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Contents   COVER TITLE PAGE DEDICATION CONTENTS 1. SPARK 2. KINDLING 3. COMBUSTION 4. WHERE THERE’S SMOKE … 5. HOT TAKE 6. BURNT OFFERING 7. FIRE DRILL 8. FIREPROOF 9. CONTROLLED BLAZE 10. FIVE-ALARM 11. BURNED OUT 12. THE HOT SEAT 13. SICK BURN 14. FIRE ESCAPE 15. CANDLES 16. BURNING FOR YOU 17. CONFLAGRATION 18. FIGHT FIRE WITH FIRE 19. BURNING DOWN THE HOUSE 20. BACKDRAFT 21. HEAT RISES 22. A SNOWBALL’S CHANCE 23. FLASH POINT 24. INFERNO 25. ASHES ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ABOUT THE AUTHOR COPYRIGHT     Guide  Cover               CONTENTS TITLE PAGE DEDICATION 1. SPARK 2. KINDLING 3. COMBUSTION 4. WHERE THERE’S SMOKE … 5. HOT TAKE 6. BURNT OFFERING 7. FIRE DRILL 8. FIREPROOF 9. CONTROLLED BLAZE 10. FIVE-ALARM 11. BURNED OUT 12. THE HOT SEAT 13. SICK BURN 14. FIRE ESCAPE 15. CANDLES 16. BURNING FOR YOU 17. CONFLAGRATION 18. FIGHT FIRE WITH FIRE 19. BURNING DOWN THE HOUSE 20. BACKDRAFT 21. HEAT RISES 22. A SNOWBALL’S CHANCE 23. FLASH POINT 24. INFERNO 25. ASHES ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ABOUT THE AUTHOR COPYRIGHT           Heat. Pain. Burned skin. Aly yanked her hand back from the oven and shook it. She’d gotten distracted by a crash from Rachael’s room upstairs, and her knuckle had glanced the middle rack. Careless, she told herself. She used two wadded‑up dish towels to pull the muffins out, then ran her knuckle under a cold tap. The water felt good, but the steady sting of the burn never quite went away. “Aw, I was going to do that!” cried Mom as she came into the kitchen. She was dressed for action, Aly noticed—sweatpants, sneakers, hair pulled back. “It’s fine. I can handle it,” said Aly. “Need a hand with Simon?” Mom exhaled and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Actually, yeah, that would be a big help.” She shot Aly an exhausted smile. “You cool, kiddo?” “I’m cool,” said Aly. She smiled big, her braces unabashedly on full display. These days, only a few people got that smile, and Mom was one of them. Her hand still burned as she put a couple of muffins on a plate and brought them down the hall to Simon’s room. Sometimes, as the middle kid, she wondered if she was even here at all, if anyone actually saw her around the house. But you couldn’t daydream away tying someone’s shoes or bringing them breakfast. Simon sat on his bed in his socks and pants, but had no shirt or shoes on. Aly could see by the look in his eyes that his mind was far away, playing out some long, complicated conversation. Her breath hitched in her throat; when he got like this, it always made her momentarily sick with worry, wondering what her little brother was seeing that she couldn’t. But he’d done it enough times that Aly knew he was just lost in his thoughts. “Simon,” she said, and gently waved a muffin under his nose. He came to, his nine-year-old humanity returning to his face. He took the muffin and had a bite, but she could tell he was still lost in his own head. “What’s up, man?” “What do I do about Bentley?” asked Simon softly. Aly bit her own muffin and nodded. Bentley Moss was the kid in the grade above Simon’s who’d been bothering him. She knew the right answer was to tell her brother to talk to a teacher … but she couldn’t say it out loud and feel honest about it. Not with her own ongoing issues with Ray. “Try to think about what he’s feeling,” she said. “Like, what’s going on in his life to make him such a mean guy?” “I know what he’s feeling,” said Simon. “He’s just angry at everything. And I’m easy pickings.” Aly sighed. Couldn’t argue with that. “Well, look, no matter what happens with that jerk, you’re going to look silly at school without a shirt and shoes on,” she said. “So let’s get dressed, and we can think about a way to avoid Bentley Moss on the drive.” Simon nodded absently and went to get a shirt from his dresser. Aly sat on his bed and gave him little reminders along the way—“You should double-knot that. Do you need that notebook? Remember what Mom said about that thing in the printer.” She loved him so much, but she also worried for him. Comes with being the youngest, she thought to herself as she led her brother to the front hallway. There’s always someone around to do stuff for you … There was the bang of a door being thrown open, and a forceful whisper of “Let’s just do this.” And that’s what comes with being the eldest, thought Aly, exhausted. Rachael came clomping downstairs. Aly took in the outfit—designer jeans, a cute maroon blouse, an extra-tight hoodie with ENGLAND across the chest, magenta lip gloss, shades, and crisp white high-top sneakers. It had been assembled over time, she realized, each piece an expensive birthday or Christmas gift that had apparently all led up to this Monday morning. That was Rachael all over—obsessed with being popular, hardworking and strategic when it came to getting the coolest friends, the most followers, and the hottest reputation in school. “Are we GOING SOON?” yelled Rachael into the house. She lowered her sunglasses and looked over them at Aly. “Can I help you, Als?” “No,” said Aly. “You look nice.” “That’s great, Als, except we’re late, so I might as well have worn a large cloth sack.” Rachael groaned. “I had this whole thing planned out, where I would be wearing this while sitting on the banister of the front steps, and a certain someone would see me as he walked into school, and it would be this perfect vignette that would inspire him to ask me to the April Showers