The Thumb in the Box

The Thumb in the Box — page 1 — To Caleb and Zoë with love

The Thumb in the Box — page 2 — 1 THE FIRE THIS IS A STORY ABOUT a fire truck being driven into the ocean and two people taking off their thumbs Don’t worry though Nobody gets hurt The village of New Auckland is on the coast of Brit ish Columbia It is north of Prince Rupert and south of Linda Evers Mountain a round mountain with a cliff on the south side At the base of the cliff a narrow channel leads into a bay called Pirate’s Inlet New Auckland is just behind the mountain tucked onto a crescent-shaped beach Two rows of small wooden houses line the beach Cedar sidewalks connect the houses and the sidewalks are old and gray The largest two buildings are the community center and the six-room school On the night of the fire that starts this story I was eleven years old walking slowly along the wooden side walk closest to the water I remember looking down

The Thumb in the Box — page 3 — at the planks staring at every loose nail and clump of moss I was probably grinning People say I grinned all the time like I had a secret My name was as it is still Leon Mazzei but I had bet ter not describe my village or me right now The smoke has reached Muriel and she has roared Muriel the lion was once a pet owned by a woman who sneaked her onto a cruise ship sailing to Alaska Muri el wasn’t much more than a cub at the time The crew found her and the captain who had lost an arm to a lion when he pointed out a jeep window in Africa turned his ship into Pirate’s Inlet and dropped anchor just off the beach in front of our village The captain blew the ship’s deep-pitched whistle to make sure people in New Auckland noticed his vessel He didn’t need to blow the whistle at all Half the village was standing on the shore staring in surprise A small boat was lowered and three crew members motored over to the dock They left the lion cub promis ing to let authorities in Prince Rupert know it was there Maybe they did but nobody ever came and Muriel be came the village pet She lived as she does still in a huge pen behind the community center On the night of the fire I lifted my head wondering why Muriel was roaring She usually roared early in the morning when she was hungry Fire I yelled as soon as I spotted the smoke rising from behind Mrs Yatulis’s house Doors opened and people ran out carrying buckets The Yatulis shed I yelled pointing

The Thumb in the Box — page 4 — Buckets of ocean water were passed hand to hand and thrown onto the fire I stood in the children’s line quickly passing the empty buckets back down to the wa ter’s edge We were all nervous We knew that if it looked as if the fire was going to leap toward another building then the houses around the fire would be torn down fast so the whole village didn’t burn We didn’t talk not until the fire was almost out After the whistle was blown telling us to stop my best friend Susan and I ran to see the last of the blaze We’ve got to do something shouted our mayor Char lie Semanov silhouetted in front of the dying fire Char lie was tall and wide and had wild uncombed hair and a frizzy gray beard He had a deep voice too What if this fire had started when the boats were out and half of us were fishing The whole village could have burned yelled Charlie We need a big saltwater pump so that we can shoot lots of water right onto a fire with out a bucket line People cheered and the next morning as the ashes of the shed still smoldered Charlie wrote to the Govern ment of Canada Curtis Vandermeulen Member of Parliament for the Northwest Coast wrote back and said he was proud to promise that the Canadian government could send an entire fire truck to New Auckland We don’t need a fire truck Charlie wrote We just need a water pump Our entire village is only as long as a couple of football fields We don’t even have a road

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