Mr. Cox ran after her. One of the firefighters tackled him as he tried to get inside. The crowd was roaring along with the fire now, screaming and roaring.

Jillian, screaming, crying, pointed to where Lindy might be, in the house, in the fort. “There’s someone in there! There’s someone in there!” she kept yelling, till a ladder was set up to the second floor. A firefighter climbed up in mask and heavy gear, smashing the glass with an ax and climbing in.

What if she died? What if Lindy died? Tears blurred her eyes. She kept wiping them away so she could see clearly, to maybe see Lindy first, to help her, but they kept coming, flowing down as the fire flowed up. The firefighter was in the house for a long time. Jillian’s parents were alongside her, their arms around her.

“Shhh,” her mother said, patting her hair. “It’s going to be all right.”

“You don’t know that!” Jillian yelled, wanting her mother to say, Yes I do. I know that. But she didn’t.

Then, after forever, the firefighter was coming back out the window, something in his arms. Someone! Jillian wept with relief, until she realized that Lindy wasn’t reaching her arms around the firefighter’s neck, but was flopped back like a dead person. Then an ambulance siren broke through the other noise and Lindy was loaded into the back and taken away.

19

FEBRUARY 20

It was warm, springlike, even though the calendar claimed it was winter. It had been unseasonably balmy for the past few weeks. Instead of snow, there were thunderstorms. Instead of a winter sun that kept its distance, like an acquaintance trying to keep you at bay, it loomed and pulsated, sending mothers for sunscreen and hats—both of which Jillian declined with a sharp, “Mom! I’m thirteen!” She was now. A teenager at long last.

People were saying the thaw was because of global warming, but Jillian knew it had nothing to do with that. It was because of the fire. Everything had melted since then. The anger that had been churning up in the neighborhood since the Coxes had moved to town had gone up in flames along with the White Elephant. Warring neighbors were friends again. Well, most of them. Some. A few at least.

Furniture was spread out all over the Coxes’ lawn in the shapes of rooms, like someone was playing a practical joke—only it wasn’t a joke. The Coxes were selling their furniture, nearly all of it. The house they were moving to in South Carolina, the house Kaye had grown up in, only had three little bedrooms. Lindy called it a miniature house. “Like yours,” she told Jillian with a laugh that made her wince, the movement pulling at the burns around her mouth.