When I finally manage to open my eyes to tiny slits, the first thing I see is my old teddy bear, completely charred from one of my baby tantrums. The half-melted button eyes give it its droopy, loving expression, making it my favorite toy, even though I’m way too old for that.
I roll out of bed, put on my hole-riddled jeans, and pull a washed-out T-shirt with the print “If you mind yours, I’ll mind mine” still legible over my head and shuffle through the dark hallway to the bathroom. I study myself in the mirror. The boyish features, the small straight nose, the high cheekbones, the sharp almost Asian eyes that turn independently when I’m tired, and the lips that curl up at the corners as if everything is amusing, even when it’s not. When my eyes move down, I’m astonished at how small, straight, and scrawny my body still looks.
I brush my teeth with my usual fanaticism but ignore the hairbrush. It’s just no use. The dark, unruly shrubbery on my head points anarchically in every direction, like a frozen explosion.Back in my room, my eyes slide over the eclectic collection of orphaned furniture, scraped together from second-hand shops and garage sales. The only thing they have in common is the excessive fire and water damage.
My eyes briefly linger on the paper clippings pinned to the wall. I know them by heart.
Maxime Kwintens (16). Hero or arsonist?
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Farmhouse in Blackship Falls burned down to the ground.
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Wotherspoon family and party guests miraculously saved.
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I sigh. My name is indeed Maxime Kwintens, but nobody calls me that. Most people call me Tinderstick. Because... the thing is, I... well... set stuff on fire... when I’m angry. And that is quite inconvenient for someone with a temper like mine.
We had hoped to keep my “condition” a secret, but after the tsunami of articles that swept through the tabloids after my friend’s farmhouse burned down this summer, we can safely assume that’s not the case anymore. The uncomfortably realistic meme in which a deep-fake Maxime Kwintens walks up to her new school armed with two gigantic flamethrowers has been trending for weeks now.
To be honest, it had to happen sometime. The fact that, over the years, the buckets of water and sand have disappeared from our house doesn’t mean I’m in control of my fire impediment. On the contrary. The only thing I’ve managed to train myself to do is withdraw in times of stress and frustration, to block out the world and detach myself. It's simple, really: if I have no emotional connections, I will not set things on fire. It's quite a painful process, but it's the only way for me to be able to go to school and do some shopping.
When I finally enter the kitchen, I first see Gran. Impossible to miss, standing at the kitchen sink, impressively dressed in her enormous morning gown decorated with a blinding sunflower motif.
“Who’s adult enough to wake up in the morning, will sleep like a baby in the evening,” she smiles. It can’t be easy for her to live under one roof with two explosive personalities like me and my father. Still, she never shows any sign of irritation or fatigue. Even on a gloomy, overcast day like this, her mood is as sunny as the weather in Greece.
Gran is my refuge and guardian angel. Countless times she has helped me to relax after a long day of being, well… me. Softly rocking me in her arms, while muttering her many ancient proverbs nobody ever heard of. “It’s all right, pumpkin... life is not always just, but always fair... only happiness keeps score... eternity is just a sliver of a second.”
She’s a force of nature. Since my father ended up in a wheelchair 16 years ago under mysterious circumstances, she didn't just practically raise me alone, but also took care of our house with the unflinching, stubborn determination that runs deep in our family. The result is that we live in the cleanest ruin of our village, an immaculate wreck.
I know Gran is a little weird and sometimes, I even feel a bit embarrassed when I see her strolling through the aisles of the supermarket, talking to herself or a can of peaches in light syrup, but never for long. In the eyes of most people, she’s a friendly eccentric, a good-natured sorceress born in the wrong century. For some she is the village idiot they discretely steer away from. But in my eyes, she’s a goddess.
I also have a mother, of course, but I know virtually nothing about her because Dad and Gran refuse to tell me anything. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's an overprotective reflex to shield me from emotional pain, perhaps they are only protecting themselves, but it only made me more curious, of course. Countless times, I have searched the house from top to bottom, looking for the smallest sign of her existence, with no results. The house seems meticulously purged of any proof that she ever lived here.
She’s been gone from our lives for so long now that I’ve come to the inevitable conclusion that she must be dead. The wild variety of fantasies about how and why she died has grown more epic each year, with the core being that she heroically sacrificed herself to save her baby girl… me. I still miss her. Sometimes a little, sometimes a lot. Luckily, these episodes have grown considerably shorter over the years.
Behind Gran, at our third-hand kitchen table, in his fourth-hand wheelchair, sits my father, laboriously plowing through a bowl of oatmeal and murdering a boiled egg in the process. My father, what can I say? He’s… my father and an inventor, or at least that’s what he has declared himself to be. Days and nights he sequesters himself in our giant barn that he has generously baptized “laboratory” in an unrelenting series of not very successful attempts to baffle the world. No fame and glory (or fortune) for the Kwintens family just yet, but that doesn’t stop him from trying with a growing determination
According to Gran, he must have been quite charismatic and popular when he was young but looking at the grumpy, mumbling man at the table, it’s hard to imagine. Maybe he changed because of the wheelchair he ended up in about sixteen years ago under mysterious circumstances, but I think it's much more likely that Gran’s stories are grossly exaggerated in her ongoing mission to protect him. That’s what she does, being the champion of the vulnerable, defender of the defenseless.
“Sbouttimetinderstickyourealmostlate,” I reconstruct from the humps of sound faling out of his mouth in between the loud chewing.
I don’t answer. I have not yet forgiven him for deregistering me from the school in our village and enrolling me in the much larger school, twelve miles outside of our village. Even if I do understand his reasoning and even that he did it to protect me, he could at least have discussed it with me.
“Twelve miles, Dad! Every day! By bike!” He distorts his mouth in what must be a smile. “Gooddailytraining, Tinderstick. You will thank me later.” For once I don’t take the bait, bite my tongue, sit down, make myself a sandwich, and wrap myself in rueful silence.
“MAXIME!”
Not the fact that he raises his voice, but that he calls me by my full name, makes me look up. “What?... Ow!” From the points of my elbows, two tracks of fire run to a small inferno in the middle of the table. Pots of marmalade burst, bread bags melt, and containers of cereal are devoured by a sea of flames that reach to the ceiling. Unimpressed, my father leans back. He has seen this many times before.
As always, I’m not able to stop it. I don’t even try. I just look longingly into the flames. How great would it be to become fire entirely? No flesh, no blood, no pain. Just all-consuming fire without guilt or regret...
SPLAAAAASSSSSSHHHHHH!
The fire sputters and protests but doesn’t stand a chance. In the doorway, Gran holds an enormous tub. The only sound is the dripping of water. I know I should apologize or say something, but instead, I shrug my shoulders, leg out of the kitchen, pick up my bike, and steer it into the gray chilly morning on my way to my new school, twelve miles away.