Shy nodded gratefully at her dad and led Liam to the sofa. The television was paused on an unfortunate image of a mostly naked, fully pregnant Brooke Shields and the totally naked blond guy embracing on a pile of pillows in their palm frond home, but Liam didn’t seem to notice.

Shy powered it off. “What happened?” she demanded gently. “What’s wrong?”

The flames were beautiful. Stuart wound his fingers through the chain-link fence and watched them dance around the slide and ooze across the playground toward the monkey bars. Tiny tufts of fire floated skyward. They were leaves, Stuart realized, igniting and swirling up with the wind. He thought he’d seen Peaches’ son, the boy in the hoodie, run away from the scene, but Stuart was too high to run after him. He was too high even to call 911. This was Ted’s school playground. His own son’s school was burning. The children wouldn’t be able to play there anymore. Nurse Peaches would be pissed. And yet he did nothing. He just watched it burn.

“I told them it was stupid, but they did it anyway,” Liam explained.

Shy got up and opened the front door again. She sniffed the air. “That’s the smell. I’ve been smelling it for a while.”

“No one’s come yet though?” Roy clarified. “Not the fire department or anyone?” He felt he must do something, but he didn’t want to get the boy in trouble. “Would you like to call your mum?”

Liam shook his head miserably. “I should have just brought her the ice cream.”

Roy stuffed his hands in his pockets and then removed them again. This little episode was so timely and relevant, so Ceran and Bettina. What if there’s a fire at their colony on Mars? What if they started it?

“Shall I call 911? Or maybe we should just go over there?”

“No!” Liam said adamantly. He took a great heaving breath to collect himself. “Maybe call and just say that you think you smell something burning and it’s coming from the direction of the school?”

The fire trucks were loud. Stuart backed away into the shadows as they came, a whole convoy, their sirens blaring. There must have been eight of them, full of hulking firemen, tapping the hydrants with their hoses and wielding flashlights. Stuart pulled his phone out of his back pocket. He wanted to warn Peaches. He scrolled through his contacts—N for Nurse, or P for Peaches?—then put the phone away again. He couldn’t find her number. Hoses blasted from all four sides, dousing the flaming slide. Water oozed over the sidewalks and poured in rivers down the street. The schoolyard was totally charred, flooded, and fucked up.

Ate five weed cookies, think I got cursed

Now the school’s on fire, don’t tell the nurse!

Chapter 8