Better on our own - English

Answering Questions

We had just driven the vehicles back into the hall and cleaned them up when Mayor Davies stormed into the hall and he didn't look very amused, which his entire posture gave away. I watched him walk purposefully to Penny and grab her arm to get her attention.

Penny had just been filling up the empty tank of extinguishing powder in the back of Arthus when, startled by his touch, she turned to him and looked at him in confusion, while I disappeared a little more into the shelter of Merlin's cab, but only enough so she would no longer see me, but I could still understand every word, even if the mayor seemed to be trying to speak quietly - luckily in vain.

"Penny, what's going on here?" the mayor asked her angrily, fiddling with his blue tie. He seemed more than just nervous. Something had really thrown him off course.

"What do you mean?" Penny replied, still confused by the behavior of the otherwise calm and relaxed representative of our city.

"I learned from Mr. Smith that you ruined a lot of his inventory of ready-to-deliver paint, and Mr. Miller just called me to inform me of the explosion at his factory earlier. He's not particularly happy that you let it happen that half of his company blew up, to put it mildly in words," Mr. Davies explained to her, a little annoyed as he ran his hand through his brown hair in frustration.

"Why is that your problem, Jason?" Penny replied to him and seemed completely relaxed, continuing her work as if nothing had happened.

"Because I'm the mayor and the income from his business tax not only finances my salary but also this fire station and also your income," he replied through gritted teeth and I heard a hum next to me, followed by a 'shush' in the back of my neck. I looked to the side and spotted Tiny now laying down on the floor, but only to keep an eye on Penny from under Merlin, while Arnold, Elliot and Trixie stood behind and next to me, also keeping an eye on the two in front of us.

"And that's why you let him push you around and send you to me to do what? Should I go over to him with my team, ask him for forgiveness and rebuild his hall?" Penny objected sarcastically as she told him, pressed the empty canister into his hand and lifted the next one to fill it into the tank too. The mayor was so taken aback by this for a moment that we almost laughed at his confused face.

"Very funny, Penny. He accuses you of not reacting quickly enough and of doing it wrong, so that you caused the explosion in the first place," he then explained to her as he placed the canister next to him, with which he immediately caught Penny's attention. Her disbelief at the accusation quickly turned to anger before she focused back on the canister in her hand.

"Then give your Mr. Miller a nice greeting from me and I'll send a fire inspector after him if he tries to make such a fool of us!" Penny replied to him and she was calm herself, but in her voice was an undertone that sent shivers down my spine, even before she gave the mayor another serious look. "And believe me, I will hand over all the copies of my risk assessments that Mr. Miller has gotten for inspection first from me in the original in order to do something about all the deficiencies that I found in a total of 8 fire protection checks. He knew exactly how great the fire risk was in the area and that there was an increased risk of the quenching tank that oxyhydrogen would form in such a case. I informed him about it several times both verbally and in writing. It had to go wrong at some point because he never did anything about it," she explained to him and the mayor paused and looked up at her in surprise.

"Really?" he asked, actually seeming surprised. Would he tell the company bosses the right thing with his new knowledge or continue to lick their boots so that his cash register would keep ringing?"And what about the paint factory?"

"It was an unfortunate accident during a drill, but we helped clean up the mess and I offered to give him the next 5 fire safety training courses free of charge. I didn't get the impression he was upset about it."