Those Who Favor Fire by Lauren Wolk (no david read aloud TXT) 📗

the mean lots, poor houses, especially those living over the tunnels, counted themselves lucky.

“It’s only fair,” the strangers from Harrisburg had said. “Starting fresh somewhere else shouldn’t mean starting from scratch, no matter what kind of house you’re leaving behind.”

Or, if they preferred, people could trade their houses outright for brand-new prefabs that the government planned to erect at the edge of a new development twenty miles east, right outside of Spence.

“We’d like to maintain a sense of community,” the government men said. “To relocate not only the people of Belle Haven but its heart and soul as well. To preserve its integrity and maintain its heritage.” They were even willing, they claimed, to move one or two important structures: one of the churches, perhaps, or the old train depot, charming and defunct.

It didn’t take long for people to take sides. There were some surprises: a few parents with young children who wanted very badly to stay in Belle Haven; a few old people who had lived in Belle Haven all of their lives but had reluctantly decided that their final days might be spent more wisely in a safer place. Mostly, though, the town divided much as everyone had thought it would. Old miners, many dying slowly from black lung, intended to stay. They were not afraid of coal or coal fire. Young, able-bodied families began to talk about departure. Some widows and widowers finally picked up their phones and called their far-flung children. If it comes to that, would you take me in? they asked, afraid of whichever answer they might hear.

For many, the decision of whether to stay or leave was easy compared to the choice between striking out alone or relocating to the Spence development. Alone, elsewhere, they had the chance of finding a good home in an authentic, rooted, albeit foreign community. In the Spence development they saw dreariness and woe. They would become, they feared, a collection of refugees with only two things in common: having lived in Belle Haven and having left it.

And so the debate began. It was kept alive between the cashiers and the customers at the A&P, the farmers baling their hay, the breakfast crowd at Angela’s, the children in their classrooms. We should leave, some said. We should stay, some said. They all felt it best that they stay together, but they could not agree on the best way to stay alive.

“Houses are full of gases. It’s natural,” claimed a large woman named Ruby who had come into the Superette for some Pop-Tarts. “Furniture, rugs, insulation … everything gives off gas of some sort or other.”

“Dogs, beans …” said Lenny, behind the counter, grinning.

Ruby laughed. “Whenever I give Tom beans for supper, he goes off to watch TV with the dogs, I hide the matches.” She trembled with mirth. The Pop-Tarts rattled in their box.

At the Baptist church the next Sunday the preacher, thinking he might unite his flock with hope and gumption, tore it right in two.

“I have spoken to Mr. Mendelson,” he said when he had put his sermon to bed. “And I have learned that Belle Haven will not be declared a disaster area. Not even if the fire gets as bad as he claims it will. He wouldn’t tell me why, but I think I know. When the government declares someplace a disaster area, the people who live there, or who must leave there, are given replacement value for the homes they’ve lost or left. Which is quite a bit more than some of us have been offered.

“The upside is that we don’t have to leave unless our houses are condemned, which I am confident will not happen. We can stay put, if we like. Those who sell out and leave—well, their houses will be torn down right away. Mendelson says the idea is to tear them down so they can’t catch fire and cause bigger problems. So what will we have, those who stay? We’ll have our homes. And around our homes we’ll have empty lots. So here’s what I propose.” He paused, smiling.

“I propose that we set out to beautify our town. In every empty lot—and, God willing, there won’t be many—we’ll plant new grass and flowers, trees, make parks. None of us wants to see our neighbors leave, but if they do, we’ll heal up the wounds with our own hands, keep Belle Haven from scarring. That,” he said, smiling, “is what I propose.”

The next Sunday, half of the pews in the church were empty. Missing were those who thought that no one, much less a preacher, had the right to shame or tempt anyone into staying in a place that they had begun, reluctantly, to fear. Husbands were there without their wives, wives without their husbands. So far, there was no proof that there was any more fire under Belle Haven than there had ever been, but it felt like maybe there was.

Some people, already weary of debate, declared themselves in more subtle ways. Fran Harkley was seen putting a hundred new tulip bulbs in her front garden and a ring of daffodil bulbs round the birch by her porch. The Danielses put a new roof on their house. And Sarah Clemm ran an ad in The Randall Recorder. Fire Sale! Swing set, kiddie pool, TV antennae, porch swing, you name it. Everything must go. The house, if you want it. Sat. 9–5. But she didn’t sell much. Someone said it felt too much like a foreclosure.

Halloween—Joe’s third in Belle Haven—brought a respite. No one had yet left town. No one was even packing. The monitors were all quiet. Wherever the fire was, it had not yet surfaced the way Mendelson said it someday would. So the town turned its attention to the annual business of horror and delight.

Rachel, dressed as a tiger and with a huge sack of candies in her paw, climbed the giant willow in the park and settled herself in a roomy fork. Joe hung himself with tattered furs, sooted