Culprit

I recently read the story 'Playing football as fire rages' on the Museum of Hoaxes website. The Museum of Hoaxes attempts to find out the truth behind stories that just don't seem right. And this was one of them! A peculiar picture was taken during a rugby match in 1965: the game was on, the crowd was watching it attentively, and right behind them a building was being devoured by fire. The image bounced around my mind for a while, until the story below announced itself.

The air was stifling, her new Sunday shoes too tight and her mother’s hand on hers too clammy.

Maddy kept looking behind her. She couldn’t help it, it must have been a primal fear prompting her to constantly check on her safety.

The rugby team below simply played on, as if the building behind the field weren’t on fire. She craned her neck to watch the firemen emptying their hoses on the beginnings of a ruin. The flames had already broken through the roof, large tongues licking at the windows. The hot summer air was infused with the sharp smell of burning wood.

‘Maddy!’ Her mother hissed. ‘Stop it!’

Feeling caught, Maddy snapped her head back in the direction of the game. The rugby players were standing in the middle of the field, staring at one another. Some were wiggling their bums like huge chickens anticipating a catch of juicy worms right after the rain.

‘Maddy is scared! Maddy is scared!’ her brother teased her, safely on their mother’s other side. Maddy made a face and stuck out her tongue at him, attempting to seem braver than she was. In reality, she was shaking inside.

‘Kevin! Maddy! Enough!’ Their mother irritably jiggered the arms she already had a firm grasp on. Maddy whined and tried to free her arm, but her mother’s grip was unyielding.

‘Behave!’ Her mother hissed. ‘We came here to have a good time!’

Maddy felt her lower lip tremble. ‘But there’s a fire!’ she protested.

‘You need to forget about that fire and focus on the game,’ her mother admonished her, though her voice softened somewhat. ‘The firemen told us to stay in our seats, all right? We’re out of their way and safe here.’

Behind her mother’s back, Kevin made a horrible face, his eyes pointing towards his nose while he opened his slimy mouth in a grimace, as if he were a little Frankenstein. Maddy quickly looked away, her heart hammering. The smoke clouds loomed over them, like a menacing reminder of her guilt.

When they had arrived at the field, the game was still far from starting and Maddy had found herself milling around, bored, and at Kevin’s mercy. And she knew very well that Kevin could be vicious when bored. So she had strayed from her mother’s distracted gaze and walked up to the big building behind the field, wondering why it stood there in solitude. She had been trying to peek through the window when she heard someone laugh behind her.

Kevin stood only a few metres away, his hands casually in his pockets, a devilish smile on his face. Everyone always seemed to think he was adorable, with his blonde hair and bright blue eyes, but Maddy knew better than that. She remembered the time he had put a frog down her dress and claimed she had done it herself to get attention; she remembered the time he had stolen candy and placed some of it under her pillow, making her mother go mad with anger; she remembered the secrets he beat out of her. She also knew it was pointless to run now, even though he was younger and slower than her.

‘You don’t dare enter, do you?’ Kevin mocked her. ‘Little miss chicken shit, you’re afraid of everything!’

Maddy felt her jaw set. ‘I am not!’ she blurted out, before her better judgment could stop the words in their tracks.

Kevin raised his eyebrows. ‘You dare say you’re not afraid?’ he hissed. ‘You’d better prove it then!’ He kicked a stone at the house, his eyes angry little slits. ‘You break in,’ he nodded towards the window. ‘And bring me back something from inside!’

‘I’m not a burglar, nor a thief,’ Maddy protested.

‘Shut it! If you don’t do it, I’ll tell everyone that you’re seeing that McNairn boy.’

‘I am not!’

Kevin laughed heartily. ‘Oh dear little sister, do you really think anyone would care about the truth?’

Maddy balled her hands into fists. She fully understood she was at her brother’s mercy.

‘Fine. You just watch.’

And without the merest glance in his direction, Maddy turned to the window and climbed on the sill.

The room on the other side looked abandoned. It seemed to be some kind of laboratory, with long tables strewn with microscopes, tubes and vessels and other stuff she’d never seen before. Her hands shaking with nerves, she slid the window open and clambered through.

The room smelled dusty and acidic. No-one is here, she kept telling herself. It’s a Sunday, nobody is at work. Nonetheless, she felt panic rising in her chest. She should take something and be out of here. She quickly grabbed an empty test tube and sharply turned towards the window. Her elbow grazed something, and a moment later an avalanche of test tubes came crashing down. A scream escaped her mouth and Maddy jumped back, her eyes wide in horror. Some of the test tubes had contained liquids, which now started fizzling on the floor, slowly releasing smoke. Maddy backed away, feeling the burden of her crime press down on her, and tried not to cry.

When a test tube abruptly exploded, she ran for the window.

She jumped through the opening and was back in the clean air in the blink of an eye. She pressed the test tube firmly in Kevin’s hands, barely registering the surprise on his face, and ran towards the field as if the hounds of hell were on her heels.

The crowd groaned and cheered simultaneously when the referee signaled the end of the game.

‘Now, we saw a lovely game, didn’t we?’ their mother prompted them to agree.

‘Oh, certainly,’ Kevin said with an angelic smile.

Mother stroked his hair. ‘That’s my boy! Now, we’d better listen carefully to the firemen, okay?’

They nodded and followed their mother down to the field, where several firemen were directing the spectators towards their cars.

‘Have a nice day, ma’am,’ a sweaty fireman with a large moustache nodded.

‘Oh, I hope you will have a nice day too!,’ mother cried. ‘Such a ghastly business, don’t you think? The kids really are shaken by it!’

‘I’m sure they’ll soon forget about the fire, but not about the game, right kid?’ the fireman winked at Kevin.

‘In fact, I know –‘ Kevin started, but was interrupted by mother. Maddy felt her heart skip a beat. Kevin would tell the fireman the fire had been her doing! She tried to hide behind mother, envisioning the worst of punishments – her tiny self, locked into a dirty prison cell with nothing but a piece of bread and stale water. She whimpered involuntarily.

‘… found some botched electrical wiring. The workman who’s installed that mess will have some explaining to do, I can tell you!’ she heard the fireman assure her mother.

Maddy saw Kevin’s face fall. Maddy took a big gulp of air, though she wasn’t sure she could trust her ears to have heard right.

‘Most certainly!’ mother agreed heartily. ‘Now Kevin, what were you going to say?’

Kevin stood stock-still for a moment, as if shocked out of his words.

‘Nothing, mother,’ he whispered.

‘Kids are silly things, don’t you think?’ mother smiled at the fireman, shaking her head.

The fireman merely smiled back.

Maddy muttered a quick ‘Thank you,’ as mother pulled them towards the car.

The truth did matter, after all.

If you want to read the orginal - true! - story mine was based on, visit http://hoaxes.org/weblog/comments/football_fire.