“Well, to them it is,” I replied, keeping my voice low so the kids wouldn’t hear. “The more we keep them cooped up in here, the more they feel like freaks, like we’re hiding them.”
“I don’t think this is a good idea,” he said.
“I’ll be with them the whole time,” I told him.
“If they go,” he said, “if they go, then we’ll both be with them.”
“That’s fine,” I said.
“Let me talk to Senator Roberts,” he finally said.
“Isn’t he busy?” I asked.
“He is,” he said. “He’s incredibly busy, and he’s not going to be happy to be disturbed.”
“Then just ask Madison,” I told him, and he paused for a long time. “You know I’m right,” I continued. “You know it, Carl.”
“Fine,” he said. “I’ll call you back.”
I turned to the kids. “Maybe!” I said, but I said it in this really hyperpositive way, like the power of my good cheer would make it happen.
“Yes!” they shouted. “We’re going to the library!”
“Maybe!” I said, this time with my teeth showing too much, like I was being held at gunpoint but couldn’t let anyone know.
Ten minutes later, while the kids were kind of shimmying around the room, like maybe moonwalking poorly, the phone rang and it was Carl.
“Okay,” he said. “We can go. I’m coming over there. I have something that I want to try.”
“Come on over,” I said, so excited. With the chance to leave the place, I finally realized how long I’d been at the estate, how stir-crazy I’d become. I’d still have the kids with me, and they still might catch on fire, but if they did, there’d be so much open space for me to run away and hide from the consequences.
“We’re going to the library!” I said, and the kids did their weird shimmy dance, and I wondered if that’s what they’d been taught was dancing.
When Carl showed up, we were all dressed and ready, the kids’ awful hair slicked down and styled like they were in a Duran Duran cover band. I had tried to put makeup on the bruise, but it made it look worse somehow, almost like I was faking an injury, so I rubbed it off, which hurt like hell.
“Dear lord,” Carl said when he looked at me. “What happened to you?” He immediately looked at the kids. “What happened to her?” He suspected them entirely.
“Madison hit her!” Roland said.
“Basketball,” I told him. “It’s fine.”
“Mrs. Roberts plays to win,” Carl admitted, as if my face getting smashed made perfect sense to him now.
“Did you put ice on it?” he asked, and I just made a face.
Carl was holding this giant black bucket.
“What’s that?” I asked, changing the subject, and Bessie shouted, “It’s ice cream!”
“No—” Carl replied, his face so pained, like these feral kids actively caused him real and lasting trauma. “It’s not ice cream. Why would you think it was ice cream?”
“It’s in a big bucket,” Roland offered.
“I kind of promised them that we could have ice cream,” I told him.
“Well, it’s not ice cream. Sorry.”
“What is it then?” I asked.
“It’s stunt gel,” he said. “Remember? What we talked about?”
“Oh,” I said, remembering. “That’s a big bucket.”
“I had to buy it in bulk,” he said. “I have six more buckets, five gallons each, in the garage. So it’d better work.” He pried open the bucket and we all looked inside like it might hold the soul of an ancient king. But it wasn’t exciting. It was just a big bucket of gel. It looked, honestly, like semen. It looked like a big bucket of, I don’t know, drool. The point is, it looked gross. And we were supposed to slather the kids in it.
Carl rubbed a little on his index finger and then clicked open a lighter, the flame nearly an inch high. He held his finger right over the flame, then directly in the flame, for about three seconds. “Nothing,” he said. “It’s good.”
“It smells funny,” Bessie said, holding her nose. It actually smelled kind of like eucalyptus, but it was overpowering, so much so that it seemed unsafe.
“Okay,” Carl said. “So I talked to my buddy, and he said we just apply it directly to their skin—and, yes, he says that it’s safe—and that should do it. And we just reapply it throughout the day, I guess.”
“You guess?” I said. “You don’t know?”
“Well,” he said, “I couldn’t tell him the real reason for why we were getting it, could I? And stuntmen don’t just walk around all day with it on. They do it for a specific scene, a single shot. But, yes, it’s mostly just water and tea tree oil with some scientific stuff added to it. It’s safe, I think.”
“Why are we talking about this?” Bessie asked, slowly backing away from the bucket.
“It’s for you guys,” I said, “to help keep you from catching.” At this point, I didn’t want to say fire around them if I could avoid it. I just called it catching.
“Why can’t we just keep doing the breathing stuff?” she asked.
“This is an extra level of security,” Carl said, and I so badly wanted Carl, that square, to shut up. He wasn’t helping. “It’s kind of a plan B, okay?”
“I don’t want to put that on,” she said.
“What about the fireman stuff?” I asked Carl.
“The Nomex?” he replied. “I’m still waiting for it.”
“Why is it taking so long?” I asked.
“First of all, it’s only been a few days, okay, Lillian? And how easy do you think it is to obtain it? Like, do you think I can just find child sizes of Nomex clothing at Walmart? Like, for tiny firefighters? I’m having to get it altered. It’s complicated. I’m being pushed to my limits in terms of thinking creatively about our situation.”
He looked a little frazzled, actually, his hair not perfectly combed, and so I put up my hands. “Fine,” I said. “I’m sorry. Thank you for all that you’re doing.”
“Thank you,” he replied.
“Okay, kiddos,” I said. “Let’s just try it, okay? It’s like a science experiment. This will be our science lesson for today.”
“You first,” Bessie said.
“Of—of course,” I said, angry at the reversal but acting like I’d already thought of it, “of course I’ll go first.” I looked at Carl, and he blushed a little. Then he dipped his hand into the bucket and took a sharp breath. “Cold,” he grunted. The gel was weird and viscous, and he started to apply it to my bare arm. It was so cold, just so weirdly cold that it kind of felt good. He rubbed up and down my arm, coating it. Then he did the other.
“Do you want to do your legs?” he asked, and I shook my head. “That’s good for me,” I told him. He held up the lighter and flicked the flame back into existence. “Don’t flinch or anything,” he said. “It doesn’t hurt.” He held the flame directly under my arm, and there was this weird moment where I was certain that my skin was burning, that I was on fire, but I just gritted my teeth and realized that, no, I was fine. I wasn’t burning. And even for a few seconds, it felt amazing, like nothing could ever hurt me. Was this what the children felt when they were burning? I had no idea, but I wished it would last forever.