‘Leave the beetles alone!’ I crouched down to flick the insect back the right way up, and it scuttled gratefully into the undergrowth.
I completely forgot about fetching the old logs, which turned out to be the biggest mistake of the last thousand years.
It was past midnight when the fire sirens started.
I got up to look out of the bedroom window – Libby’s bedroom, where I had been moved to make room for Aunty Alice and Jasper. My stomach lurched with fear when I saw the glow of the fire coming from the woods, fierce enough to light up the sky, although it was still quite a distance.
I knew instantly what was burning.
‘Dad! Dad!’ I called.
‘Strewth!’ I heard. ‘That’s a hell of a conflagration.’ I swung round and Jasper was standing behind me in his pyjama bottoms, leaning on a stack of boxes that hadn’t been unpacked yet.
A smell of smoke was seeping through the open window so I shut it.
‘There’s a house there, you know,’ I said. ‘In the woods.’
‘Really? Well, I hope they’re all right. Ghastly things fires, eh?’ Jasper scratched his thick beard and his fingers travelled from his cheek to his throat to his chest and it was hairy all the way down. The beard never actually stopped, but just merged with the rest of the hair on his body.
I heard the doorbell go downstairs. I bet that’s Roxy, I thought.
Dad opened the front door not to Roxy but to a fireman, and while I ran down the stairs he spoke to Dad. Through the door, I could see a fire engine in the street, its blue lights flashing.
‘Sorry to wake you, sir, but we have to run a hose down the side of your house. If that fire spreads, it poses a risk to the buildings, so we have to soak the trees,’ he said.
The firefighter wasn’t expecting a refusal, I could tell that much, because the others were already unspooling the hose from the fire engine and opening up the fire hydrant right outside our house.
‘No need for alarm, son,’ the fireman said to me. ‘Just a precaution.’
‘What about the house? The witch … the house in the woods? Are they all right?’
‘Dunno anything about that, son. Now ’scuse me.’ He turned his attention to the others, who were by now running up the junk-filled alley, shifting stuff to make room.
He was lying. I knew it at once, and I felt scared.
I stood on the front path, watching the firemen. That’s when I saw Roxy, in short pyjamas, shivering in her doorway, fingering the dressing behind her ear. Our eyes met and we both knew what the other was thinking. I beckoned for her to come over. I wanted to talk to her about what was happening, about the possibility that the witch’s house was on fire, that people might be hurt or worse …
She shook her head and pointed upstairs, mouthing the word ‘Mum’.
Then my mum came up behind me.
‘Come on, Aidan. We mustn’t get in the way. If you want to see what’s going on, look from upstairs.’
There were loads of neighbours in slippers out in the street, watching the commotion, and I didn’t see what difference I was making, but I couldn’t be bothered to argue.
Back at the bedroom window, I saw another fire truck arrive, one with a huge ladder, which they extended higher than the houses. The fireman who climbed up it then directed those on the ground where to point the hose, and a huge arc of water sprayed out over the trees till they were soaked and dripping.
The orange glow of fire, meanwhile, grew bigger and spread, getting closer. Showers of sparks would fly up into the purple sky when a tree came crashing down, then a few minutes later that part of the wood went up in flames as the sparks caught hold of the dry leaves on the ground.
Dad came into my room. ‘Pack some clothes, son. Use your sports bag. The firefighters say we may have to evacuate.’
I stared, not understanding what he’d said.
‘Evacuate. Leave the house. For safety. Chop-chop.’
‘But … we’re safe here, aren’t we?’ I protested.
‘Not if the fire gets much closer. Look.’ He pointed out of my window where another tree, much closer than the others, had small tongues of flame licking up its trunk. I could make out the branches catching fire, before the hose was directed on it and the flames went out.
I pulled on some jeans over my pyjamas and found a thick sweater and put that on too.
Grace Darling Close is a circular dead end, and the road had filled with vehicles and people. Sue and Pru, the ladies from next door, both wore identical blue dressing gowns. Sue was holding a huge and cross-looking ginger tom that was hissing at every passing fireman. ‘Ach – don’t vorry: he iss just being friendly,’ I heard her say in her German accent, which I thought was stretching the truth.
As well as the three fire engines, I counted two police cars, a fire support car and a yellow ambulance car. As I watched, another car pulled up, and two women got out, one of them holding a movie camera and a portable light. She immediately started filming pretty much everything: the trucks, the huddles of neighbours. I wandered about in my slippers, just looking at this strange gathering.
Sue and Pru were talking to the reporter. ‘Our cats are very atch-itated, aren’t zey, Prudence?’ said Sue, and Pru nodded in agreement. ‘Thomas here has already emptied his bowels vere he shouldn’t, haven’t you, Thomas, you vick-ed old sing?’ Thomas yawned.
And then I heard a voice, rising above the general hubbub.
‘Put me down! Put me DOWN, darn you. I’m fine – will you let me GO!’ Along with everyone else, I turned in the direction of the voice. It was coming from Roxy’s house, where two firemen were carrying what looked like a large chair down the front steps, draped in blankets with a head in a hairnet poking through the top of them.
‘Here! Put me here! No HERE, you imbecile! Are you DEAF?’ A hand appeared from under the blankets and actually hit one of the firemen on his yellow helmet, in time with her words: ‘Stop!’ Hit. ‘Stop!’ Hit. ‘Stop!’ Hit.
They got to the end of the path and put the chair down, and only then did I realise that it was a wheelchair.
‘Wha’ on earth is wrong with you all?’ she said, gathering her blankets about her.
Out of slapping range, the fireman she had been hitting managed a wry smile. ‘You’re welcome, madam. Only too happy to be of service and save you from a fiery grave.’
‘Fiery grave, my foot! I was perfec’ly fine! What on earth … GET THAT DAMN THING OUT OF ME FACE! HOW DARE YOU!’ Her attention
