Crunch Time by Diane Mott Davidson Page A

filled with alarm. “What is it? Why were you up here yelling? What’s going on—”
    “Somebody’s trying to burn the house down!” I grabbed her and turned her around by the shoulders. “You need to get Ferdinanda out right now! And, and, and we need to take the puppies out, too!”
    “I’ll put Ferdinanda into the van,” she called over her shoulder, “and open the garage door. Where is this person? Where is the, the fire?”
    “In the greenhouse! When you get Ferdinanda into the van, wait for me to bring the puppies. Then back the van well out into the street and keep the windows closed. Be sure you lock the doors!”
    “Where will you be while I’m getting Ferdinanda—”
    “Just do it!”
    Yolanda raced off to her duties. I rushed into the puppy room, where the dogs were barking crazily. Either they already smelled smoke, or they had picked up on our sudden anxiety, or both.
    I glanced out the window in the storage room but could not see the bald man. Then I looked wildly around the room. What was I going to put the puppies in? What had Ernest used?
    I didn’t know, and couldn’t find out on short notice. I yanked open the storage closet marked Yard and dumped out a cardboard box of spades, gardening gloves, and fertilizer. Fertilizer! What if Ernest had kept fertilizer, which was highly combustible, up in the greenhouse? Rain or no rain, this place would go up like a tinderbox.
    Upstairs, there was another crash, tinkle, and whoosh. The bald arsonist had sent in another Molotov cocktail.
    “You son of a bitch!” I screamed. The puppies were crowding around me, whining and yipping. “Okay, dogs, I didn’t mean you.” I put five beagles in the first box, then hustled it out the garage door. Smoke was already filling the house, and the smoke alarm was beeping so loudly I couldn’t think.
    I ran into the garage, trying not to jostle the puppies too much. Yolanda was in the driver’s seat of the van. Ferdinanda was in back, next to several plastic bags of stuff, which I assumed contained as many of their belongings as they’d been able to pack. I wondered fleetingly where the seventeen thousand bucks was.
    “Can you help me?” I asked Yolanda. She immediately unlocked the rear door, slid it open, and took the box of dogs. Ferdinanda gripped the sides of her wheelchair.
    “If only I had my old rifle,” she said fiercely.
    I moved bags around, trying to figure out where we were going to put the other box of dogs. The old woman’s wrinkled hand tapped my arm.
    I said, “Ferdinanda—”
    “With my scope, I could see Batista’s people—”
    “Ferdinanda,” I cried cheerfully, “not to worry. Tom has a gun at our house! Now, I need to go back—”
    “That bastard, Kris,” she said, her tone still stubborn.
    Yolanda begged, “Please let me help you, Goldy.”
    “Guard Ferdinanda,” I ordered tersely. “Close the van windows and call nine-one-one. I’ve already phoned them once, but I didn’t have the address here.”
    I sprinted back into the house. Smoke stung my eyes. It did not smell like marijuana, I noted bitterly. I should have put a wet rag over my nose and mouth, I thought, too late. It was hard to think with the fire alarm continuing its high shrill.
    In the storage room, I pulled open the door marked Trains and dumped out another cardboard box, this one filled with tracks for an HO set.
    “Sorry for the accommodations,” I muttered as I chased the last four puppies, who’d decided that they didn’t like me after all. I finally corralled them all into the box. I dashed to the van, placed this second puppy box on the floor of the passenger side, and jumped in.
    “Hit the gas!” I yelled to Yolanda. As she backed out of the garage, I stared into the night to see if I could see the bald man. The fire, which was now raging, lit only the long grass, trees, and rocks on Ernest’s property. “Hurry!” I called to Yolanda.
    Alas. We had barely turned out of Ernest’s