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Exercise Caution Around Naked Flames

Forty minutes after retrieving the package, I was sitting on Beth’s bed and telling her to shut the door. If I acted assertively, I might forget I was in a girl’s bedroom and all the associated confusing feelings like wanting to run but also to stay here forever. The curtains were still drawn from the night, but this was good. I nodded at the poster of Andrew Garfield. He was looking at a horse. I wondered how it would feel to fall asleep looking at Andrew Garfield looking at a horse. I wouldn’t like it.

‘I’d have tidied if I’d known you were coming,’ she said, kicking clothes out of the way. I think I saw knickers.

Before anything, I asked, ‘Where’s Harry?’

‘Coming,’ she said. ‘You know … he’s either here or … he’s coming here.’

I pulled the package out of my jeans. The padded envelope was bent and twisted. Lionel Messi looked down from alongside Andrew Garfield and I couldn’t help thinking he stared at me as if I were an idiot. Still, he wasn’t as good as he used to be.

‘Happy birthday,’ I said.

Beth joined me. The mattress sighed. I could feel her body radiating warmth. I handed over the package.

‘Nice wrapping,’ she said, studying the battered envelope.

She pulled the top off. Inside were strips of newspaper. She shook these out.

(What if there was nothing else inside and I ended up looking like an idiot? Again.)

The candle plopped to the floor like a calf from a cow. It was squat and circular like a stack of digestive biscuits. There was a shiny metal rim round the soapy-looking wax. In the centre, a black wick drooped.

‘Thanks,’ said Beth, her Emma Stone lips forming a smile.

Was it an impressed smile or a laughing-at-Dylan smile?

‘A candle,’ I said, picking it up.

‘Nepalese scented?’ she replied. ‘You know, Mum sometimes runs a bath and lights these when she’s had enough of Dad.’

‘They’re supposed to be therapeutic,’ I said, guessing.

‘You saying I’m stressed?’

‘We’re all stressed,’ I said in a quiet voice.

I hoped she couldn’t see my tell-tale heart quaking beneath the Crystal Palace replica shirt.

‘Let’s light it!’ she said, bouncing up from the bed.

She crossed to her desk and pulled open the top drawer. There was a rush of pens and paper. Finally she found what she’d been looking for – a lighter. Did she smoke? She didn’t smoke. She was Beth.

The lighter, cheap and plastic, turned cartwheels as it flew through the air and hit me squarely on the forehead. Beth laughed. I rubbed my head and asked if we were lighting it.

‘Why not?’

‘Your mum?’

‘What about my mum?’

‘She might think, you know, that we’ve been smoking or something?’

Now it wasn’t only Messi who looked at me as if I were an idiot. I held the lighter and inspected the candle. What if it smelt horrible? What if the scent had hallucinogenic properties and made us go crazy? People jump out of windows and all sorts.

I took the candle to Beth’s desk and pushed away a pile of revision workbooks to make space. I flicked the lighter. It didn’t catch. I flicked again. An orange flame erupted. I held it to the wick. It caught. A smell blossomed. A combination of wet dog and herbs.

I coughed, my shoulders jumping. The scent of the Nepalese scented candle was a real throat-tickler.

And, at this point, the heavy feet of Beth’s mum began pounding towards us from the corridor.

‘Mum!’ hissed Beth. ‘It stinks! Put it out! Get rid of it! It’s not Nepalese!’

Now coughing too, she forced her back against the door and pointed desperately to the wastebin overflowing with Coke cans and crisps that sat under the window.

I licked my fingers and pinched at the flame. I felt needle-sharp pain and, despite myself, let out a tiny yelp.

Beth’s eyes almost exploded from their sockets.

I grabbed the still-smoking candle and threw it at the bin. Such was the horror of monster mother’s footsteps getting louder, I didn’t register the amazing shot. Bull’s-eye. Next to go was the lighter. This hit the brim of the bin and fell behind, unseen. By now Beth’s mum was knocking at the door. I yanked open the window and flapped my hands while scanning the room for deodorant to spray to cover the stink.

‘Just a second,’ shouted Beth. ‘I’m not decent.’

There! Under the desk! A pink aerosol can!

‘Not decent? Haven’t you got Dylan in there, young lady?’ her mum asked.

Beth stepped forward and the door opened, striking the back of her head.

‘Ow!’

I sprayed a feeble burst of aerosol as Beth rubbed her head. And Beth’s mum took in the full vision of the darkened room and she wasn’t impressed.

My cheeks burnt red.

‘What’s going on?’ she asked, eyeing the strange pile of newspaper strips. ‘And why does it smell of yoga in here?’

‘Hello, Mrs Fraser,’ I said. ‘How are you?’

My voice wavered. Beth’s mum looked like Emma Stone in her mid-forties. Emma Stone in her mid-forties narrowing her eyes.

‘Dylan Thomas,’ she said. ‘Are you writing any poetry yet?’

‘Not yet,’ I said.

She nodded.

‘Why are you holding Beth’s deodorant?’

I had nothing to say. I looked to Beth. She looked at me.

‘Muuuum,’ she said after a while.

‘I was sweaty?’ I offered.

Her mum’s eyes narrowed further, a slit of iris remaining, until –

‘You two! I’m not angry! I understand.’ She grinned. ‘I was young once … if you can believe that.’

My cheeks exploded in embarrassment. Beth mumbled something unintelligible and I couldn’t help noticing how she scrunched up her nose in disgust.

‘I’ve got Pringles downstairs,’ Mrs Fraser said.

With her hand on the doorknob, she stood back to allow us through. Neither of us looked at the bin as we passed.

We were sitting at the dining table, eating Pringles, drinking Coke and listening to Mrs Fraser tell us how important getting a good set of GCSEs is when we first saw the dark mass of smoke spread its tendrils down from the staircase to the carpet. Mrs Fraser, with her back to the stairs, thought Beth was joking when she stood and pointed and shouted ‘Look!’

‘Never mind all that,’ Mrs Fraser said. ‘I want to know how you plan to pass English when you never do any reading.’

Like someone had started a bonfire on the stairs, the same thick, earthy clouds of smoke blossomed towards us.

‘Oh my days,’ I said when I saw what Beth was pointing at.

The dark smoke moved silently and stealthily like dry ice at a school musical. There was something unreal and uncanny about the way it thickened into the space.

When Mrs Fraser saw it she screamed, ‘Don’t panic!’

She ushered us from the room and out of the house, panicking and shouting, ‘The White House is on fire! The White House is on fire! Don’t panic! Don’t panic!’

Outside, stood Harry. We rushed past as he pointed at the smoke spilling from the front door and whispered in awe, ‘So not lame.’

In 1814, British soldiers burnt down the White House. It must have looked like this. But bigger. And with fewer Nissan Qashqais parked outside.

That very afternoon, Beth’s house, Pringles, scented candle, posters of Andrew Garfield, Lionel Messi and all, burnt away to nothing but ashes and twisted metal. The destruction was complete.

And my thumb and forefinger hurt for days.