Wednesday morning, eight days after the events at Hermit Hobson’s junkyard, Colin was no longer restricted to quarters. He was reluctant to leave the house. He studied the surrounding grounds through all the first-floor windows; and although he could detect nothing out of the ordinary, his own front lawn seemed to him far more dangerous than any battlefield in any war there’d ever been, in spite of the lack of bursting bombs and whistling bullets.
— Roy wouldn’t try anything in broad daylight.
— Go. Go on. Get out and do what you have to do.
— You can’t hide here for the rest of your life.
He went to the library. As he cycled along the sunny streets, he looked repeatedly behind. He was fairly sure that Roy was not following him.
Though Colin slept only three hours the night before, he was waiting at the front doors of the library when Mrs. Larkin, the librarian, opened for business. He’d gone to the library twice a week since they’d moved to town, and Mrs. Larkin had quickly learned what he liked. When she saw him standing on the steps, she said, “We received the new Arthur C. Clarke novel last Friday.”
“That’s swell.”
“Well, I didn’t put it out on the shelf right away because I thought you’d be in the same day or Saturday at the latest.”
He followed her into the big, cool, stucco building, into the main room where their footsteps were smothered by the mammoth stacks of books, and where the air smelled of glue and yellowing paper.
“When you hadn’t showed up by Monday afternoon,” Mrs. Larkin said, “I felt I couldn’t hold the book any longer. And now, wouldn’t you just know it, someone checked it out a few minutes till five yesterday afternoon.”
“That’s all right,” Colin said. “Thanks a lot for thinking about me.”
Mrs. Larkin was a sweet-tempered, red-haired woman with too little brow, too much chin, too little bosom, and too much behind. Her glasses were as thick as Colin’s. She loved books and bookish people, and Colin liked her.
“I mainly came to use one of the microfilm readers,” he said.
“Oh, I’m sorry, but we don’t have any science fiction on microfilm.”
“I’m not interested in science fiction today. What I’d like to see is back issues of the Santa Leona
“Whatever for?” She made a face, as if she’d bitten into a lemon. “Perhaps I’m being a traitor to my own hometown when I say this, but the
“Well…I’m sort of looking ahead to starting school in September,” Colin said, wondering if that sounded as ridiculous to her as it did to him. “English composition always gives me a little bit of trouble, so I like to think ahead.”
“I can’t believe that anything in school gives you trouble,” Mrs. Larkin said.
“Anyway … I have this idea for an essay about summer in Santa Leona, not my summer but summer in general, and summer historically. I want to do some research.”
She smiled approvingly. “You’re an ambitious young man, aren’t you?”
He shrugged. “Not really.”
She shook her head. “In all the years I’ve worked here, you’re the first boy who’s come in during summer vacation to prepare for next fall’s school assignments. I’d call that ambitious. I surely would. And it’s refreshing, too. You keep that attitude, and you’ll go a long way in this world.”
Colin was embarrassed because he did not deserve the praise and because he had lied to her. He felt his face turn red, and he suddenly realized that this was the first time he had blushed in a week, maybe longer than that, which was some kind of record for him.
He went to the microfilm alcove, and Mrs. Larkin brought spools of film that contained every page of the
Rose.
Something Rose.
Jim Rose?
Arthur Rose?
Michael Rose?
He remembered the last name by associating it with the flower, but he couldn’t quite recall what the boy’s first name had been.
Phil Pacino.
He remembered that one because it was like Al Pacino, the movie actor.
He decided to start with Phil. He lined up the spools of last summer’s newspapers.
He assumed both deaths would be front-page news, so he skimmed, looking for bold headlines.
He couldn’t remember the date Roy had given. He started with June and worked all the way through to the first of August before he found the story.
LOCAL BOY DIES IN FIRE
He was reading the last paragraph of the article when he sensed a change in the air and knew that Roy was behind him. He whirled, bolting up from the swivel chair as he turned-but Roy wasn’t there. No one was there. No one was at the worktables. No one was browsing through the stacks. Mrs. Larkin wasn’t at her desk. He had imagined it.
He sat down and read the article again. It was exactly as Roy said. The Pacino house had burned to the ground, a total loss. In the rubble, firemen had found the blackened body of Philip Pacino, age fourteen.
Colin felt beads of sweat pop out on his forehead. He wiped his face with one hand and dried his hands on his jeans.
He went through the papers for the next week with special care, looking for follow-up stories. There were three.
FIRE MARSHAL’S REPORT
PLAYING WITH MATCHES
According to the final, official statement, Philip Pacino had caused the blaze. He had been playing with matches near a workbench on which he constructed model airplanes. Apparently there had been a number of highly flammable items on the bench, including several tubes and pots of glue, a can of lighter fluid, and an open bottle of paint remover.
The second follow-up was a page-two report of the boy’s funeral. The story contained tributes from Philip’s teachers, teary remembrances from his friends, and excerpts from the eulogy. A photograph of the grieving parents headed the three-column piece.
Colin read it twice with great interest because one of Philip Pacino’s friends quoted in the story was Roy Borden.
Two days later there was a long editorial that was hard-hitting by the
PREVENTING TRAGEDY WHO’S RESPONSIBLE?
In none of the four pieces was there the slightest indication that the police or the fire department suspected murder and arson. From the beginning they had assumed it was an accident, the result of carelessness or
