Wildfire! by Elizabeth Starr Hill

1
    Ben took one more biscuit, slathered it with Goomby’s wild–orange marmalade, and stuffed it into his mouth. His grandparents had already finished breakfast. Goomby, his great-grandmother, had eaten just a few quick bites, and was through. Smiling, she asked Ben, “Want more?”
    He shook his head. They put all the dishes in the sink and joined Grandpa in the living room.
    Grandpa was watching the TV news. The pictures on the screen were scary. They showed orange and red flames crackling through trees, torching giant pines as though they were toothpicks. The weather had been very hot and dry for weeks. Wildfires were burning all over Florida. New ones blazed up every day.

    â€œThese are south of here, but they’re in our forest,” Grandpa said.
    â€œHow far?” Goomby asked.
    â€œDown around Worthington,” Grandpa answered his mother. “Far enough to be safe.”
    â€œThis time. For now,” Goomby answered.
    â€œYes. For now.” Grandpa’s voice was strong and reassuring, but his lean tanned face showed his worry. They all knew how sparks could travel in the air, starting a new fire someplace else.
    Their little village of Bending Creek had no fire department of its own. There had not been a bad fire here for years, but if there were, they would have to depend on firefighters coming from Carville, the nearest big town. That was thirty miles away.
    â€œMore coffee?” Goomby asked her son. Grandma had already gone to her waitress job at the Happy Day Café.
    â€œNo, gotta get to work. Full crew coming in today.”
He ruffled Ben’s hair. “Be good, you two.”
    Goomby grinned. “Maybe. Maybe not.”
    Grandpa laughed. He picked up the lunch she had packed for him and left for his job at the sawmill.
    Goomby turned off the TV and bustled away to wash the breakfast dishes. Ben joined her in the kitchen.
    Out the window, the familiar woods looked strange and a little frightening. Even though the fires were far away, the smoke had spread here, gathering in tall pines and oaks and vines and scrub palmettos, blurring all the forest greens.
    â€œHow about doing an errand for me in town?” Goomby asked Ben. “I need a couple more things for tomorrow.”
    Tomorrow was the Fourth of July. Goomby always prepared a lot of food for the holiday.
    Ben was glad to help her. His parents had been killed in a car crash six years ago, when he was four years old.
    Ben and his parents had lived in another town
then. He hadn’t known his grandparents and Goomby very well.
    He had a confused memory of relatives coming to the house, trying to decide what would happen to him. Then Goomby had said, “Ben belongs to us. He’s coming home with us.”
    Others in the family had argued that this might make too much work for her. But she always answered, “I’m sixty-eight, not a hundred and ten. And he’s our boy. ”
    Ben never forgot that. “He’s our boy.” His sorrow and fear had begun to lift in that moment.
    Grandma and Grandpa had agreed, of course. But in Ben’s heart it had really been Goomby’s decision. She had given him this home and this life.
    He told her, “I’ll do your errands right now, if you want.”
    â€œOh, good.” She gave him some money and a list.
    Cornmeal, beans, molasses, red cabbage and white cabbage for two-color coleslaw, one ripe avocado.
Ben knew he could get all this in Mr. Meehan’s grocery store. Goomby also wanted two tiny lamps for a dollhouse she was making for a church sale. He would have to go to Cindy’s Craft Shop for those.
    â€œOkay.” He went off, whistling.
    He passed the American flag Grandpa had put on the porch in honor of the Fourth of July. There were flags on all the neighbors’ porches, too. They made patches of bright color on the little houses along the dusty road.
    Ben loved the Fourth. Tomorrow there would be an