Winter Sky Read online

  Siria looked closer. Was it on fire?

  Yes, maybe!

  CHAPTER 3

  Siria watched for a moment. Should she climb inside and call in the fire? Pop was in bed, off today, safe, but she wasn’t sure it was a fire anyway. She saw smoke, but the shed was soaked with snow. How could it burn?

  Besides, it was time for dinner. While Pop slept, Danny was cooking at the firehouse tonight.

  She leaned against the railing. Even the smoke might be her imagination.

  Still, Izzy’s voice was in her head: Small fires become big fires, become dangerous.

  Douglas was running up the avenue now. Was he staring back at the shed?

  Siria cupped her hands around her mouth. “Hey …” She slid down the fire escape steps to meet him as he headed for his apartment on the third floor. “Did you see a fire?”

  He shook his head. “All I saw was that decrepit Santa Claus in Trencher’s Market.” He pushed up the window, tossing the hat into his bedroom. One of his brothers, Ashton maybe, pulled him inside, laughing. “Some hat.”

  Siria climbed down the rest of the steps. She’d take a look at that shed. Danny wouldn’t mind if she was late for dinner.

  The sky was dark, with only a handful of stars, and once she passed the stores, the streets were dark, too. She ran, breathless when she reached the next corner.

  She waded through the snow toward the shed. The bare branches of the trees around it were bent into weird shapes, charcoal gray against the sky.

  The walls of the shed were rough pieces of wood with spaces in between; thin icicles hung from the low roof. She broke one off and sucked on it.

  Footprints surrounded the shed, larger than hers, and wider. She followed them around the sides, kicking up soggy leaves and paper, black and sooty.

  Soot! So there had been a fire.

  She kept searching, picking up a scrap of thick green cloth. She turned it over. Wool from a jacket? Torn from a sleeve? She tucked it in her pocket, even though it was sopping wet.

  She heard a rustle, a scraping against the wood, and froze. It came again, that whisper of sound. She peered between the boards. Someone was in there. A dark figure crouched on the floor.

  Could he see her?

  She turned, sliding, tripping over her boots, not caring about the noise she made. She had to get out of there. She scrambled through the snow until she reached the street. Safe.

  Head down against the wind, she headed for the firehouse and dinner, talking herself out of being afraid. Imagination! Probably no one in the shed. A fire from last summer, or the summer before.

  Besides, she was starving. The cafeteria lunch today, Meat Surprise, had tasted like leftover dog food. Only the cup of pale applesauce had been any good.

  She’d thrown half of it away, while Mrs. W, the kitchen helper, scarfed down her third portion of the gray meat. “Delicious, Siria, right?”

  “A surprise,” she’d answered, not wanting to hurt her feelings.

  Siria crossed the avenue now. The stray dog she’d seen in the empty apartment darted into the street against the traffic. Horns blared and a truck screeched, just missing him. Siria, hand to her mouth, watched as he reached the other side of the street, his chain dragging through a snowdrift.

  It was only another block to the firehouse, which was squeezed between two high buildings, an apartment house and a dry-goods store that had closed years ago. The shiny red doors were high and wide for the trucks to move in and out.

  Siria ran her fingers along the side of the ladder truck just inside, Pop’s truck, Number Seventeen. It waited for him, ready to go, while he was home sleeping.

  “Help, guys!” she said as she ripped open the Velcro ties on her jacket. “I need food!”

  “Here she is!” Willie, Pop’s best friend, called toward the kitchen in back.

  By the time Siria had circled the other engines, Danny was pouring her a hot chocolate with foamy cream on top. A plate of hamburgers loaded with tomatoes and onions had already been set on the table for her.

  “You have to keep up your strength, Siria,” Danny said from the stove, raising his spatula. “And you’re at the right place.”

  “True,” Willie said. He loved to eat. He held a fat hamburger in one large hand and a cup of French fries in the other.

  While she ate, Siria tried not to stare at the pencil marks that zigzagged up the back wall. They were bunched together, hardly getting higher.

  Izzy measured her every September. “The wall is crooked,” she’d said last year, for comfort, when the line was only a tiny bit higher than the year before.

  Siria knew she was a shrimp, the smallest kid in her class, and if you didn’t count the four or five babies in her building, she was the shortest there, too, floors one to seven.

  It was a miserable feeling, looking up at everyone, standing on tiptoe so no one would notice her height.

  “Mom was a peanut, too,” Pop had said once, his eyes soft. “But you should have seen her, Siria. Hands on her hips, not afraid to do what she had to do.” He’d grinned. “And not afraid to tell everyone what she believed!”

  Now Izzy squinted at her. “You’re getting taller, Siria. I can see it with my own good eyes. Catching up to your pop!”

  Izzy was the one who had given Siria the idea of hanging off the closet door every night. That was sort of what Izzy did: she used the firehouse as an exercise room, her wild dark hair swinging, arms reaching up, toes pointed down, face shiny with effort.

  Izzy made everyone happy. On the opposite wall, she’d hung an old calendar that was torn off at July fourteenth. It had a picture of kids diving into a cool blue lake. “Isn’t it fun to pretend it’s summer all year long?” she’d said when she’d hung it up.

  Now Danny reached over Izzy’s shoulder and grabbed an oatmeal cookie. “With five kids at home,” he said, “it’s tough to get anything like this to eat.”

  He’d told Siria once, “You belong to the firehouse. We’ve known you since you were two months old, wailing louder than our sirens.”

  And Izzy had nodded. “She was a gorgeous baby, even with her mouth open like a canyon.”

  They thought they knew everything about her, but they didn’t know about her fire chasing.

  They sat at the table munching, everyone talking quietly because Jesse was dozing in the dormitory just beyond the kitchen, working his twenty-four hours on.

  Danny and Izzy were talking about arson. Siria knew about arson: fires set deliberately, people hurt, firemen burned.

  She leaned over her plate. The smoke at the shed—maybe that wasn’t her imagination. Suppose …

  Don’t suppose, she told herself.

  But what if someone had started that fire? It wasn’t like the one they’d put out last night, caused by leaking chemicals.

  But arson!

  Don’t let arson ever hurt Pop.

  Or Izzy.

  Or any of them.

  CHAPTER 4

  That night, Pop sat in the front room, gluing a tiny piece of canvas to his model ship’s mast.

  Siria leaned over him, resting her hands on his shoulders. “Great sail.”

  “I’m naming this one My Star.”

  “Ha. Not another Siria? We must have forty ships named Siria.” She glanced at the shelves under the window. Yes, at least forty, lined up, crowded in, all beautiful.

  Pop reached back to put his hand over hers. “You’re my star.”

  “I know it.” She kissed the top of his head and stopped in the living room for one of his huge books. The cover showed flames shooting up, spelling out the word arson. Her mouth went dry at the word.

  She slid into bed and began to read. The first page said that every fire had to be investigated. How had it started? She knew that from listening to Pop and Izzy.

  Somewhere in the middle she read about kids and fires. A little kid who played with matches, not meaning to set a fire, wasn’t an arsonist. It had to be deliberate: someone who
really meant to do it. Sometimes arsonists even stayed to watch.

  Siria couldn’t stop thinking about the shed and who might have been inside. She shouldn’t have left so quickly. One more moment and …

  Go back. Go back now.

  Too bad she was in her pajamas.

  She looked over her shoulder. The light was out in the front room; Pop must be reading in bed.

  Take care of Pop, Siria.

  Mom would have done it.

  Her jeans, her puffy jacket, and Mimi’s knitted mittens and wool hat were all thrown on in a minute. She closed her bedroom door, then took baby steps through the living room.

  Ten more tiptoed steps; then she opened the door an inch at a time, closed it silently behind her, and punched the elevator button for one.

  Almo, the super, slept on the leather couch in the lobby that had worn itself into his shape. His shoes were off and his socks were full of holes. Mimi would say, “Not a very good image for the building.”

  Siria rushed past him, then rode her bike through the slush on the avenue. A dusty moon shone overhead, along with a sprinkling of stars. A food truck idled in front of Trencher’s, and cars drove by, almost as if it were daytime.

  Piece of cake.

  She left her bike against a pole and clumped through the snow toward the shed, hardly breathing, putting each foot down as quietly as she could.

  She reached the shed wall and felt the splintery wood against her fingertips. Inside, everything was still, but it was too dark to really see. She waited four minutes, maybe five. There was only one way to be sure. She had to open the door. She had to go inside.

  Another minute.

  She took a few steps around to the front. Listened. Ready to run, she put her hand on the door and pushed it open. She jumped back.

  The moon lit the inside: an old quilt on the floor in the corner, food on a plate. In the center, a few pieces of half-burned wood and rolls of newspapers only half charred.

  Someone had set a fire there.

  Her heart began to pound. What had the book on arson said? Investigate. How had the fire started? She knew that now. Someone had started it with matches.

  She looked at the empty lot, then closed the door behind her. Straddling her bike, she headed for home, her mind whirling.

  As she passed Trencher’s, she saw a shadow in the doorway. She jumped, hands shaking, the handlebars wobbling.

  “Sorry,” a voice called. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”

  It was only Jason’s friend, Mike. The one with the cool tattoo on the back of his neck.

  Siria raised her hand to wave, then kept going. When she reached her building, she remembered the key to the outside door. It wasn’t around her neck or in her pocket—it was dangling from the hook behind the kitchen door. She’d forgotten it again.

  Almo was still asleep on the couch. It wasn’t a good idea to wake him. He’d tell Pop she was wandering around at night, thrilled with his information.

  She went around to the back, bypassing black plastic garbage bags with hats of snow, and leaned her bike against the fence. The basement door was always open, banging back and forth in the wind. Almo never closed it. What did he care about howling hurricanes, blizzards, or robbers on the loose?

  She steeled herself to go down the ice-covered cement steps and sneak through the basement. Inside, it was almost completely dark. Kids with peashooters had used the lightbulbs for target practice again. Pieces of glass crunched under her feet.

  Something went bang almost in front of her and her heart stopped for a second. Only the boiler in the electricity room!

  She passed the laundry room. Half the washing machines didn’t work, and the dryers didn’t let off enough heat to melt an ice cream cone, so most people went across the street to Louie’s Laundromat.

  She remembered that huge dog who’d been in 5-E, the empty apartment. Sometimes he wandered in the open basement door. He might be hiding in the dark. “Gather your wits, Siria,” she whispered; it was something Izzy said.

  She tore through the basement toward the elevator and pressed the button, running in place in case the dog showed up and she had to race in the opposite direction and outside again.

  And there he was! Eyes gleaming, his matted hair and thick tail brushing against the storage bins. But the elevator rumbled to a stop, and she was on her way before he moved. Upstairs, she grasped the apartment doorknob.

  Don’t be locked, please.

  It turned and she tiptoed inside. The living room was dim, and the only sound was soft music coming from Pop’s bedroom.

  She couldn’t wait to slide into her own bed and pull the quilt over her head.

  But not yet.

  She climbed up on the chair next to her closet door. Raise those arms. Curl those fingers around the top of the door. Point those toes.

  Hang there.

  Stretch!

  It was painful, but she made herself stay pasted to the closet until she counted to one hundred ten, which was a nice round number and maybe would earn her a quarter inch.

  She’d tried Pop’s hand weights the other night but dropped them on her feet, causing angry purple marks across eight toes. Only the pinkies had escaped.

  She finally slid under that warm quilt and tried not to think of the shed, and fire, and that huge dog with greasy fur and curved teeth.

  She burrowed deeper into the quilt. If only she could tell Pop about the fire. But then he’d know she’d been outside at night, wandering around. How angry he’d be.

  Think about the stars instead.

  Think about the legends Mom collected.

  Picture them.

  She took a last look at her star book, then closed her eyes.

  Singuuriq, an Inuit woman, lived in the cold Arctic north. Her little house rested beside a path that wandered from the earth to the moon.

  She tried to do her work, but people passing by caused a draft that crept into the room, causing her seal-oil lamp to flicker and dance and the flame to turn bluish white.

  The travelers were weary, thirsty. They needed to be rescued. She let them rest on the small bench outside her door. She held a cup of warm tea to their lips.

  Singuuriq’s seal-oil lamp still dances across the sky, twinkling, a diamond in Canis Major’s collar. We call the diamond Sirius.

  Today, astronomers say that stars don’t twinkle. It’s the earth’s unstable atmosphere that makes it seem as if they do.

  Singuuriq would shake her head at that.

  CHAPTER 5

  The next morning, Siria woke thinking of the little house resting between the earth and the sky.

  She took a breath. A little house.

  The shed!

  She scrambled out of bed, threw on her clothes, and went to her bedroom window. She was going to watch the neighborhood, every minute, every second. If someone was setting fires, she’d find him. Or her.

  Take care of Pop, Siria.

  She went into the kitchen. Mimi was making granola with raisins, crunchy and sweet. She pattered around in homemade slippers and rollers in her hair, talking over her shoulder. “I heard about a constellation for you.” She popped a raisin into her mouth.

  Siria looked up from pouring juice.

  “A unicorn with a crazy name.” Mimi squinted up at the ceiling. “Monoceros.”

  Siria took a sip of pulpy orange juice, picturing a unicorn with a golden horn.

  “He gallops between the Great Dog, Canis Major, and the Little Dog, Canis Minor.”

  “Ah, it’s near Sirius, then.”

  Mimi smiled. “That’s all I know. It can’t be seen without a powerful telescope. But it’s there.”

  That made Siria think about the shed again. Who had set the fire? And why? The answer was there somewhere.

  Mimi cleared her throat. “So, Siria.” She almost whispered, as if the room were filled with people. “Mr. Byars was in the elevator with me this morning.”

  Siria hoped her face looked innocent.
She bit the insides of her cheeks.

  “He said he’ll call the cops if he catches you hanging out on the fire escape spying on them again.”

  Mimi’s lined face was red. How worried she looked. Had Mr. Byars frightened her? He certainly frightened Siria.

  Mimi went on. “He said you and Laila were leaning on your stomachs out over the street, trespassing, nearly killing yourselves.”

  Siria wanted to say “Mr. Byars doesn’t own the air outside his apartment,” but Mimi was in a fragile state.

  Fragile. She’d read that somewhere.

  Mimi leaned forward and touched her ear. “Only one earring?”

  Siria reached up. Oh no! She must have lost the other one. How could she have done that?

  Someone banged on the apartment door. The noise was deafening. “That’s Douglas,” Siria said.

  “Noise is that kid’s trademark.” Mimi tapped Siria’s shoulder. “Promise me. No more hanging over railings.”

  “I guess.”

  Siria went into the living room and opened the door. “How about something to eat, Douglas?” Then her eyes widened. “What are you wearing?”

  Douglas had shrugged into one of his older brother’s jackets, probably Aydin’s. It was much too big; the sleeves covered his hands. Gloves dangled over his fingertips.

  “What took you so long?” He bounced on the balls of his feet. “Get your jacket. Get your gloves. I have to show you something.”

  “What about granola?”

  “No time.”

  Siria called back to Mimi. “I’ll eat later, thanks.” And then to Douglas, “Why are you wearing that jacket?”

  He shrugged. “Let’s go.”

  She grabbed her jacket and wound a scarf around her neck. “I’ll be back, Mimi.” She followed him into the hall.

  He kept going upstairs. “The roof.”

  “Why?”

  “All you do is ask questions.” He grinned at her and pulled open the heavy doors. They slid outside with a rush of frigid air.