I Hid My Perfect Score novel · Chapter 8 of 32

Chapter 8: The Fire Lab

I didn't answer her.

I turned off notifications on everything with Paisley's name on it and went down to the bay to wash the engine.

Emory came down an hour later and took the other side without a word.

We scrubbed soot off the chrome until the TV upstairs went quiet.

"Your sister," he said finally, "has a lot of followers."

"She has a lot of everything."

He wrung out his sponge.

"You've got a dog that licked your face on the news. I'd take the dog."

That was the whole conversation.

It helped more than it should have.

In late August the birches went yellow overnight.

Fall semester started.

I had calculus, chemistry, a writing seminar and Intro to Fire Science.

Fire Science met in a lab on the far side of campus with a dented smoke chamber in the corner.

The professor was a tall, stooped woman who'd spent thirty years on fire lines and still smelled faintly of smoke.

On the first day she asked if anyone knew why fires blow up in the afternoon.

I put my hand up and said it before I could stop myself.

Relative humidity bottoms out around four, the wind picks up off the hills, and the fire breathes in.

The room went quiet.

I put my hand down fast.

For three years, that silence had meant I'd gotten something wrong.

The professor looked at me over her glasses.

"Carmody? From Station 3?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"See me after class."

I spent the rest of the hour sure I was in trouble.

She didn't say I was in trouble.

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