Penny loves Scooby Doo. However, she has seen this particular film about the gang and their talking dog one too many times. Her mother is downstairs, teaching two family friends how to speak Spanish and Portuguese, Penny has no one to play with, and ultimately, she’s bored. It’s quite a shame, when she thinks back to this moment, that it happened to be her favorite Scooby Doo movie playing. It’s not like she thinks about it too often; the event is one most people – normal people – would probably like to forget.
Penny doesn’t think she’ll ever forget it. That just doesn’t seem like an option, not when so much good came out of it. The rainbow after a storm, right?
Everyone knows that four-year-olds get up to things when they’re bored; it’s just in their nature to be curious about everything, not yet understanding that rules are there for a reason. In most ways, they’re fearless. So when Penny takes her mom’s lighter off the bedside table (because the DVD player is her parents’ bedroom, and therefore, so is she, at least momentarily), she can’t really be blamed. She learned how to use it last week while her mother smoked, telling her not to play with it. But she barely remembers that – it’s more important that she knows how to work it. Just a flick and a push of the thumb, and bam, fire.
On screen, Daphne appears in a dark room, a lit candle coming to life in her hand. That’s what fire is used for, Penny recalls. Seeing in the dark. What part of the house is the darkest?
She only has to think for a moment before deciding. She will take the lighter with her to the closet down the hall – the one in the computer room. With that in mind, she jumps off the bed and runs, leaving Scooby and Shaggy behind to chase the monsters by themselves. She doesn’t bother pausing it, this has to be her twentieth or so time watching it; she knows what happens like the back of her hand. Instead, she opens the closet door and lies on her tummy on the carpeted floor. She pushes her dad’s shoes out of the way and ignores the stink, nose wrinkling as she giggles softly.
Soon, she realizes that it is much harder to light the lighter in complete darkness, as she can barely see a thing. Her thumb burns where she is pressing down, and she soon gives up, unable to light the flame. Running back to her parents’ bedroom disappointedly, she throws the lighter on the table and forgets about it. However, Scooby Doo only distracts her for another couple of minutes, and she picks up the lighter, trying again. Although her thumb burns, she smiles when the flame lights. Success.
Soon enough she’s back in the closet, but this time, she manages to light a flame. Her thumb yells in protest, but she’s so curious. How can she create more light? What will the clothing do if the flame brushes it? Barely hesitating, eyes wide and mouth tilted in concentration, she raises her right hand to a t-shirt hanging in the closet.
It lights up in flames.
Penny knows she did wrong, but that’s not important. She drops the lighter and runs downstairs, stopping in front of her mom and the two guests. It’s hard to remember what she said, words often are the hardest things to get right about a memory, but it had to be along the lines of “fire!” and “upstairs!” The girl runs after the adults as they go upstairs, a cup of water in her mom’s hand, the house phone in one guest’s hand, and the other guest empty-handed. When they arrive, the girl stands back, eyes wide in horror. Her mother throws the water and nothing. In obvious panic, she reaches out and grabs the hanger of the burning shirt, trying to throw it to the ground. The air feels hot and Penny can barely see the computer screens from behind the waves of heat. Her mom yells as soon as the hanger falls from her hands, and Penny doesn’t realize it then, but her mother’s badly burnt herself. One of the guests pull her out – she now knows that the woman was a cop – and dials 911. The other adult, the man, pulls the computer door closed shut and rushes back downstairs, the woman trailing behind and talking on the phone.
Her mom has disappeared into her room and comes out with a coat, money, and papers. Grabbing Penny tightly by the wrist, her mother pulls her down the stairs and out the door, barely grabbing her own jacket from the couch before rushing them both down the stairs. Penny trips and her stomach burns as it slides down the front steps out of their house. She can barely recall the pain now, but distinctly remembers wondering how her stomach had gotten so scratched up. It had to have been the front steps, she remembers tripping.
More happened, Penny is sure. She knows that a lady she didn’t recognize – a stranger – picked her up and ran with her, until one of the neighbors pulled her out of the stranger’s arms and back into her mother’s. She doesn’t remember if she cried, but she remembers doing it on purpose. She’d lit the clothing on purpose.
When the paramedics ask her if she’s injured, she says that her thumb burns. They take one look at it and exchange some words with her mother that she doesn’t hear. She can’t remember if her mother cries then or not. Can’t remember her dad getting on the scene to his house on fire and smoke pouring out the windows, fire-fighters hosing it all down.
She remembers seeing the house the next day – from the outside of course, her parents weren’t letting her go inside – but it looked tired. The house looked tired, and Penny yawned, hoping to dream of Scooby Doo.
They spend the next few nights at one of their neighbor’s, Jocelyn’s, home. This neighbor has known them since they moved to the States, and Penny can’t recall if she was still dating her uncle at the time or not. Either way, the woman had formed a friendship with her family, relationship with Penny’s uncle not-withstanding. Meanwhile, Penny eats with her left hand (her right still hurts), she gets to watch movies (a lot of Scooby Doo) and play games all day (a lot of Operation), and doesn’t have to go to school (at least, not for a while). It’s kind of the dream, Penny realizes. It’s not all fun and movies and sugar, though, as much as she wishes.
The first night they stay there, Penny can’t sleep, so it’s later than midnight and she’s still watching movies in the basement. Around one, she hears yelling and loud pounding on the floor. At first, she doesn’t recognize it for what it is. She tiptoes upstairs, peaking slightly from the doorway and into the kitchen. She can’t see anything, but the yelling become words in her ears.
“But, but why?” her mother sobs. “Where are we going to go, Jocelyn? We can’t stay here forever.”
“Miranda, Miranda,” Jocelyn assures the crying woman, “calm down, it’s okay. Don’t worry about that. Let me get some more ice for your hand. Please.”
“It hurts so much,” comes another sob. “It hurts so fucking much!”
“Shh, shh, Miranda, please, let me see your hand.”
Penny crawls back downstairs and tries to block the rest of the noise out. She can still hear her mother pounding on the floor and yelling at Jocelyn, even after the movie she’s watching ends. She quickly puts on another one to drown the noise. When that one’s ends around three AM, Jocelyn comes downstairs to put her to sleep. She pretends to be asleep.
People are amazing.
There are many things she learned from setting her house on fire, but Penny is still constantly reminded of that one.
Other than what her mother’s told her, she doesn’t know a lot, but what she did learn about people’s generosity amazed her just enough. Every student in her class gave her something – whether it be clothing, stuffed animals, books, or school supplies. The school itself gave her family two brand new uniforms and a gift card from the church. Neighbors and family friends alike all gave cards, and teddy bears, and clothing, money and gifts. A church that Penny’s family had never been to before, told them of some residents who were moving out and leaving all their furniture behind. Penny’s dad set to work with the help of the neighborhood and his brother on getting the house put back together.
They’d finally let her go inside the ruined house, maybe two weeks after the fire, and Penny doesn’t believe she’ll ever get the smell of smoke out of her nostrils. She lost her favorite teddy bear, one she’d had since birth, in the fire, but most of her belongings survived. The fire had only been in one room, but the smoke had traveled, melting the TV’s and staining everything black.
One of their neighbors, who also happened to be the producer of The Wire, and whom Penny’s mom took care of their pets when she had to travel, helped us out a great deal. This woman had a house on the corner of our block that was momentarily unoccupied, and she offered it to Penny’s family while their house was rebuilt, no rent.
Soon, only a couple months later, their old house didn’t smell like smoke anymore. It didn’t look tired. If anything, it felt like home, and without the help of countless people, it might never have been again. Penny doesn’t live there anymore. When she visits, passing that street gives her great nostalgia. That house will always be home, and those people who helped in that time of need will always be in her heart.
Her mother’s hand heals, the family’s friendships grow, and the experience makes the three of them stronger. Penny deals with the embarrassing “let’s tell our guests how our daughter set fire to the house that one time” not with guilt, not anymore at least, but with sad smiles and reminiscing laughs, remembering the situation in a much better light than it had seemed to be at the time.
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