Word Prompt: Evocative
Dialogue Flex: "Save some for me!"
Using the provided snippet of dialogue, explore what comes to mind, be it a scene, a thought, or something else.
Something True
Evocative
Last Spring
On her knees, Bella added her second tally to the base of her wall, the air smelling as if a barbecue had been left smoking. She sniffed and the scent desiccated her throat to a cough. Her door was flung open and she spun around in a squat.
"Fire!" her mother said. "We're being evacuated. Grab anything important and come on!"
Bella was on her feet in an instant looking around her room for something to grab. Bedding, books, laptop, cell phone, a thumb piano, textbooks, snapshots of friends, last night's nightshirt. Her eyes kept circling, kept scanning. She looked down at the chalk in her curved palm, turned her hand over and let the stick fall. It didn't make a sound.
Outside the sky was gray, not the overcast type of gray, but deeper, as if someone had rubbed newspaper print all over it.
Ash was blowing like snow in the wind.
Sirens rang in the distance.
Her mother was filling the car with picture frames and photo albums. Bella got into the front seat and waited.
"At least bring some clothes," her mother said, but Bella didn't move.
Her mother ran back into the house and returned with as much of Bella's clothes from her closet she could fit in her arms. Then she disappeared again.
Seconds later the passenger door opened and her mother shoved in the comforter and pillow from Bella's bed. "I don't know how long we'll be gone."
"Where are we going?" Bella asked as her mother started the car.
"They said to go to the schools." She peered over her shoulder, backing out of the driveway. "The multipurpose rooms."
"Which school?"
"Dad says we should go to the middle school. It's farther from the fire than the high school, so we won't have to worry about relocating again."
As they descended the hill the sirens grew louder, too close. Bella was about to ask where the fire was when she saw it. The flames weren't visible from the road, but she could see the tornado of smoke rising above the trees. She watched as they drove past. Her patch of forest, her place, her tree.
She hated what she was seeing, but couldn't look away. Shattered pieces of Bella were still out there, burning now.
Grab anything important? Bella thought. There was no way to grab a fallen tree. There was no way to grab a circumference of space.
In the multipurpose room, a mash of voices bounced off the walls, traveled to the ceiling and back down again, making everything that much louder. Following her mother toward the side wall, Bella made a point not to look around for anyone she knew.
Families were settled on spread blankets, their spaces claimed. A glance over her shoulder revealed more people entering. If they continued to file in that way, Bella imagined the room would resemble one big, human patchwork quilt—separate lives stitched together for a short time to become one.
Her dad found them right away, giving them both a hug and a kiss on the head.
"The good news is," he said, "low wind, and they got to the fire early."
He reminded them that there were vending machines if they got hungry, and said that pizzas were being sent over for lunch. And then he had to rush off, heading to the scene of the fire.
Her mother followed after him, telling Bella that she was getting a blanket for them to sit on.
Every so often there was the reverberating sound of a helicopter flying above.
People around Bella were praying with their hands folded and their eyes closed that the fire wouldn't spread to homes. It had already gotten the Lakeview Restaurant, Bella heard a man say.
"But that was right in there. Where it started," a woman said, which began speculation of the fire starting with an oven at the restaurant.
A girl of about fourteen was sitting on a sleeping bag beside Bella's feet, absently picking chips from a bag and stuffing them in her mouth while her nose was stuck in a romance novel. She could tell it was a romance because of the couple embracing on the cover.
"Hey," said a little boy, presumably the girl's brother. "Save some for me!" He snatched the bag of chips.
The girl, roused from her story, caught Bella checking out the book.
"It's getting so good. This girl, Anna-" she pointed to the girl on the cover. "-she's loved Chance all along, right? But he couldn't admit he loved her because he was too tough for love or whatever. But now, he's finally admitting it. Oh my god, it's the best right now." She smiled, rolled her eyes, and sighed. "Want to read with me?"
"It's okay." Bella sat down beside her. "You go ahead."
"Have you ever been in love?" the girl asked.
She met the girl's wide, waiting blue eyes. "No."
"Me neither." She dug through her backpack and pulled out another book. "I have this one, too." She showed her The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. "Supposed to be summer reading, getting us ready for high school. Yeah, right. Like I want assigned reading over summer break. I can't wait until I'm out of school. Then I'll read whatever I want." She waved her romance novel.
"I'll read that other one." Bella pointed to the Stevenson.
"Good," the girl said, handing her book to Bella. "You can tell me the important stuff and I won't have to read it."
Dropping her gaze to the book, Bella opened to the first page letting the words swarm around her, veiling everything else.
It was late in the afternoon, when Mr. Utterson found his way to Dr. Jekyll's door...
Bella was transported from the multipurpose room, no longer hearing the noise or conversations around her. She no longer saw the image of her forest escape on fire, the fallen tree she had so often climbed on top of. She was introduced to Mr. Utterson and experienced with him the doctor's dingy room, the fog in the windows, the deathly look of the doctor, his cold, beckoning hand, his changed voice of greeting.