Winter Sky (4 page)

She looked from one side to the other. Nothing was new on the roof except a pile of boards Almo had stacked against one wall.

“A present,” she said a little uncertainly. She couldn’t imagine what it was.

“You’ll see.”

She smiled at his freckled face, his dark eyes, the red hair escaping from his baseball cap. “You’re such a good friend, Douglas. Thanks.”

Siria glanced over the edge. The fire escape snaked down, glittering with ice and patches of snow. Across the avenue, the plastic Santa Claus in Trencher’s window reached out to shoppers. Its costume wasn’t red anymore; it was almost rusty brown. “No wonder,” Pop had said once. “I remember that Santa when I was a kid.”

Next door to Trencher’s was Max’s Art Supply
Store. Like Izzy, Max hated winter. In his window was a picture of a red sun coming up over a sandy beach.

“There’s the dog again,” Siria muttered. “Walking right past Trencher’s.”

“That one?” Douglas leaned next to her on the wall. “He’d take your leg right off.”

“What does he eat? Who feeds him? Where does he belong?”

Douglas shook his head. “I don’t think anyone takes care of him. Mr. Trencher might give him something, and maybe Jason. But pay attention. We have a lot to do.”

She twirled around. “My present?”

Douglas’s cheeks were red; his freckles stood out from the cold. He sank down on one of the boards. “It’s freezing up here. We have to do something about that.”

“Sure.” She sank down next to him, head bent against the wind.

“We’re going to build a star shelter.” He blew misty breath out of his mouth. “For your birthday. Aren’t we going to look for that constellation you like?”

“A star shelter! We’ll see Canis Major, the Great Dog. And Sirius, the star in his collar. It’s the brightest star in the winter sky. Oh, Douglas!”

He grinned. “You’re always talking about it, so we’ll sit up here in the dark turning into ice statues
unless we build that shelter.” He hesitated. “There’s plenty of wood.”

“But Almo …”

“Won’t be up here until next May. He doesn’t even clean the elevator.”

Douglas was right. Siria smiled at him, then looked across the roof at the sledding hills blocks away and the frozen creek that ran along next to them.

Closer, she could see the shed, surrounded by those bare trees.

“Pay attention.” Douglas wiped his face with his sleeve. “Where’s Laila, anyway? She’d be pretty good at this.”

“The dentist’s.”

He began to drag a board across the roof. “We’ll pile them up on four sides and leave the top open. Nothing to it.”

There was plenty to it. But why not?

“Aren’t you worried about messing up Aydin’s jacket?” She took one end of the board.

He rubbed a few splinters off the front. “He won’t care.”

“But where’s yours?”

He waved his hand. “Who knows?”

They dragged another board across the roof.

“You’re the best, Douglas,” Siria said.

It was late on Saturday afternoon. Siria was on her way to her teacher’s house. Even though school had been let out early because of the snow, Siria wanted to wish Mrs. Hall a happy Christmas.

Mimi had helped Siria bake Christmas cookies that morning: tiny trees with green sprinkles, thumbprints with strawberry jam, and gingerbread men. They’d wrapped them on a plate with red cellophane and gold ribbon.

But Siria never got to Mrs. Hall’s house.

At the far end of the avenue were boarded-up stores, with the old movie house looming high above them. Siria stopped to look at the window in front of the theater. A poster, faded and torn, showed an actress in an old-fashioned coat, her hair piled high
on her head. She was probably a hundred years old by now.

Behind the poster, Siria could see inside: faded velvet chairs, maroon curtains, and …

Something was moving across the stage!

She leaned closer. That terrible dog—

How had he gotten in there?

He ran back and forth across the stage, almost as if he didn’t know how to get down.

And then she saw the curl of smoke. One of the long curtains was on fire. She dropped the cookies and reached into her pocket for her cell phone. But it was on her dresser, forgotten at home.

The dog was barking now, howling.

She looked over her shoulder. No one in the street. People were far down, coming out of Trencher’s, going into the dry cleaner’s. Too far to hear her yell.

She yelled anyway.

The fire was stronger now. A second curtain had caught. Flames reached up.

A car came along the street. She waved. “Help, please! Call—”

The car slowed, then kept going.

The dog was trapped.

She tried to open the heavy front doors. Locked! The dog had jumped off the stage now; he was coming
up the aisle toward her, but there was no way to help him.

A back door? There had to be. She ran to the corner and around to the alley. She heard her own hard breathing, felt her heart pound. The door! She rattled the knob, turned it, and it opened. A miracle.

Smoke rushed out at her and she bent her head. She couldn’t go inside, she knew that much, but she called to the dog. “Come! This way!”

She took a step just inside the door, but it was hard to see.
“Get out,”
Pop would have said.
“Get out now!”

The smoke swirled around her. Her throat was burning; she couldn’t stop coughing. “Come!”

He raced along the aisle. She jumped away from him, but he paid no attention to her. He brushed past her, his eyes wild with terror, his mouth open, showing huge teeth. He ran down the avenue, waded through a drift of snow, and was gone.

And then someone’s arms were around her waist, lifting her back and away from the smoky doorway.

“Breathe,” he said.

She looked over her shoulder. It was Mike, the tattoo guy. “Thank you,” she managed. At the same time, she heard the fire sirens.

“Engines coming,” he said. “We can go now.”

She was bent over, coughing. She wiped her face
with snow, then followed Mike down the street, and home, to drink water, lots of water.

And only then she remembered Mrs. Hall’s cookies scattered in the snow. Ruined.

She wondered: Had the shed fire and the movie fire been set by the same person?

And did the scrap of green cloth in her pocket belong to him?

She was dreaming about being guilty of something, she wasn’t sure what, when something woke her the next morning.

It was just light. Snow was packed against the bottom of her bedroom window, and she crawled from under the quilt to look outside: cars drove along, Trencher’s Santa Claus waved, and …

One of the fire trucks had stopped almost directly below. Lights flashed, but there were no sirens.

Pop was safe asleep in bed, but what about Izzy? Izzy, with her wild hair and great smile, her hugs that were so tight it was hard to breathe. What about Willie, who made the best dinners, and Danny, who had five kids? What about everyone at the firehouse?

She had to make sure they were safe.

She searched for her leopard boots. What a waste of time! Her room was a total mess, with papers and pajamas and Tootsie Roll wrappers and mittens that didn’t match scattered all over. Someday soon she’d clean the whole thing up. She’d be as neat as they were at the firehouse. Their pants were rolled down over their boots so they could just step into them, ready to climb on the truck in seconds. She had to remember that for her own fire chasing.

One boot was under her bed, the other halfway out of the closet. She pulled them on and tiptoed down the hall, listening to Pop’s heavy breathing.

She slipped out the apartment door and into the hall, then punched the elevator button, but someone had jammed it up again.

She took the stairs, the lights dim over her head. Was she the only one awake in the whole building?

Outside, the fire truck had stopped in front of Trencher’s Market. A ladder leaned against an ancient tree. A few crumpled brown leaves still clung to the branches that stretched over the cracked sidewalk.

Izzy was perched on top of the ladder, but there wasn’t any fire, or even smoke.

Danny and Willie were looking up, hands on their hips. “Go, Iz!” Willie called.

Siria zigzagged closer to them, looking up, too.

“Up early,” Danny said.

She nodded. It was great to fire chase in the daytime—no hiding. But there wasn’t really a fire. Up high, on the tip of a branch, was a little black cat. She arched her back like a leftover pinup from Halloween. One paw was extended, ready to scratch.

As Izzy reached out to grab her, she moved to the next branch. But Izzy was faster, and then the cat was in her arms, climbing up on her shoulder.

Danny grinned. “What a rescue!”

“Sharp claws,” Izzy called on her way down.

Siria waved, then went back upstairs. Pop was awake, sitting at the kitchen table, turning the of his newspaper. “I thought you were asleep.” He patted the chair next to him.

“Izzy just saved a kitten from that half-dead tree outside.”

“That’s the best part of firefighting. The rescue.”

She slid into the chair and reached for a bagel. “Even a kitten?”

“Anything that’s alive. To do something for someone who needs help. It’s a great feeling.” He gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze and went back to his newspaper.

What about that poor dog, wandering around with no one to feed him? How thin he was. Even with that matted hair.

The dog was starving.

She took time buttering the bagel. Suddenly she wasn’t hungry. She took a couple of bites, then went into the bedroom to reach under her pillow.

She pulled out the small book with the soft green cover where Mom had written down some of the old legends, and stories she’d imagined herself, about the constellations.

Once, Pop had said, “Mom and I would sit out on the balcony, holding hands, looking up at the winter sky, even when it was freezing.”

Siria searched for one of the stories, one she could hardly remember. She stopped to read about the Milky Way with its millions of stars splashed across the dark. On another page, Mom had written about huge planets turning and tilting, and bursts of fire as stars streaked through the sky.

But that wasn’t what Siria was looking for. It was something near the beginning of the book.

Mom was telling her exactly what to do, no matter how impossible it seemed.

And hadn’t Pop told her that rescue was everything?

She had to do it. She had to save that fearful dog.

Orion was a mighty hunter, but a scorpion scuttled into the folds of his cloak and stung him! The poison went through the hunter’s body, paralyzing …

Killing
.

How sad it was for Diana, goddess of the hunt, to see Orion there, all the fight gone out of him. She had to help him!

She carried him up high into the sky, among the stars
.

His sword hangs from the three bright stars on his belt. His club is raised in one hand, and the pelt of a great lion he killed dangles from another
.

With him are his two companions: a great dog with a gem star called Sirius in his collar, and a smaller playful dog. They travel around the sky together
.

It was one thing to grab a small cat with sharp little claws, but another to rescue a massive dog that looked like a wolf.

Siria shivered. Maybe Laila would help. Or Douglas.

But right now, she and Laila were on their way to the firehouse to see the cat. They rushed into the elevator, stepping over someone’s stale doughnut. The walls were one big mess of graffiti. “Very colorful.” Laila twirled around to admire all of it.

Someone had written
Mery Christmas
. “The graffiti artist didn’t know how to spell.” Siria rubbed at the red and green paint, probably stolen from Max’s Art Supply Store.

Outside, they waved to the dry cleaner guy, then
passed Mr. Trencher outside his store. “I’m breathing in the cold air,” he called. “I smell snow on the way.”

“Me too!” Siria yelled back.

She and Laila swung hands as they crossed the avenue and passed the school. Presidents’ heads, molded in cement, poked out of the walls near the roof.

Siria almost felt sorry for George Washington—the top of his head had turned into a pigeon’s nest, and a mess of white bird gloop made one shoulder a couple of inches higher than the other.

Past the school, she could see the shed roof. If only she could talk to Pop. But it would be the end of her fire chasing. She’d be up all night, sitting at the window worrying about him.

No, she had to work on this herself.

“What’s the matter?” Laila asked.

Siria shook her head. She reached into her pocket and pulled out the scrap of green cloth. “I found this.”

Laila ran her hands over it. “From someone’s jacket?” She shook her head. “I’ve seen it before. I almost know …”

But they were at the firehouse now, reading the sign on the door: CAT FOUND in Izzy’s bold printing. DESPERATE FOR A HOME.