On Fire Read Online Free Page A

me after a while. He pointed to the suitcase.
    â€œWhat? Oh,” I said. “No. These are clothes for you.”
    He stuck his bare legs out. They were long and thin and kind of hairy in a golden way. I’m sure he didn’t mean for me to notice that. “This bathrobe is a little short,” he said.
    â€œYou could try the clothes on if you want to. Only not out here.” I felt dumb and red again after that.
    â€œMaybe I’ll go inside,” he said. He was pretty solid standing up, but I had to help him get the suitcase inside.
    I waited for him to come back out. Finally I got up to check and he was on the bed asleep again.
    â€œGive him time,” Marsh said. He’d finished his errand and was standing behind me. “Come back after lunch.”
    I did. The sun was out and it was getting warm again. The two of them were sitting on the bench together this time. Marsh had rigged up a beach umbrella to keep the sun off.
    The on-fire guy was wearing green shorts and a grey T-shirt with Blackstone Village Volunteer Fire Dept. on it. Frank had one like it, but his said Chief, of course.
    â€œWhy don’t you go for a walk around the building?” Marsh said.
    â€œI thought I couldn’t take him anywhere.”
    â€œI’ll be right here.”
    When the on-fire guy stood up, I saw that he had a piece of rope tied around his waist to hold the shorts up.
    â€œMaybe go back and get something a little smaller, Matti,” Marsh whispered.
    â€œSorry,” I said, but I wasn’t apologizing to him.
    We walked on a gravel path that went around the building. Marsh couldn’t see us when we got on the far side, but we were in the open. We went slowly because the guy was still a little wobbly.
    â€œI need to warn you,” I said, just to be on the safe side, “I’m working on my black belt in Karate.” I didn’t say I had about fifteen years to go.
    â€œCongratulations,” the on-fire guy said. Then he sat down on a bench that faced out toward the lake. The water was so smooth that the trees and the mountains and the clouds above them seemed to be floating on top of it. Or else there was a second world just like ours shining up from the bottom of the lake.
    â€œDo you have a cigarette?” he asked me, which ruined the mood.
    â€œI’m fourteen,” I said. “I don’t smoke.”
    â€œI think I might.”
    â€œWell, I’m not getting cigarettes for you so don’t ask me to.” I stood up. “Next thing you know you’ll want matches, and anything to do with them, you can count me out. I’m sick of fire.”
    I didn’t tell him how my mother died. I hardly ever talked to people about that.
    â€œJust asking,” he said.
    We walked back to the jail then. He didn’t have a lot to say. He usually didn’t. He was kind of mysterious in that way, but I still liked going out with him. I can talk enough for two people when I feel like it.

9

Y OU D ON’T K NOW W HAT’S O UT T HERE
    W E WENT OUT A LOT AFTER that. Just short walks to build up the on-fire guy’s strength. I tried to ask questions that would jog his memory while we walked. Like he wore a ring on the thumb of his left hand. It was a silver snake with its tail in its mouth. I asked him where he got it.
    â€œI don’t know,” he said. It was his standard answer.
    â€œDo you think maybe someone gave it to you?” He shrugged, and I should have stopped right there. But I tend to push. It can be a failing of mine.
    â€œThose burn marks on the back of your legs are healing up. How did you get them?”
    He ran his hands up and down his legs. “I think it was an accident,” he said.
    â€œIt wouldn’t happen accidentally in rows like that, would it?”
    He pushed his hands down deep into the pockets of his shorts. “I don’t remember,” he said. “Maybe I have