Aru Shah Is on Fire. No, but Seriously. Like,FireFire. This Is Not a Drill
Agni had grown to the size of an elephant.
The picnic table was nothing more than a smoldering pile of embers. Now the trees around them began to crackle. Smoke churned through the air. Aru, Mini, and Aiden dragged Brynne’s picnic-bench sickbed away from Agni and drew into a tight group, but what else could they do?They had no weapons—nothing but their wits and their backpacks. And their best fighter was down for the count.
“Oh, the pain!” moaned Agni. “I’m still so hungry!”
“Maybe you have indigestion?” suggested Mini. “I … I have something for that? For when food is too spicy? Maybe that’s why you’re burping flames….”
“I love spice,” cut in Brynne. She was curled up in the fetal position and breakingout into a cold sweat. “I could eat, like, a whole bottle of cayenne pepper. Watch me.”
And then she promptly threw up.
Aiden went over to offer her a sip of water from his canteen and wipe off her face.
Minitossed a bottle of antacid pills at the god of fire. Agni caught it in one hand, where it immediately melted.
“Noooooooooo!” he cried.
More trees began to catch fire. Mini covered hernose and mouth with a wet napkin to avoid breathing in the smoke.
“Help me, Pandavas!” shouted Agni, clutching his belly.
“How ’bout we fill some of these empty bowls with swamp water?” suggested Aiden. “Then we can throw it on him.”
“It won’t be enough. The water will just turn to steam,” said Mini, “and then we’ll choke and die.”
“What about wet rocks?” asked Aru, looking around. “If wepiled them up, would they put out the fire?”
“Not river rocks!” said Mini. “The water molecules inside will expand as they heat up, and they’ll explode, and then we’ll die!”
“What’s an option where wedon’tdie?” asked Aiden.
Agni groaned. “I’m starving….”
He was a raging inferno now. His scarlet suit gleamed. His arms ended in fireballs.
Aru never thought she’d say this, but: “I miss Sparky.”
“You helped cure my appetite once before,” pleaded Agni, “in the Khandava Forest. Do it again!”
Before … in the Khandava Forest? That was where Takshaka’s wife had perished in the flames. The place where Arjuna had shot down any living creature that had tried to escape the fire. Every time Aru thought about it, she felt more grossed-out and guilty, even though she wasn’t the one who had firedthe arrows. But she hadn’t known before now that the fire was caused by Agni….
“Aru!” screamed Mini. “Watch out!”
Ahuge burning branch overhead was about to fall on Aru’s head.
Aiden yanked her back.
The flames had grown into a towering wall that blocked the entrance to the Ocean of Milk completely. Agni was back there somewhere, but Aru couldn’t see him behind the fire.
“We have to moveaway from here,” said Mini, as the flames danced toward them. “C’mon!”
Together, the three of them lifted Brynne’s bench and hauled it farther down the walkway.
“We still need to get through there somehow,” said Aiden, looking back at the archway. “If only we could bulldoze swamp mud onto the fire …”
“But we don’t have the equipment,” said Mini.
