“We can do it,” I say again. “Go help your mom. We are the Unstoppable Spatula Crew!”
She laughs nervously and Uncle Carl begins to sweat, but I just smile and kind of puff out my chest, hoping to look older and taller. I think she’s about to change her mind, but then her phone rings again and she steps out of the truck. “Okay. I’m on my way, Mum. Just stay right there. No, don’t go anywhere.” She glances back at me and I give her a thumbs-up. She nods and hops in her car and drives away.
I pick up an apron and hand it to Uncle Carl. “Let’s make some quesadillas!”
• • •
Uncle Carl and I work perfectly, side by side in the Quesadilla Ship. I chant, “We are the Unstoppable Spatula Crew, making cheesy treats for you! We’ll get you through the queue!”
Uncle Carl laughs.
I’ve plated sixteen specialty quesadillas when I start to think I might have the hang of this.
Only two orders are left when I hear Uncle Carl yelp.
I turn around and he shouts, “Get back!” just as he throws a giant cup of water on the burning skillet.
You know when time seems to slow down to nothing, when everything is happening around you and you’re caught in a bubble? Your brain is working like mad, but the rest of your body won’t respond fast enough, like trying to swim in a pool of honey? I see the fire rising up from the pan and I know one thing immediately: This is a grease fire.
When I was seven, there was a fireman who visited our classroom. I remember he looked really impressed when I asked him how to safely put out a small fire. Well, that’s when I first learned about grease fires.
If you don’t know anything about grease fires, you should. Because everyone thinks, Oh, you need water to put out fires. But that isn’t always true, no matter what the cartoons say.
And when I see Uncle Carl pouring that big cup of water, my brain lights up with facts about grease coming from cheese, and water repelling grease, and grease spreading like an explosion, and that’s exactly what happens. What was one small fire is now six, lighting up the stove and surrounding countertop. Uncle Carl pushes me away, but I lean toward the stove to try to turn off the burners. Uncle Carl keeps shouting to get out! get out! and then he waves a towel around and brings it down on the burning stove and counter. But I know if the stove isn’t turned off, the truck will be lost.
So I press forward and that’s when the fire finds the small bowl of sesame oil and it leaps up to the ceiling, doubling the amount of heat. Smoke pours out of the window and I can see that it’s reached the point that the fireman had called “the point of no return.”
Everything is happening so fast and so slow at the same time. I can hear shouts and maybe the distant siren of a fire truck. Uncle Carl is frantic, his face all twisted up, curse words like I’ve never heard before coming out of his mouth. “I’ve got to stop this!” he yells, and I’m trying to get him out and suddenly Birdie is there stepping through the door, yanking on my arm and now there is a stranger pulling my arm too, and Birdie is shouting my name.
It’s only when the fire makes a leap from the wall to Uncle Carl’s shirt that he bounces back toward the door. We tumble out, Uncle Carl rolls on the grass, and I land on top of Birdie and the Stop-and-Go employee who’d been trying to pull me out.
Someone shouts, “Is there a fire extinguisher?” and then someone else yells, “The fire truck is on the way!” and then there’s a small pow! as something else in the grease-laden kitchen explodes. I cover my eyes and cough as more and more smoke pours out of the ordering window.
We get up and move away from the truck. I look over at Uncle Carl and he’s covered in black sweat, his eyes open and chest heaving up and down.
At some point my brain registers the amount of heat coming off burning metal.
Suddenly, Uncle Carl is running back toward the truck. He’s too far away for me to do anything. I think I’m yelling, but the fire and the crackling and popping is all so loud I can’t hear myself.
Then out of nowhere, Patrick is there, wrestling his brother back.
They almost look like they’re dancing as Patrick pulls Uncle Carl farther from the blaze.
“Let me go!” shouts Uncle Carl. “I can save the truck. I can fix this!”
Patrick holds on.
“Let. Me. Go!” yells Uncle Carl.
There’s another pop just as the fire truck appears and the firefighters jump into action.
The tree above the truck is on fire.
Water streams out of a fire hose.
“I could have saved it,” says Uncle Carl.
“You would have been killed,” says Patrick.
“Yeah? What’s it to you, huh?”
Uncle Carl twists out of Patrick’s grip and stares at him, breathing hard. He curses, tugging on the twisted Quesadilla Ship apron.
Right when I start to feel light-headed, I hear Rosie’s voice. It sounds really far off, like she’s running down the street. Then she’s there, next to a fireman who’s trying to calm her down.
“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!” she says. “What happened? Oh my God!”
She looks over and sees Uncle Carl and runs up to him and kind of grabs his shirt and is asking him what happened. At first she’s just kind of confused and stunned, but then she gets madder and madder when Uncle Carl doesn’t say anything other than I’m sorry. At one point, he starts to say that it was an
