The Year They Burned the Books

“Terry’s gay, isn’t he?” Tessa asked without preamble the next afternoon at Jamie’s house. “I don’t have a date for Cindy’s party,” she had told Jamie earlier, “and if you don’t either, why don’t we go together?” Jamie had agreed, although a little nervously, and invited Tessa over to decide on costumes.

“It’s okay,” Tessa said now, before Jamie could answer. “I won’t say anything to anyone. But I heard Brandon and Al talking and Sam and Karen and some other kids, too, and—Well, it’s kind of obvious Terry’s upset about Ernie and Vicky. Brandon sure seems to have a gay thing, the way he calls you butch all the time.” She looked closely at Jamie. “You’re upset about it, too, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” Jamie said. She hesitated, then decided to assume Tessa meant Ernie and Vicky by “it,” even though she knew that wasn’t necessarily true. “Let’s just say I don’t like to see Terry hurt. And he is hurt now, very.”

“If I were gay,” Tessa said, looking out Jamie’s window, “I don’t think I’d hide it. Or I’d hide it completely, never give anyone a clue.”

Jamie couldn’t think of anything to say.

There was a very long pause.

“So,” said Tessa, turning to face Jamie again, “what shall we go as?”

“Editor and photographer?” Jamie suggested weakly. “But I guess that would be kind of obvious.”

“Mickey and Minnie Mouse?” Tessa said, then clapped her hand to her head dramatically. “No, bad idea! Brandon would love it.” She looked closely at Jamie, then sat down on Jamie’s bed. “Sorry! How about—how about bears? A couple of sexless bears?”

“Sexless bears?”

“Yeah. Sexless bears. We dress in old brown rugs or something, so no one can tell who we are. Or what sex we are. Or anything.”

“I like it. Of course Terry’s going as a vampire, but …”

“So we won’t win the horror prize. Who cares? At least we’ll be warm if it’s a cold night.”

It was a cold night, with a bone-chilling wind off the water; Jamie was glad for the warmth of her bear costume. It wasn’t exactly an old rug; she and Tessa had found some brown bath towels in a discount store in Georgeport and had fashioned their bear suits out of them. They’d even found bear masks, and had glued some of the toweling to them in the appropriate places.

The lawn in front of Cindy’s house was festooned with lighted jack-o’-lanterns and ghostly sheet-clad lampposts. Several costumed children carrying paper trick-or-treat bags and flashlights passed as Jamie and Tessa arrived in Tessa’s mother’s car, with Tessa’s camera stashed under the front seat. Just as they parked, a skeleton drove up, hopped out of his car, and opened the passenger door for a gypsy.

“That’s Ernie and Vicky,” Jamie said, recognizing them just before the skeleton settled a skull mask over his head.

“Poor Terry,” said Tessa, her voice muffled by her mask.

“Yes,” Jamie answered as they went inside and were greeted by Jack, his flamboyant good looks accentuated by a splashy gangster outfit. “Poor Terry.”

But Terry, arriving a little later in his vampire costume, gave Ernie only the most cursory of glances and strode right over to where Jamie and Tessa were sitting near the CD player.

“You are holdink ze how-you-say editorial meeteeng?” he asked in a fake all-purpose accent.

“Ooooh, a vampire!” Tessa shrieked, hand over her heart.

“Nein, mein Herr,” said Jamie in a growly bear voice. “We’re waiting for the third bear.”

“The third bear.” Terry sat down beside them, his eyes, Jamie could see, now following Ernie’s every move. “But is there a third bear? Is there ever a third bear? If there is no third bear in sight, does a third bear exist? Excuse me.” He got up and sidled toward the other side of the room as Ernie and Vicky sat down on a couch there.

Tessa whispered to Jamie, “Did you notice that he recognized us right away?”

“It could be because I told him we were going as bears.”

Tessa batted Jamie with her paw. “Could be, yeah.”

Someone in an astronaut suit turned off the CD player and popped a tape into the deck below it, and suddenly everyone was dancing. Nomi, in a long white-and-gold dress with a gold crown on her head and a gold scepter in her hand, danced by with Clark, who was dressed in a somewhat moth-eaten tux. A ghost in a flowing sheet floated toward Jamie and Tessa and, tweaking her mask aside just enough to reveal that she was Cindy, said, “Anyone covering this bash? It’s a natural for Hinchley.” She floated off again, this time into Jack-the-gangster’s arms, without waiting for an answer. The doorbell rang, and the astronaut answered it, letting in two small children dressed as the Tin Man and the Scarecrow; the astronaut stuffed candy from a bowl near the door into their bags and drifted weightlessly back into the room. Two witches and a wizard, forming a triangle as they danced, crowded against Jamie’s knees as the music grew more frantic, and Tessa, grabbing Jamie’s paw, growled, “Come on!” pulling her to her feet. In a moment they were dancing, too, clumsy in their bear suits, whirling and bobbing to the music, and even though Jamie was nervous about it, no one seemed to notice or care that they were both girls. After all, the witches were girls, too, although of course they were also dancing with the wizard—and, Jamie told herself, straight girls do dance together sometimes. Besides, maybe on Halloween such things don’t matter; maybe on Halloween anything is possible.

Someone tugged at her furry arm, and she turned to see Karen Hodges, thinly disguised as Heidi, looking up at her. “You’re Jamie Crawford,” Karen said, her brown braids incongruous against her far-from-innocent face. “And you’re dancing with her. Aren’t you?”

Jamie gave a bear growl in response as Tessa danced in front of Karen, cutting her off from Jamie. “Little bitch,” Tessa said into Jamie’s ear. “What is with her?”—and then they were apart again, dancing with the others; Jamie was hot under her bear suit, but it was wonderful to be dancing with Tessa, wonderful to be with all of them, actually; all friends—except of course for Karen Hodges—all celebrating.

The music slowed and couples moved closer together; Jamie saw the vampire look longingly at the skeleton, who seemed stiff and awkward as he held the gypsy, moving with her but aloof. The music slowed even more, and someone turned off a light or two—

And then the door flew open and someone yelled, “Fire!”

Jamie smelled smoke as she and Tessa hurried with the others to the door. When they were all outside, most masks off now, sniffing, looking anxiously at the roof, at the houses on either side and opposite, Tessa grabbed her camera out of the car and called to Jamie, “Look at the sky!” and Jamie saw a deep orange-red glow over the harbor.

“It’s the yacht basin!” someone shouted.

“No, it’s near Sloan’s Beach. There’s summer cottages there—maybe it’s them. Come on!”

The costumed crowd surged toward the beach, stumbling through the dark streets in their unfamiliar clothes, tripping over long skirts and clunking in heavy boots. Jamie felt awkward in her bear suit; Tessa was faster, lither than she, and she thought incongruously how little she really knew her and how exciting it was to keep discovering new things, even if they never became more than friends.

And then they turned down the last street, tore through the parking lot, where there were, Jamie saw, several cars; they burst onto the beach …

And stopped.

Black silhouetted figures swarmed like demons around a blazing bonfire, feeding it logs and small oblong boards …

No.

Not boards at all, Jamie realized.

“Books!” Tessa’s horrified whisper echoed Jamie’s. “They’re burning books!”