Tim Wynne-Jones: The Boy in the Burning House

One day they followed the lane down through the cornfields to the low land. They passed through the cedar grove, Jim in the lead, carving a path. The grove held no ghosts for him any longer. Ruth Rose followed at a safe distance — she wasn’t all that sure on her skis. But as the hill grew steeper, the distance between them grew shorter. She was going too fast — couldn’t help it. She was out of control.

“Look out!” she called — too late. Before Jim could get out of her path, she slammed into him, sending him flying head first into the snow. She came tumbling after.

They finally stopped laughing and extricated themselves from the pile of pick-up sticks that were their limbs and poles and skis. Ruth Rose, glad to be on her own two feet again, ploughed through the snow to the beaver dam.

“Look at this,” she called excitedly to Jim.

It was Gladys, long forgotten, up to her waist in a snowdrift, but still standing guard over the breech in the dam. Her purple fedora had blown away and was caught in the branches of a nearby tree. Her pink fright-wig was more frightful than ever, embroidered with brown leaves and twigs.

“Poor old thing,” said Ruth Rose. “Let’s straighten you up.”

She groomed the scarecrow’s tousled locks while Jim reclaimed her fedora with the help of a ski pole.

“What’s this?” Ruth Rose asked. She had found the plastic bag Jim had pinned to Gladys’s chest. There was a sheet of water-stained paper inside; the message was no longer decipherable. Jim took the sheet from her.

“It said something like No Beavers or Crazy Girls Allowed.”

“I figured as much,” said Ruth Rose and shoved him off the beaver dam into a deep drift of snow. Then she turned her attention to the scarecrow. “We can stay if we want, can’t we, Gladdy?” She wrapped her arms around the stick figure to give her a hug but pulled away quickly. “Pee-ew!” she said. “You stink, girl.” She made a face at Jim, then her eyes lit up. “But I know how to fix that.” And, unzipping her parka, she dug from an inner pocket a glass vial half filled with rose water. The vial glittered in the snow-white light.

She opened the bottle and sprinkled a few drops over Gladys. She put a dab or two behind where her ears might have been if she’d had any. She stopped and gazed at the little bottle, smiling at some memory. Then suddenly she tipped it over the scarecrow until the last drop glistening on the glass lip dripped off, soaked up in its ragtag clothes.

Jim closed his eyes, breathed in deeply. It was like bottled spring when the world was still knee-deep in winter.

When he opened his eyes, Ruth Rose was tucking the empty vial into one of Gladys’s tuxedo pockets.

They headed back to their skis, but when they were all strapped in and Ruth Rose had already got her skis in the groove for home, Jim said, “I’ll catch you up,” turned the other way and headed down through the gulch alone.

He crossed Incognito Creek — invisible now, buried, waiting for the melt. Then he slogged up the hill that led to the back meadow. Out in the open, the sun was warm, though the wind was brisk. It felt wonderfully cool on his face, flushed with the exertion of his climb.

He stopped in the middle of the field and looked around. There were fences that needed mending, but nothing a few cedar poles and wire couldn’t fix. Ormond had mentioned he had some cedar, if Jim was interested. And once the meadow was secure, they could think about getting in a head or two of beef cattle again. Start slowly, begin to build up a herd. It was good grazing land up here. A shame to waste.

He turned and started heading back towards the house. They could talk about it over supper. The three of them.

This novel grew out of a short story called “The Bermuda Triangle,” which appeared in my collection Lord of the Fries. I am thankful to Melanie Kroupa for suggesting that I think about following up on the unsolved mystery that is at the heart of that short story.

The novel gathered momentum thanks to an article in the archives of the Perth Courier. I would like to thank John Clement and Maureen Pegg and the staff there for letting me poke around the old volumes at my leisure.

A writer is always in debt to good librarians, and Perth is blessed with two of the best: Faye Cunningham and Susan Snyder, thanks. But also, in this case, I’ d like to thank the resourceful Ann MacPhail at Algonquin College. Dave Onion proved helpful at one critical point in the story, as did David Sentesy. Thank you, gentlemen.

And thank you to my family: Amanda, Xan, Maddy and Lewis, who continue to put up with me. Stories come and go; thank God for family.

The author is grateful for the generous support of the Canada Council for the Arts towards the writing of this book.

Copyright © 2000 by Tim Wynne-Jones

First mass market edition 2002

Second printing 2004

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher or, in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from CANCOPY (Canadian Reprography Collective), Toronto, Ontario.

Groundwood Books/Douglas & Mclntyre

720 Bathurst Street, Suite 500

Toronto, Ontario M5S 2R4

We acknowledge for their financial support of our publishing program the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council and the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP).

National Library of Canada Cataloging in Publication

Wynne-Jones, Tim

The boy in the burning house / Tim Wynne-Jones.-1st mass market ed.

ISBN 0-88899-500-8

I. Title.

PS8595.Y59B69 2002 jC813’.54 C2002-904106-6

PZ7

Design by Michael Solomon

Cover illustration by Greg Spalenka ( www.spalenka.com)

Printed and bound in Canada