#amerille

He leaves the window and grabs his cell off of the night stand. It doesn’t respond to him, and he doesn’t have time to deal with it. He figures it’s off or dead, stuffs it in his short’s pocket to fix later, and heads for the hallway outside of his room.

Juno doesn’t care that his grandmother might see him in nothing but his shorts. He doesn’t care about decency because of the massive fire he spotted outside of his window. As he exits his room in the darkness, he clumsily knocks his foot into the doorway. It hurts, but he isn’t paying attention. As he dashes down his stairway to the first floor, he tries to figure out why there would be a fire in Palm Creek.

His first thought is to pick a logical reason. Someone’s house caught on fire, a gas station exploded, or maybe an arsonist struck. Amerille’s words haunt him in the back of his mind, telling him that there are bigger reasons responsible for the catastrophe. In the end, he decides it doesn’t matter why. All that matters now is trying to fix the fire, or getting away from the fire.

So his next thought hits him: call the fire department. Call the police. Call someone – call an adult – to take care of the situation. Juno finds the landline phone in the kitchen and snatches it off the hook. His fingers dial 911 quickly and he clutches the phone to his ear, tense and ready to tell the person on the line what they probably already know. A sinking feeling settles in his stomach as he realizes the phone isn’t even ringing. There isn’t a busy signal. There’s nothing.

“Grandma!”

Juno screams for his grandmother as he hikes up the stairs as quickly as he can. When he gets to her room, he tries to turn on the lights, but they don’t work. It hits him that the power is off. He remembers the fire, and moves quickly to the bed.

“Grandma,” he calls for her, hands searching for her in the mass of frilly blankets and old pillows. He doesn’t find anyone. Juno thinks that she might be in the bathroom, and sprints that way. The bathroom is just next door, and he’s there in seconds, but the door is open and no one is in there. Was she in the kitchen? He was just there, but it’s possible he might have missed her.

Frantic and worked up with adrenaline, Juno returns to his room first. His hands are shaking as he finds his shirt and pulls it back on over his head. While he’s doing that, his feet are working into a pair of sneakers he just got last week for his birthday. He grabs a coat from his jacket, remembers to put his wallet in the jacket pocket, and is out the door again.

Juno takes the steps two at a time and skips the last four of twenty-two steps. He lands loudly, unconcerned with making noise, hoping to find his grandmother in the kitchen. He looks for her in the dark, scanning the living room and calling for her. He wastes no time making it to the kitchen when he doesn’t see her in the main room.

“Grandma! Lady!” He hollers for her again. He doesn’t find her at the table, the sink, the refrigerator, or anywhere. The only room left is the laundry room on this floor. It’s a small house, and it shouldn’t be that hard to find her.

He jogs out of the kitchen and slams open the door to the laundry room. The washing machine and dryer are unmanned.

His grandmother is nowhere to be found.

Even though he didn’t much care for the woman, she was his grandmother, and family was always important when it came down to it. Juno wonders what he’s supposed to do without her.

“She’s fine,” he mutters to himself, shifting his weight from one foot to another quickly. “She probably’s outside.” What would she be doing outside? Maybe she went to help the other people deal with the fire. That’s the only place she could be.

Juno darts back into the kitchen and opens the door to his neighborhood. Outside, he can see a glow in the not-so-far distance, and the wind brings smoke to his nose. The neighborhood two blocks over is already catching fire, and it’s still heading in his direction quickly.

He wants to cry.