SWEET CREATURE // Luke Patterson

- a fire start -

"We're here"

Music no longer flowing in her left ear, she looks up to find the culprit as the woman, holding a soft smile, has her earphone clasped in her outstretched hand. Taking it back with a stiff smile, Danielle begins to start packing her stuff away from the back seat into her backpack. As well switching off her music from the one bud in her ear before she takes a deep breath knowing she couldn't put off the inevitable for much longer.

Walking down the pathway following behind the social worker, she takes in the house she would be staying at for the foreseeable future. It looked relatively big and had an old feel to it instead of the stiff looking modern homes this century seemed to love. The pathway had a leaf canopy above it as you got halfway down, casting shadows along the pebbled path along with the scattered leaves that had descended from their branches.

She took in the place with a critical eye almost as if she were bracing herself for a catch that the inside was a contrast to the beautiful front the house seemed to speak. I mean, Danielle had been to a lot of neighborhoods but not one had houses so big or ones that seemed to look welcoming. Usually she would be taken to a dodgy floor of an apartment, in sketchy areas or even in council estates where your neighbours were crackheads you could hear through the thin broken walls.

But here there was no overwhelming sense of looming dread. The house allowed space, seemingly enough to breathe.

So she hoped anyways.

The woman knocked on the door before stepping back slightly. However that wasn't what Danielle was worried about. From where she stood she could already hear a racket coming from the other side of the door making her sigh from how the woman from earlier wasn't lying when she said it was a crowded house.

A faint yell was heard from within over the top of the noise. Not long before the door was swung open to reveal a seemingly out of breath grinning woman.

"Hi! I hope you haven't been standing there too long" she says sheepishly, looking between the young girl and the woman clad in formal attire.

Physically cringing from the lack of replies, she takes it as a cue to continue "Sorry about the noise it's been a little chaotic today, something you will have to get used to I'm afraid."

"No worries we had just got here anyways, you must be Mrs Jones." The Two women shook hands exchanging greetings with the other while Danielle stood awkwardly to the side feeling small and more out of place by the second.

The smiles the two ladies shared turned into one as the care worker's attention perked up at something behind the lady clad in a flower scattered apron. "As normal as noise seems to be in a crowded household like yourselves, I do hope that isn't normal around here." The woman states with a raised brow pointing somewhere behind the cheery woman. The smile seemingly permanent on the cheery woman's face slips a little as she goes to look behind her in confusion.

"Shit" That's when she springs into action seeing the problem which was the smoke quickly filling the room seemingly coming from within the oven. Not before long, the smoke set off the alarm, really sending the house into chaos.

Comically watching the scene of the woman running to grab a dishcloth to then go bat around the air to rid the room of smoke, another man comes out of nowhere and turns off the oven, coughing as he goes, before taking out the food that was cooking. Danielle couldn't make out what it was supposed to be, due to the fact it was covered in burns and ash, displaying that it definitely was no longer edible.

The man shoots a sheepish smile towards Danielle and the woman as he places the food on the counter before rushing to the two at the door; one looking extremely concerned and the other not being able to hide the smile on her face.