SeasonalReads: Anthology

#1 - Hot Summer Incidents

By: girlwithlostdreams

Winner of Seasons & Stories Contest

Like every year, I went to the nearest town called Cooperstown with my friends during the summer vacation. In our small town there were hardly any attractions for us that we could use during the holidays. So every summer we rented a vacation home there to have the summer of our lives there. The small town is well-known for their Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, the Brewery Ommegang, the Fenimore Art Museum and the grand Otesaga Hotel.

On our first real day of vacation, things always really got going by first taking our packed things and loading them into the car. After we had driven off and arrived in town, my friends let me get off at our favorite shop to buy some snacks and important things for the first few days.

When I got inside the store and grabbed a basket, I said hello to my favorite cashier, Joe Matthews, and browsed through the shelves. There was really everything you could need here and everything was very cheap. Also, it was Joe, which is why I always love going in here. He was in his thirties, mostly in a good mood (unless a customer didn't behave properly in his shop, then he could get really uncomfortable) and always very nice to his customers.

"Alicia, it's good to see you here again this year! Your friends send you in here every time! I'm wondering why," he said jokingly and took my purchases. He hadn't changed much in that year because he still wore the same haircut as last year and I couldn't see any change in the style of his clothes. He hadn't changed anything in his shop either: he still had the shelves in the same places and he didn't even have a new range on offer. But that was his style.

"You know why, Joe! How are you? Anything new in Coopertown?" I asked him excitedly as he cashed my purchases and put them in a bag. His facial expression became rather suspicious and also a little sad, as if something was taking him away. Has something tragic happened in town?

"And what news there is! There have been fires here for weeks, but nobody knows who caused them!" he replied, worried, while I gave him the money for my purchases. "These fires were seen particularly in the vicinity of your vacation home. In your place, you should be very careful not to let anything bad happen to you all!"

"That's terrible! I hope that the polluter will be caught soon and that it will be peaceful here again!" That was really terrible news! Who would volunteer to start fires here? Cooperstown was otherwise such a peaceful and beautiful city. Maybe I heard something from the neighbors or other residents of the city that could help the police to find the perpetrator. I was also very interested in the case! "We'll of course be careful that it doesn't happen to us, Joe! I promise to you. See you soon."

"Hopefully! I know you will definitely be investigating, but unfortunately I cannot stop you from doing so. See you soon Alicia!" He handed me my bag with the purchases and looked at me intensely. Joe knew me so well by now that he knew I was very interested in such cases, especially when it came to my favorite city. At the exit of the shop I staggered briefly towards him before I went out to go to the car where my friends were eagerly waiting for me.

*****

In the afternoon I prepared a few snacks for the evening, because we wanted to have a little kick-off party in the evening to celebrate the start of the holiday. On the one hand, it was great that we could enjoy our vacation here again, but these fires also worried me terribly. Residents could be injured and the city has already been destroyed in many places. After I went shopping in Joe's store, I immediately told them on the way to our house what had been going on here in the past few weeks. They were also very upset about it.

But we didn't want to worry too much about these fires, at least on the first evening, which is why I finished preparing the snacks and went out into the garden with my friends to enjoy the sunset. Once there, we saw Mr. Miller in the neighboring garden, who was watching us sullenly. He was an old man who had lived in this house all his life. In addition, he was not very good on foot because he always had to lean on a stick. And to his chagrin, his wife had passed away last year and I could well imagine that he wasn't over it yet. After that he became even more curmudgeonly than he usually was.

"Good evening, Mr. Miller! Would you like to sit down with us? It's our first day of vacation and we wanted to enjoy the evening together," I asked him nicely over the small fence. Perhaps it would be good for us to try to get closer to him. You never knew what could be in such an old man, because he could be nice too. But he didn't look over at us particularly nicely, his expression became even more sullen.

"As if I were going to spend the evening with you pests," he replied flippantly and went back to his house with his stick. Well, it was worth a try. I received only soft laughter from my friends, because they knew exactly how he could be. I would trust him to do anything, even the fires that were going on in Cooperstown.

*****

We spent some lovely hours in the garden and were just about to end the evening by going back inside when I got a strange smell. Was that smoke? Wasn't this coming from a certain direction? I turned once and saw billowing clouds of smoke rising from a still small fire in the meadow on our left. It couldn't burn there for long.

"There is a fire in the meadow! Can any of you quickly call the fire department? Meanwhile, I'll take care of the fire!" I said to my friends, who also saw the fire as I looked there, so spellbound.

"I'll help you!" said one of them and took a few things out of the house with me to put out the fire. The others called the fire department to report the case. When we got to the place, I saw that there were some pieces of wood and other flammable things. It must have been the instigator who was also responsible for the other fires!

Just as we tried to put out the fire, we heard the sirens of the fire engines. Minutes later two of them were standing here helping us to put out the fire. If they hadn't been here so quickly, it would certainly have ended in a bigger fire and we probably wouldn't have been able to stay in our vacation home anymore. And all on our first day of vacation!

"Are you two okay?" one of the firefighters asked after the fire was over. We both just shook our heads because we were unharmed and also glad that nothing had happened to us. "The fire didn't break out like that, it must have been the arsonist again. Have you seen anyone sneaking around here?"

We both shook our heads again. We would have noticed before if someone had been here, right?

"Maybe the logs were brought here before? Because we certainly didn't notice that someone had put something here. We were in the garden all evening." And then another detail caught my eye after I finished speaking. There was a stick a few yards away. And not just some unknown stick. It looked exactly like the one Mr. Miller had in his hand earlier.

I went to the stick, picked it up to show it to the firefighter and said fiercely: "This is probably some piece of evidence after all! Could you also call the police? I think I know who the cooperstown arsonist is. Because this stick belongs to the neighbor who never liked us from the beginning and therefore there were always fires near this holiday home."