“I do breaking news.”
“You’ve mentioned.”
“Breaking news tends to happen away from fire station kitchens.”
“Not always,” she says. “And this is not a breaking news story. You’ll observe day shifts, night shifts, training, prevention work, rural call-outs if they happen while you’re there, and all the unglamorous parts of the job nobody sees because they’re too busy imagining they know what command should look like from the far side of a field.”
I open my mouth to object, but there are too many objections trying to get out at once and they jam in the doorway.
Two weeks.
Away from the newsroom.
Away from the calls, the updates, the live feeds, the sudden twitch in the room when something happens and everyone knows before anyone says it that this one might matter. Two weeks is a perfectly normal amount of time if you are a person with a balanced relationship to work.If you are a reporter who has spent years trying to turn quick instincts into something bigger, two weeks feels like leaving your seat at the exact moment the winning raffle ticket is about to be called.
Something could happen.
Something always could.
A council scandal. A major police statement. A storm taking out half the county. A minister saying something stupid within thirty miles of a microphone. The kind of story that starts local and suddenly isn’t. The kind of story that gets picked up, shared, noticed.
The kind of story that makes someone like Helen Archer do more than click like.
I hate that I think her name again.
I hate even more that it makes my chest tighten.
Marie Louise watches me, which means my face is being less subtle than I’d hoped.
“This is punishment,” I say.
“It’s development.”
“That is what editors call punishment when they’ve had HR training.”
“It’s also a story.”
“It’s me being removed from breaking news for two weeks because I wrote one article badly.”
She doesn’t flinch. “It’s you being given time to understand the thing you wrote about before you write the follow-up.”
I run a hand over my beard and glance back at the article. “And what exactly am I supposed to do there? Follow them around with a notebook and try not to get in the way?”
“Essentially.”
“Wonderful. Dignified.”
“You’ll be briefed when you get there. You wouldn’t be allowed anywhere unsafe, before you develop delusions of heroism, and you’d follow whatever rules Watch Manager Hart gives you.”
“Has anyone at the fire station agreed to this?”
“Not yet.”
I stare at her. “Not yet?”
“I’ve only just thought of it.”
“That is not as reassuring as you seem to think it is.”
