Chapter 1: Flames of Glory

In the summer, my days usually start early. Six or six-thirty sees me padding off to the shower shack – a simple, open-sided structure that resembles a picnic shelter, with shower heads running down two rows, making four rows of shower stations. The water is held in a tank at the top of a tower beside the shower shack, insulated and heated using a passive solar power system mounted on the roof of the shower shack itself. I follow that with a quick breakfast at the resort's restaurant, a quick trip out to pick up the grocery order that Chef Jacques left after the restaurant closed the previous evening, and then tend to the usual tidying up details essential to the continued good functioning of a clean, family-friendly naturist resort.

The fall, winter and spring are usually a different story. I get to sleep in until eight. Not this October day, however, which started earlier than expected with the urgent ringing of the bedside phone. "Yes?" I barely managed to mumble, as the clock resolved itself before my weary eyes. Three forty-seven. Three WHAT? I let out a string of expletives, concluding with, "This had better be good."

"Oh, it's good, alright," came the voice of Walt Cheevers, proprietor and chief editor of the Manatee Monitor, Manatee Bay's anaemic answer to the Wall Street Journal. "There's a big fire in town."

That had my attention. "I hope it's not someone's home," I fretted. I hate to see people burned out of their homes; aside from the material loss, it has a distressing tendency to include serious, potentially fatal injuries.

"No, it's Willow Lane Elementary School," he reported, chortling with glee. Great. My youngest daughter's school. She was enrolled in Grade Six there.

"How bad?"

"Flames leaping into the night sky, as brave men and women from the local volunteer fire brigade work valiantly to suppress the beast devouring the sacred halls of academe. I'm going to be waxing quite poetic in this morning's Special Edition." Walt sounded insufferably pleased with himself.

I glared at the phone. "It's a crime against human nature to be so delighted and eloquent at this obscene hour of the night. But you didn't just call me to ask that I warm up the espresso machine at the pool's cappuccino bar. The Resort's a little far removed from the scene of the conflagration."

"The school board would like to talk to you, and apparently it's somewhat urgent."

"They can see me in the morning. Here. Nude."

"How about Horace's? In about half an hour? And wear some shorts and a T-shirt."

Which saw me, a little after four in the morning, at the finest dining establishment in Manatee Bay outside of Barracuda Beach Naturist Resort, Horace's Home Cooking. Ptomaine like your mother used to serve. Present with me were the six members of the Board of Education led by the able if bleary-eyed Chairman Janet Brooks, two representatives from the Home and School Association (Roger Hollingsworth and some woman I'd never met before), our esteemed mayor and kibitzer plenipotentiary Bill White, and the only paid firefighter on the Manatee Bay County Fire and Rescue, Chief Daniels. Also present was Horace, rapidly creating sandwiches for delivery to the fire scene with the aid of the Spouses' Auxiliary (as two of our volunteer firefighters are women, the Auxiliary includes two husbands), and, serving coffee and day-old pastries to the Instant Committee on Willow Lane Elementary School Temporary Quarters, Horace's hard-working, efficient and ever cheerful wife Mabel ably assisted by my two daughters. My eldest, Debra, fourteen, was happy to be of service. She often helped out at the cappuccino bar by the pool at the resort, so brewing and serving the road tar that Horace served up was not difficult. (I wish I could say that consuming the stuff wasn't difficult, especially on an empty stomach when even the Sun had decided not to answer the alarm clock just yet, but I'd be lying through my teeth.) Tori, on the other hand, was excited to be up with the adults, and was anxious to do an adult job of poisoning us with Horace's comestibles.

The Recording Secretary, an efficient and friendly middle-aged lady named Agnes (whose last name I never did catch) arrived at the same time as Nicklaus Slaight, my younger daughter's principal, and her teacher, Maria Sanchez. Maria clearly didn't want to be here, taking the proffered cup o' mud from Tori with a friendly but sleepy smile and a remark of, "You don't know how much I need this."

"Please let's not take too long," she pleaded with us. "We need to make calls to my fellow teachers as soon as possible. They'll want to hear from their union rep in time to act on the information."

Janet nodded at her and Principal Slaight and advised her, "We'll split the list, that way everyone gets a call."

Maria glared at the door as two newcomers made their entrances: Publisher and Chief Reporter Walt Cheevers and lawyer Linda Carruthers, official counsel for Barracuda Beach Naturist Resort. "The press?" she muttered.

"This extraordinary meeting of the Manatee Bay School Board will now come to order," Janet announced, her usually strong voice now little better than a croak.

I looked at Mayor White, who was looking at me with that peculiar twinkle in his eyes he gets when something interesting is going to happen. Interesting as in the ancient Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times".

I sensed a set-up. I further sensed that Manatee Bay was about to live in not just interesting but absolutely fascinating times. "I see you're holding this meeting in camera," I observed ironically. Janet just scowled at me, as Maria giggled.

"Chief Daniels?" Janet enquired.

The chief collected his thoughts and announced, "Well, it looks like we'll be able to save the foundation."

"Very funny." Janet did not look amused.

"Look," the chief responded, clearly annoyed, "the building is older than dirt, largely stick-construction rather than concrete or steel, shod in clapboard rather than something more fire-retardant, and covered inside and out with about fifty years' worth of highly combustible paint. The wood in both frame and sheathing is so old it's dried out completely and as a result she burned like a shingle factory once she got going."

Maria whispered to me, "Why are buildings and ships always 'she'?"

"Only God would know. We should ask Her."

Maria stifled a snicker.

"How are the grounds around the school?"

"Covered in debris, especially the north side where the walls first started their collapse. The debris is ground into the mud by the fire trucks' tires and the effects of the water hoses and the firefighters' boots." He shook his head. "Nobody in their right mind would allow a kid to play on that playground."

The school hadn't had any real space for a playground anyway. They'd been looking for a replacement for the last two years, but development land in Manatee Bay is restricted because we're part of the Watershed area that the state capital gets its water supply from.

"OK, so the search for that new school location gets SERIOUS now," observed a thoroughly amused Mayor, his eyes shining in delight over his magnificent handlebar moustache.

"Thank you, Captain Obvious," Janet shot, clearly frustrated. "Yes, we now get serious, as if we hadn't been before." She turned to one of her fellow Board members. "Lydia, what sites do we have available?"

"Just ... just the one within walking distance." Lydia sounded defeated. It could also be because that she'd been up since two-thirty, but I strongly suspected not.

"Just the one?" Janet asked. I could see her fellow Board members wince.

"Just the one."

"THAT one?"

"Yes, THAT one."

My eyes had been playing Ping-pong between the two ladies long enough. I noticed that Bill, still with his Cheshire Cat grin, hadn't taken his eyes off me at all.

I needed to take some preemptive action here. "What site? Janet? Lydia? Roger?" I glared at Bill, who just sat there hiding his smirk behind his now-empty coffee cup. "You," I pointed at him, "you know more than is good for me." The old walrus grin just grew bigger. My voice turned gravelly. "What site."

I glanced at Linda Carruthers, who was looking sheepish. I remembered what she'd said at a meeting a couple of weeks back of the Willow Lane division of the Home & School Association. "'The field behind the main clubhouse is just the right size for the school's replacement, '" I quoted back at her, catching her intonation quite well, I thought. Linda must have thought so to, as she blushed. I rubbed my forehead in an effort to lessen the migraine that threatened to make me lose what little of my temper that remained.

"Now that you mention it..." Linda ventured.

Maria and Nicklaus are smart people. They clued in as Bill began nodding wordlessly, still smiling like the cat that swallowed the canary. I looked at Janet, who had decided to follow the rest of the Board in examining the Formica tabletops closely for manufacturing defects.

Lydia kept talking, almost babbling. She kept dabbing at her eyes, clearly upset at what she was saying. "King County has the Emergency Modular School, they've already been ordered by the State to release it to us. They could be here and assembled by the end of this weekend. We could have classes resume by Monday."