Things You Save in a Fire(55)

Nineteen


THE NEXT MORNING, the captain called me into his office and yelled at me. But not for what you think.

When I entered his office, he was at his desk.

“What the hell were you thinking, Hanwell?” he demanded, without looking up.

I froze.

Oh God. This was it.

When I didn’t answer, he looked up—then stood up. “Well?”

I shook my head, like I didn’t understand.

“There’s no way this was an accident!” he said then. “Because there is no way you don’t know the rules.”

I held still.

“And if you know the rules,” he went on, “and you broke them anyway, that’s insubordination.” He took a step closer. “And you know how I feel about insubordination.”

I blinked.

“Are we clear?”

We weren’t. Not at all.

Ever so slightly, I shook my head.

“You don’t know what I’m talking about?” he said.

I shook again.

He reached out and picked a package up off his desk. “I’m talking about this.” He held it out, like incriminating evidence.

I frowned.

Then I realized what it was.

It was a cyanide-poisoning antidote kit.

That’s what he was mad about? The relief hit so hard, I felt dizzy for a second. But it passed.

“Do you care to explain this?”

I took a breath. “Looks like we got a cyanide kit,” I said. I checked his desk for another package. “There should be two.”

“So you admit you’re responsible.”

My name was right there on the mailing label. “Yes?”

“Hanwell,” the captain said then, tossing the package back on his desk and crossing his arms. “As you keep reminding me, you are not a newbie. You know how things work in a fire station. So what I can’t figure out is how you could possibly have imagined you were allowed to order fire equipment without my permission.”

“I didn’t order it,” I said. “I applied for a grant.”

“And who told you to do that?”

“You did, sir.”

He gave me a look that said he could not be bullshitted.

“Remember?” I said. “Way back, on my first day. I asked if we had cyanide kits at the station, and you said no, and I said we needed them, and you said, ‘Find me two thousand dollars a pop and we’ll get some’?”

He squinted at me. “Vaguely.”

“Well,” I said. “I found you two thousand dollars a pop.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I applied for a grant from FEMA. For the station. For money to buy two kits. And we got it.”

“You applied for a grant?”

“I applied for a bunch of them, actually,” I said, feeling the tiniest bit of pride in my initiative. “From different places. Funding for new paint, new mattresses, better lighting. Also, for a new gear dryer and new lockers. A better vent for the engine bay. A bunch of stuff.”

I’d assumed, honestly, that if any of the grants came through, that would unequivocally be a good thing. How could it not be?

But as I watched the captain’s face, it was clear: not good.

The captain stood up. “Is writing grants part of your job description?”

“No, sir. I just—”

“We have a chain of command here, Hanwell. You do not apply for grants, or decide we need new mattresses, or even get us new toilet paper unless I tell you to.”

“Yes, sir, but you yourself said—”

“This firehouse,” he went on, “has been standing here, on this very spot, for one hundred and twenty years”— Oh God. I’d offended him.

—“and we’ve survived all of them, every damn one, without your help.”

“I just thought—”

“You thought you’d come in here with your compost heaps and your solar panels and show us all how it’s done.”

“No, I—”

“Don’t you see how that’s a little insulting?”

“I just—“

“Has it occurred to you that you might not know everything about everything?”

He waited for an answer on that one.

I lowered my eyes. “I was just trying to make myself useful, sir.”

“Maybe the newest person on a crew shouldn’t start changing everything right away. Maybe the newest person on a crew should spend a little time at the station before deciding to repaint it.”

There are no words to describe how much I had not expected this reaction from him.

“I’m sorry, sir.”

“You bet you are.”

“Should I—” I began, amazed that I was even asking the question. “Should I send the kits back?”

“It’s not about the kits, Hanwell,” the captain said. “It’s about respect for the chain of command.”

“I respect the chain of command, sir,” I said.

“Do you? Because what do you do when a ranking member of the crew tells you to do something?”

He blinked at me, waiting for an answer.