at the planks staring at every loose nail and clump of moss I was probably grinning People say I grinned all the time like I had a secret My name was as it is still Leon Mazzei but I had bet ter not describe my village or me right now The smoke has reached Muriel and she has roared Muriel the lion was once a pet owned by a woman who sneaked her onto a cruise ship sailing to Alaska Muri el wasn’t much more than a cub at the time The crew found her and the captain who had lost an arm to a lion when he pointed out a jeep window in Africa turned his ship into Pirate’s Inlet and dropped anchor just off the beach in front of our village The captain blew the ship’s deep-pitched whistle to make sure people in New Auckland noticed his vessel He didn’t need to blow the whistle at all Half the village was standing on the shore staring in surprise A small boat was lowered and three crew members motored over to the dock They left the lion cub promis ing to let authorities in Prince Rupert know it was there Maybe they did but nobody ever came and Muriel be came the village pet She lived as she does still in a huge pen behind the community center On the night of the fire I lifted my head wondering why Muriel was roaring She usually roared early in the morning when she was hungry Fire I yelled as soon as I spotted the smoke rising from behind Mrs Yatulis’s house Doors opened and people ran out carrying buckets The Yatulis shed I yelled pointing
Buckets of ocean water were passed hand to hand and thrown onto the fire I stood in the children’s line quickly passing the empty buckets back down to the wa ter’s edge We were all nervous We knew that if it looked as if the fire was going to leap toward another building then the houses around the fire would be torn down fast so the whole village didn’t burn We didn’t talk not until the fire was almost out After the whistle was blown telling us to stop my best friend Susan and I ran to see the last of the blaze We’ve got to do something shouted our mayor Char lie Semanov silhouetted in front of the dying fire Char lie was tall and wide and had wild uncombed hair and a frizzy gray beard He had a deep voice too What if this fire had started when the boats were out and half of us were fishing The whole village could have burned yelled Charlie We need a big saltwater pump so that we can shoot lots of water right onto a fire with out a bucket line People cheered and the next morning as the ashes of the shed still smoldered Charlie wrote to the Govern ment of Canada Curtis Vandermeulen Member of Parliament for the Northwest Coast wrote back and said he was proud to promise that the Canadian government could send an entire fire truck to New Auckland We don’t need a fire truck Charlie wrote We just need a water pump Our entire village is only as long as a couple of football fields We don’t even have a road
A town without a road wrote Mr Vandermeulen The Canadian government will send money for a sandy road and for a small fire station too You’ll have to hire some body to build the fire station I’ve already ordered the fire truck and it comes with two ladders four axes one hundred meters of canvas hose and a saltwater pump Oh well thought Mayor Charlie At least we’ll get our pump Charlie gave the job of building the fire station to his son who was also named Charlie Little Charlie lived in Vancouver so he had to come back to the village Little Charlie is the one who showed me how to take off my thumb You’ll see
2 LITTLE CHARLIE’S THUMB THE MORNING AFTER LITTLE CHARLIE came back I heard people laughing over at the dock I ran over as fast as I could My dad was there Dad was a tall man completely bald and a little afraid of getting skin cancer on top of his head He liked New Auckland because there was hardly any sun Even when the sun was shining it could only sneak between the towering mountains for a couple of hours in the middle of the day What’s going on I yelled from the foot of the dock Nothing you can see said Dad It’s too gross Let him see whispered Big Charlie This could be great What can’t I see I asked stopping in front of Dad And if it’s so gross why was Little Charlie laughing I didn’t have to ask who had been laughing I knew it was Little Charlie Nobody talked or laughed as loudly as
