Chapter 3: Fireworks

Disclaimer: I don't own the series or the characters.

I apologize, my faithful readers, for taking so long and making this so short. I'm still not completely happy with this particular chapter. . Ah well. Enjoy!

The phone rang in the hall. Tom, intent on practicing with the Speech on his lazy Saturday afternoon, didn't bother to answer it.

But his father's voice drifted up the stairs and pulled him out of his concentration. "Tom, phone for you. It's Carl."

As soon as the words left his mouth Tom dropped his pen and notebook and ran to the phone. "Got it!" he yelled down the stairs after picking it up, then put it to his ear. "Hi, what is it?"

"You have got to come see this," Carl said breathlessly in the Speech. He had been practicing, and the words now flowed better.

"What?" Tom asked. "What is it?"

"Just come to my house," Carl replied, sounding impatient. "77 Brick Road. A couple blocks away."

"What should I tell my dad? Mom's got him thinking there's something going on between us, too."

"Science experiment," said Carl, and Tom could hear the grin in his voice. "It's actually the truth. Sort of."

"I'll be there soon," Tom sighed and hung up. He walked down the stairs and nearly bumped into his father, who was in the hall. "Hi, Dad, I'm going over to Carl's."

Mr. Swale raised an eyebrow. "What for?"

"He told me it was a science experiment," Tom said truthfully.

"Oh, science indeed," his father said with a knowing grin. "What kind? Chemistry, perhaps?" He chuckled at his own witticism.

Tom just rolled his eyes. "Dad. I've told you there's nothing going on between me and Carl. We're just friends."

"Sure, sure," the older Swale said with a wave of his hand, still smiling indulgently. "Go on, have fun."

With another eye roll Tom went past his father and out the door, being careful not to break into a run until he was out of sight of the house. The air was warm, almost in the seventies, which suited him just fine because he hadn't stopped to put on a jacket.

Carl was waiting for him at the edge of the driveway when he arrived just a couple of minutes later. "Hey, what took you?" he asked, clearly impatient.

"I told you, Carl, now both my parents think we're romantically involved, no matter how many times I've told them you're straight. Dad made some corny joke about chemistry."

Carl snorted. "Damn, he has good instincts," he said jokingly. "No, really. It does have to do with literal chemistry. C'mon, don't just stand there; I have to show you!" With that he began to jog behind the house and into a small, but neat, metal shed.

Tom began to talk to himself for his friend's benefit. "'What did you do, son?' 'Not much, dad. You were right, it was about chemistry. Carl took me into the shed behind the house. It was pretty neat.' 'Oh, is that so?'"

"Shut up," the sophomore said good-naturedly and opened the door.

Tom was speechless for precisely one second before he said, to cover his awe, "And now I can truthfully tell him that yes, I did see fireworks."

Because the shed had boxes and boxes with labels of different types of fireworks. Each was neatly stowed against the wall; some of them were store-bought, but many were clearly homemade.

"Yeah, it's my dad's thing. Most of our father–son bonding time is over fireworks. But that's not what I wanted to show you." Carl went directly to the large metal table in the middle of the shed and pulled a bottle of rubbing alcohol out from under it. He grinned and uncapped it, pouring a small pool onto the table. Then he pulled a small box of matches from his pocket.

Tom hurriedly backed up almost to the door. "Are you mental?" he practically screamed. His voice cracked, but he was too terrified for his own and his friend's safety to care. "I've never worked with fireworks, but even I know that you're not supposed to mix them with fire until you want them to go off!"

"Relax, man," Carl replied in annoyance. "We've got wizardry, remember? We can always politely ask it to leave the fireworks alone. Sheesh." Then he struck a match and touched the small fire to the alcohol, sending a tongue of flame up from the table. Immediately his expression changed from impatient to enthralled. "Can you hear it?" he whispered.

Tom could hear the crackling of the fire and some bits of Speech, but somehow he didn't think that was what the older boy meant. "Hear what?" The freshman still wasn't completely convinced that this was safe, but if the place went up in flames he wanted there to be a chance that he might save his wizarding partner.

The hushed answer sent goosebumps up Tom's skin. "It's singing."

Now that Carl mentioned it, Tom could hear the faintest music coming from the fire. It was just enough for him to know that his friend wasn't completely off his rocker. "A little," he said slowly, still wary. "That's what you wanted to show me?"

Carl grinned. "Not all of it." He turned his attention back to the flames and started muttering in the Speech. Tom's mouth dropped open. Where before the fire flickered in a random pattern, now it had rhythm; it kept time to some strange, foreign tune. But the young wizard didn't stop there. No, he casually reached his hand into the base of the flame, cupped it—and picked it up, still murmuring to it in the Speech. It sounded like encouragement, and Tom couldn't tell if it was real or his own imagination, but the crackling seemed to get livelier. Carl flipped his hand, allowing the flames to engulf it, then rubbed his other hand against the fiery one. Now he stood with fire on just one fingertip of each hand, burning bright and hot and blue. He put his hands to the table and started tracing a network of patterns on the metal, and wherever his fingers went a brief flicker of light trailed behind. He was completely focused, delighting in the dancing flames.

Finally, reluctantly, he flicked his hands and the fire went out. Carl's face was sweat-stained but triumphant; he held the previously flaming hands out to inspect them. "No burns. See? That's why I'm not worried about fire in here anymore. It listens to me, Tom. If I ask it not to burn the fuses, it won't. Sorry I scared you."

Tom's face was a mask of disbelief. He wondered why his head was spinning. Then he let out a breath and realized he'd been holding it the entire time. He took another gulp of air and the feeling lessened, but did not abate entirely. "It was terrifying," the blonde freshman said evenly. "It wasn't so much the fire, though that part was scary enough. It was more your expression. I've never seen you more focused on anything, not even other wizardry stuff. It looked like you could've gladly burned—heh, pun—burned through all your power without realizing how dangerous it was. But still." He grinned suddenly, and saw Carl's face relax in relief. "It was awesome. Just...just be careful, okay? We just started being wizards, I don't want to have a bad track record with having partners die on me!"

"I promise I'll be careful," he said sincerely, smiling. "Cross my heart and hope to, um, live...and what's so funny now?"

"It's just," Tom replied, smirking, "that it's just my luck. My wizarding partner's a pyromaniac. Wonderful. I get to cast spells with a pyro."

"I prefer pyromancer, thank you very much," Carl sniffed haughtily, then cracked up. He couldn't keep a straight face with his friend looking at him like that. "Guess I'd better hope we don't use Bunsen burners in chem. But I'd love to see my teacher try to explain that away.

"If you pull a stunt like that I swear I'll slap you across the face, Carl Romeo." The reply was even and serious.

"Tsk tsk, Swale. Violence is not the answer. Make love, not war." Suddenly he flushed. "Whoops, sorry, um...th-that came out wrong..."

Tom's expression had gone from serious to thoroughly shocked before finally settling on amusement. "O-kay then, Romeo," he teased, turning away and pretending to be coy. The fourteen-year-old even batted his eyelashes for effect.

"Shut up."

He snickered. "That has to rank in the top ten list of things you should never say to your same-sex, gay friend. Unless, of course..." He waggled his eyebrows lewdly.

Carl's face turned an interesting shade of puce. "Shut up shut up shut up."

Tom was quite enjoying messing with his friend's head. "You know, you are quite attractive," he said with a devilish grin. "I might be able to arrange something!"

Carl turned away, put his face in his hands, and let out a muffled groan. "You know, if entropy weren't running or it wasn't in my job description to prevent it, I'd probably be murdering you right about now. Keep talking like that and, wizard or no, I swear to God I'll slaughter you and hide all the evidence."

The freshman couldn't stop his laughter from ringing out into the shed.