Those Who Favor Fire by Lauren Wolk (easy readers .TXT) 📕

“I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t try to protect your interests,” Mr. Murdock was saying. “My advice is that you wait and see what happens. There will be a lot of people who, like you, won’t sell an inch of their land until they’re convinced of immediate danger. The government’s offer will probably even keep them on their land longer: knowing that they can sell out in a hurry and get something for their land, even if it’s on fire, will encourage them to stay until the last minute. Personally, I think that’s a very dangerous, foolhardy attitude, but …”

Even at this, Rachel did not speak. Mr. Murdock began to wonder if she was listening to him at all. “If you wait and see what happens,” he said, “you’ll still have plenty of time to buy up some land, break up the government’s holdings, after the exodus has begun.”

“If it begins,” Rachel said, quietly. Mr. Murdock was both disappointed and relieved to hear her say it. She was not yet ready to give in and let go, but some of the spirit had gone out of her. She seemed close to surrender, and this pleased him. He was concerned about her money, about her contest with the government, but most of all he was concerned for her safety and her health. He wanted her out of Belle Haven, and he suspected that, given time, she would go of her own free will. She was still very young. She needed time to test her perceptions and discover for herself their faults.

“Give yourself some time,” he said gently. “There’s no hurry. And there’s every reason in the world not to do something now that you’re going to regret.”

Rachel bit her lip and folded her hands. “All right,” she said. “I’ll wait for a while longer. But I’m not saying that I’ve changed my mind.”

“I understand,” he said. He walked her to the door. “But there’s no shame in doing what you have to do to make the best of a bad situation. No one’s going to blame you for looking after your own interests.”

She turned back at the door. “That’s what I’ve been doing all along,” she said. “And I’m beginning to think that maybe there is some shame in it after all.”

Chapter 41

        The number of those who thought that relocation was wiser than resistance slowly grew as autumn aged into winter, but still no one left. Some focused all their attention on Christmas, vowing to get on with things once the holidays were past. But Christmas came and went without incident and without the departure of a single family. No one wanted to believe that the fire would get to be as bad as Mendelson claimed. No one wanted to give up and go. Above all, no one wanted to be the first to leave.

Before winter hardened the ground, seventy new boreholes were drilled in town and fifty more around the fields, among the hills and hollows to the north. Many backyards, most street corners had them. Government workers roamed the town like coyotes. They lowered instruments into the holes to see if the temperature down below was changing. Out closer to Ross’s sunken house, they found that the fire was indeed moving slowly toward the town. Sometimes they found their gauges ruined when they hauled them back out of the boreholes. In such cases, “That’s one hot fire” was as close as they came to a reading.

The people of Belle Haven became accustomed to sleeping with their windows cracked open. They grew sick of the ticking of the monitors, day and night, and of the frequent visits from the “meter maids” who assessed the safety of the indoor air. The sight of the borehole spouts was sickening, but most people found themselves unable to walk by one without taking a good look. Somehow, the absence of smoke did not placate them.

In February, faced with the news that a monitor in one of the houses not far from the tunnels had gone off, most people were stymied. A few months earlier they would have shaken their heads and, perhaps, sent a prayer skyward. A few months earlier they had thought of the fire way out in the tunnels as nothing more than a dreadful old companion that required a bit of watching and a slightly cautious tread. No one would have been terribly worried about an alarm out there going off. Odd things seemed commonplace when they happened near the mine. But now, seven months since the incident in Caspar’s Hollow, since the rest of the town had begun to walk more softly, news of this first alarm was shocking.

“But why’s everyone so upset?” Rusty asked his mother one morning before school. “The fire’s been out there forever. It’s nothing new. If the McCoys had had a monitor all these years, it probably would have gone off hundreds of times. Heck, they’re glad it went off. They were all set to move out anyway. Now they’ll get their check faster. It’s not like a monitor in this part of town went off or something burned down or anything.”

“Hush now, Rusty,” Angela said, sliding a bowl of cornflakes in front of him. “You’ll be late for school.”

Joe, feeling Rusty’s eyes upon him, ate his waffles and shrugged.

Joe had spent a lot of time at Angela’s Kitchen since the cold had come into Belle Haven. There wasn’t much work for him to do during the winter, for the crops were all in and graves that needed digging after the ground froze were given to backhoes. But he had cut Christmas trees if the farmers came to fetch him, helped Earl with his inventory, shoveled snow. And he continued to spend one day each week out of town. “Taking care of some business,” he said if anyone asked. And Rusty continued to look after Pal while Joe was away, for she went nearly everywhere on foot, hated riding