does it have a slide?” Bessie asked, suddenly curious.

“Two slides,” I lied.

“Do you have flippers?” she asked, Roland nudging her. “Pop-Pop says no flippers.”

“I’ll buy you flippers,” I said.

“You want us to come with you?” Bessie asked.

“Yeah. Come see our place. It’s a nice place. I think you’ll like it. I like it,” I said. Now I was kneeling at the edge of the pool. I put my fingers in the water and felt how warm it was.

“You’re going to take care of us?” Bessie asked me. With each question she moved a little closer, leaving Roland out there by himself.

“If that’s okay with you,” I said.

“It sounds okay,” Bessie said, trying not to sound too excited. “Two slides?”

“Two of them,” I said, smiling. Bessie took off her goggles, and Roland did the same. They had crazy green eyes, emerald and shiny; even in the sun I could see them. Without the goggles, I could figure out their faces. I was a little surprised by how round they were. I had expected fire children to be thin and lanky, the fire burning all the weight off of them, but these kids still had baby fat. They looked like kids who hadn’t been taken care of, a little wobbly and weird. But here came Bessie, right to the edge of the pool, wading over to me.

“Where are you going to take us?” she asked.

“Somewhere great,” I said.

“Is our dad going to be there?” she asked.

“Sometimes,” I said, wondering if that was the wrong thing to say.

“Help me out,” she said, holding out her arms like a baby. I leaned forward to reach for her, and she slightly altered her posture. I watched her whole body turn electric and wild, and she grabbed my right arm by the wrist and pulled my entire hand into her mouth. She bit down so hard on my hand that I screamed with such force that the sound just disappeared, the kind of pain where time stops. I looked at Bessie, my hand still wriggling around in her mouth, and she looked like she was smiling.

I fell into the pool and Bessie held my head under the water, yanking my hair, scratching like crazy at my face. The alley cats from my youth had nothing on this wild, psychotic kid. I popped my head up and heard Bessie scream, “Run, Roland!” and I saw his form hop out of the water like he’d been shot from a cannon. He was running for the fence, but I was back under the water, Bessie’s claws digging into the skin in the corner of my right eye, ripping at my cheek. I tried to grab her, to get some purchase on her squirmy body, slick from weeks in the pool, and she bit me again, and I felt like her tooth had cracked on my knuckle. I made it back to the surface, and I could see blood spinning in the water, riding the chlorine.

“Shit, Roland! Get out of here,” she cried out, and I heard Carl screaming, “What the fuck is going on?” I had swallowed so much water, but I finally managed to get my arms around Bessie’s waist, her legs kicking out in front of her while I held on from behind. She was scratching at my interlocked fingers, but I wasn’t going to let go.

“Bessie, for fuck’s sake. I’m going to be your best friend,” I said, and I sounded so puny and whiny and like a fucking jerk. I hated myself.

And then, suddenly, I realized how hot Bessie was, even in the water, the heat rising up and reddening her skin, turning it almost purple. There was so much steam coming off of her. I panicked, I guess, and so I pulled her under the surface of the water. I counted to fifteen, then thirty, felt the heat recede from her skin, hoping I hadn’t killed her. I lifted her up, carrying her to the steps. She went a little limp in my arms, had given up. “Where’s Roland?” she asked. “Did he get away?”

I sat on the stairs, still holding her, and we looked over at Roland, who had tried to hop the fence and gotten snagged by his swim trunks, his pale white butt showing while he hung upside down, Carl muttering bullshit as he tried to free the fabric from the fencing.

“I’m not coming with you!” Bessie shouted, and she found some hidden strength inside her, pulled free of my arms, and started to run for the house. I grabbed her ankle and she fell, hard, skinning her knee. Her shirt started smoking, the fabric singeing along the neckline, but it was soaking wet and couldn’t really catch fire. I realized there were delicate waves of yellow flame moving up and down Bessie’s little arms. And then, like a crack of lightning, she burst fully into flames, her body a kind of firework, the fire white and blue and red all at once. It was beautiful, no lie, to watch a person burn.

I heard Carl shout, and I turned to see Roland now on fire, though not as bright as his sister. Carl simply kicked him into the pool, where he fell like a rock, extinguished.

I saw Mr. Cunningham holding a giant fork out for safety. Mrs. Cunningham was still asleep.

“You want to stay here?” I shouted back at Bessie. My hand was hurting so bad, the kind of pain where I didn’t even want to look at it because I knew how fucking angry it would make me, how many times I would time-travel to think about all the ways I could have kept my finger from being bitten off by some feral child. “You want to stay with those old people who are boring and probably don’t even know what things you like?”

“No,” she said. Her skin was turning back to a normal shade, the fire already flickering out. It seemed like their bodies could only sustain the fire for a brief moment. Her shirt was in tatters, almost ash.