An Imperfect Miracle (13 page)

When I floated back up to the surface I saw Marcie trying to crawl out of the pool. But just as she was digging her toes up onto the deck, she slipped backwards and landed in the water with a big foamy splash. Then the red-haired kid ambushed me from behind again. But I was so slippery from all the water that I was able to spin around on him and punch him in the nose with my knockout left that Pastor Mike had taught me. I must have really connected too, because blood exploded out of both his nostrils and then spilled into the pool and started spreading out all over. It was almost as much blood as when that little drunk had tumbled down Mary's steps and cracked his head wide open. But in spite of all his screaming and crying, I didn't think the kid was really hurt all that bad. It was just his nose, after all, and the worst thing that could have happened was that it was busted. Anyway, he was the one who'd started it.

When Marcie saw all that red water closing in on her, she got to gagging like she was about to puke. Meanwhile some dad was climbing up to the deck with his eyes fixed on me, but he was kind of stiff in the joints and it was taking him a while. Then Marcie started throwing up, and with all that blood and upchuck floating around it was getting pretty gross in there. I grabbed the side of the pool and yanked myself as hard as I could up onto the deck. Just then the dad who was chasing me tripped over my leg and fell in right next to where Marcie was still heaving.

By now some kids were yelling one thing, and other kids were yelling something else. But when the noises all came together, it was just a big loud jumbled up mess. It sounded a little like being down at the shrine when all those country folks showed up speaking in tongues, which Carlos had explained to me is when you talk in some language that nobody understands. Just then this really fat dad worked his way up onto the deck trying to block my escape route. I decided it was now or never, so I jumped off and landed on the soft cool grass. After sidestepping Marcie's dad, who wasn't nearly as quick with his feet as he was with his mouth, and ducking under another guy's arm, I finally broke into the clear.

I tried to stay mostly on the grass since I was running in my bare feet. When I got up the street a ways, I looked back to see who was still chasing me. A bunch of dads were just storming around the corner of the house, but only one looked like he was in good enough shape to give me a run for it. He was that doctor whose bratty son's nose I'd just bloodied. Since I knew he'd tell on me to Mom for sure if he ever caught me, I didn't see what choice I had but to keep on running as hard as I could.

At first I stuck up along the ridge where all the fancy houses were, because I didn't feel like racing back down into my neighborhood in my swimming trunks with some guy hollering after me. A few hundred feet farther on I looked back again, and by then only the doctor was still in the hunt. And even he was looking like he was getting ready to quit. Another hundred feet or so I turned around one more time, and he'd already stopped running and was bending over real low and panting like he was about to puke. Just to be safe I kept going awhile longer, and then I cut across a couple yards and headed back home through the woods.

After I got deep into the trees I found a nice level cool spot under some big thick branches and laid down on my back. Everything was quiet now except for some birds chirping. I thanked Chewy for having trained me to run so fast back when she was visible, and as a reward I petted her on where I was pretty sure her head was.

“How much trouble to do you think we're in now, Chewy?”

Chewy said that I shouldn't worry about it. She said just because silly little Marcie had decided to puke her guts out wasn't our fault.

“If Mom ever finds out about me getting into a fight with that doctor's kid, she'll hang me for sure. You don't have to worry so much, because she doesn't even believe you're still around.”

Chewy told me that even if we got into big trouble with Mom, it was still worth it having so much fun.

“But what about turning the other cheek like they're always preaching at church?”

Chewy said that turning the other cheek didn't mean I had to get beaten up by some dopey kid for sticking up for Mary. I asked her what it meant then. Chewy said she didn't know for sure, but she thought it had something to do with letting God have the final say on things. She said she heard Pastor Mike preach something like that one Sunday while I was daydreaming like usual.

“We better go home before Mom finds out. Maybe we can talk her out of grounding me if we get to her early enough and give her our side of the story before her mind gets all twisted against us.”

I was working my way up onto my elbows when I heard the big fire alarm going off. Our town didn't have many fires, and according to Mom, to save money we just had a volunteer fire department. Whenever the alarm sounded the volunteers were supposed to drop whatever they were doing and take off for the fire station, where they'd get dressed up in their crinkly yellow fireman suits. The siren was a sharp shrieking wail that would rise up and tail off and rise up and tail off again. And sometimes the wail would last a half hour or more until the volunteers all got to the station, because Mom said the folks in our town were a little slow sometimes. Whenever I heard the siren I always got a little nervous that our house was burning down. Chewy must have been worried too because she was already pacing all around me. We got home in just a few minutes, but the house was standing there like always, kind of dumpy looking with the paint chipping off from around the windows and some of the tiles on the roof starting to slip off into the rusty gutters. I didn't want to risk going inside, because with the alarm sounding I knew Mom would just make me stay home. Plus, there was a good chance that Marcie's mom had already called her about the ruckus at the party, and I didn't feel like getting yelled at right then, especially with a big fire so close by.

I decided that the shrine was the best place to find out where the fire was on account of all the people standing in line with their cell phones. Chewy was already way ahead of me, and I took off after her as fast as I could. When I turned onto Main Street, I saw the flames shooting up but couldn't tell from where exactly. I was hoping that it was the karate place, since it didn't seem to be doing much business anymore, or maybe Joe's novelty shop, because those crusty old bums who shopped there were always swearing and grumbling at the pilgrims. But when I got up close enough, I saw that it was Mary's shrine that was burning to the ground. I'd never seen a real fire before except on the TV news, and once when old Mr. Whales up the street got drunk and set fire to his garbage can. But that didn't really count because Mr. Markle scooted over right away and put it out with a sprinkling bucket he was using to water his tomatoes. If it hadn't been Mary's house going up in smoke, it would have been a pretty cool thing to see too, what with all the pilgrims standing out on the street pointing at the flames shooting up all over. Some of the flames got so stirred up by the wind that they began swirling around like little tornadoes.

Carlos was running in and out of the shrine like a wild man, and every time he came out he had an armful of crosses and beads and other merchandise. That little fellow John, the drunk Mary had saved, was with him too, lugging buckets of water inside. I wondered what he was up to, because I didn't see how a few buckets of water could put out such a big fire.

Just then the fire truck came wailing down Main Street and pulled up right in front of the shrine, even though it had to slow down a little at the end on account of all the pilgrims still gawking at the fire. Mr. O'Connor, my old science teacher, was riding up front hollering at the pilgrims to get out of the way, and Pastor Mike and Father Tom were riding with the other firemen in the back. They were all wearing their yellow fireman suits and thick gray overalls and red plastic hats and looked pretty hot and sweaty already.

Father Tom jumped off before the truck had even stopped all the way, and hooked up a thick gray hose onto the fire hydrant me and Chewy hid behind sometimes when we were worried some drunk was after us. Then Mr. O'Connor and Pastor Mike and some others each grabbed a piece of the hose and started aiming the nozzle toward Mary's house. Pastor Mike was up front swinging the nozzle all around and shouting out instructions like it was his house that was burning down instead of Mary's. You should have seen how much water was squirting out of that hose once they got it flowing good. I didn't see what the point was though, because the shrine was almost burned down to ashes and soot by then. But I guess they didn't want the fire spreading to other buildings. Carlos was trying to go back inside one more time so he could save more of his religious merchandise, but Father Tom yelled at him to get out of the way. Carlos still tried to make it back in, but the flames must have been too hot and he finally gave up. Then I saw his little friend John scamper out too.

After the fire was finally out the firemen all got their axes, except for Pastor Mike, who seemed awful worn out by it all, and smashed whatever was left of Mary's house all to pieces. They must have wanted to make sure there were no sparks left, although some of them seemed to get a real kick out of swinging those axes all around and breaking stuff.

Father Tom was the first to go tramping around through all the burned-up wood looking for dead bodies. But it wasn't long before he turned around and yelled out in a real loud clear voice that everybody had made it out alive. Then some of the pilgrims dropped to their knees and lifted their hands up to the sky and started praying and screaming and giving thanks, although I couldn't make out exactly what they were saying with all the commotion.

By then the TV reporters had shown up, and Mr. O'Connor was getting interviewed by one of them, a young dark-haired girl who kind of reminded me a little of Mary. She was wearing glasses though, and her face was all tight and scrunched up, not relaxed and easygoing like Mary's. Anyway, Mr. O'Connor seemed to enjoy getting interviewed, because he was smiling and talking so loud into the microphone that he was almost foaming at the mouth. Pastor Mike still looked kind of beat, and he was sitting on the sidewalk with his fire hat off trying to catch his breath.

I went over and asked him if he was okay, and he said he was just a little out of shape. He said he'd have to start exercising more. I told him that Mom could whip him into shape, because being a nurse she knew all about exercising and good health. He thanked me for the tip and smiled a little. Then I asked him why he'd gotten so wound up about Mary's shrine burning down, being that he wasn't even Catholic and didn't have anything to lose one way or the other. He flinched like I'd just stuck a knife into him. I wondered if I'd insulted him or something, although I didn't really see how. Then he shrugged and said he must have gotten a little carried away in all the excitement. I asked him if he knew how the fire got started. He said he didn't know for sure, but that he smelled gasoline and thought that somebody might have set it on purpose.

“Whoever did it probably snuck around to the back of the house when nobody was looking and dumped some gasoline and lit a match, and that was it. With all that wood, there was no chance to save it.”

After listening to him, I started going over the possible suspects in my mind.

“Whoever did it had to be pretty sneaky not to get caught, what with all the pilgrims standing around.”

But Pastor Mike said that the pilgrims were all probably concentrating on Mary so hard and praying to her and everything that the guy was able to slip away without being spotted. He said whoever did it was in big trouble if he ever got caught. By then of course I already knew who'd set the fire, and I couldn't help feeling a little proud of myself too for having figured it out so quick.

“Tim Runyon is the guy's name. He hates Mary because she's cleaning up the town and getting rid of all the bars where he does his drinking. He's sneaky enough to have pulled it off without getting caught too. He was the big jerk with the pizza who Father Tom got into a fight with on the day of the blessing ceremony.”

Then I thought of how sneaky Mr. Grimes was too. But I didn't think Mr. Grimes had the guts to set fire to a building with so many people around. Pastor Mike seemed to be breathing easier now, and I wasn't so worried anymore about him dying of a heart attack or something. I was pretty sure that poor Mom would have fallen all to pieces if Pastor Mike ever kicked the bucket on us.

“Did you see him set it?” he asked me.

“I got here too late. But I've seen him standing across the street giving dirty looks at Mary and her shrine.”

He took another deep breath and then flicked his eyes toward me.

“You shouldn't go around making accusations, Nate, not until you have proof. You don't want your mother to get sued, do you?”

“Do you mean Runyon could take all Mom's money just because I said he burned Mary's house down?”

I'm no lawyer, Nate, but the laws are nuts sometimes. He could say you're libeling him and that your mom put you up to it. You have to be careful about what you say.”

“But she never did anything close to that. I bet she don't even know yet that it was Mary's house that caught on fire.”

Pastor Mike smiled kind of weak, but he must have been feeling better because he stood up finally.

“The truth and the law sometimes don't go together.” Then he stretched a little, and it must have got the blood flowing again because his face didn't look nearly so pale. “What about that English teacher of yours? What's his name, Grimes? He tried to burn her up once, you said. Maybe he tried again.”

I was about to tell him what a sissy Mr. Grimes was, but then something struck me as a little strange.

“How'd you know about Mr. Grimes trying to blowtorch her? I just thought Father Tom and Carlos knew about that.”