Burnin' Up

For the past 21 years, my family has been vacationing at Walt Disney World in Orlando, FL. Our favorite place to stay is Disney's Fort Wilderness Resort & Campground. We are not tent people. It's hard to fit six people in a tent, and even harder to keep six people happy in one. Especially if they're my family. This is one thing that my dad definitely understood, so we started buying campers.
Our camper was a 40 ft. white and blue Starcraft trailer with two slides. It slept seven people comfortably and made our camping experience much more enjoyable. But, there was still a problem: driving from Maryland to Florida.
We pulled the trailer with a brand new black Dodge conversion van. It had three rows of seats, the back bench folded down into a bed, there was a TV, separate radios for the front and back of the car, we'd bring a cooler stocked up with food, millions of blankets and pillows, games to play, and books to read. It was as luxurious as you could get for a van stuffed full of people, and my parents really tried to make the trips bearable. But none of this was any sort of comfort as we'd start on the long, long trail to the Sunshine State, and the 20+ hr. drive usually resulted in a three day recovery period upon arrival.
When I was turning 14 my parents asked my sister and I what we wanted for our birthday. "To go to Disney!" was our response. So, they started planning a trip. They booked our campsite for a week at the end of March and we were so excited!
My dad likes to start driving in the middle of the night. "It makes the time go by faster." he always says. A few days before my birthday we were packing up the camper and van and getting ready to leave late that night. It takes me no more than 5 seconds to pack for trips and I hardly ever forget to bring anything. Following my usual pattern, by 4:00 pm I was done packing and really bored. So I started looking around my house to something to occupy my time.
Fireworks are super illegal in Maryland. You can imagine my delight when I came across a cache of 4th of July leftovers in our cellar. I immediately ran upstairs to get my brother and show him what I had found. He was less than impressed, so I grabbed some firecrackers and went off to have some fun.
We lived in a 100 year old farm house, on 16 acres of land, in a tiny little neighborhood across the street from a private airport. Our house was surrounded by a forest that went back and behind our neighbors homes on both sides, it was all our property. I decided to take my fireworks to the left of my house, behind where one of my neighbors lived. She was no less than 70 yrs. old and never left her house so I knew she wouldn't tell my parents if she saw what I was doing.
I might have picked the worst time of year to light fireworks, everything in Maryland was dry and we hadn't had rain or snow in a month or so. I set off a few strings of the firecrackers, but it started to get dark, so I walked home.
A couple hours passed, we were still packing up so we could be on the road by 12:00 am when my dad noticed something strange from our kitchen window. "Oh my God, that house is on fire!" he screamed. My brother's, sister, and I all ran to see what he was talking about. As I looked out the window my heart dropped to the floor. To the left of our house we saw flames flickering over the tops of the trees and a tower of smoke lifting up into the sky. It was the exact house where I had been lighting firecrackers just hours earlier.
My dad was on the phone with the police who said they had already received calls and the fire department was on it's way. All of our neighbors were standing silently in their drive-ways, mesmerized by the glow of the flames. My family walked outside, the smokey smell was so strong it was hard to breathe. "We need to keep packing." my mother stated. And at that we all walked back into our home.
"What's the matter, Megan?" my dad asked, "You look as pale as a ghost. Why don't you go..." I assume he would have finished this sentence with "lay down", but before he had a chance I threw up all over the living room and then collapsed on the floor.
There was a knock at our door that woke me up. My mom was sitting on the floor with me stroking my hair. I could hear my father open the door where there was a police officer standing. "Good evening, sir." his deep voice echoed through my house "I'm sure you know by now that your neighbors home was destroyed by a fire tonight. We just wanted to come by and let you folks know that the elderly woman who lived there was found dead inside the house. We're still not completely sure what caused the fire, but as soon as we know anything we'll be sure to keep you updated."
I started to get nauseous again, so my mom helped me into the downstairs bathroom where I threw up three more times before falling asleep on the floor.
When I woke up I was in the van. They had folded down the back seat and laid me on the bed. There was a bucket next to me on the floor and a bottle of Pepto-Bismol on my stomach. In sickness or in health, we were going to Disney World.
The drive was horrible. It was always horrible, but this time I had my neighbors blood on my hands. I spent the entire ride throwing up. I couldn't sleep. I didn't speak. I just kept thinking about the fire, about our neighbor, about prison.
After around 8 hours of driving we started seeing the signs for South of the Border. I remember one sign in particular making me especially sick "Pedro's fireworks...does yours?" I knew we were going to stop there, my brother's always complained until we did.
When we pulled in I stayed in the car while they stretched their legs and my brother's ran around like jerks. My dad parked at the fireworks stand and went inside to stock up on everything we didn't have in Maryland. I started crying looking at it. My mom came back to the van a few minutes later to check on me and found me hysterical in the back seat. "Oh my sweet girl, I'm sure you'll feel better once we get to Disney." she said in a calming voice, "You don't have to get so upset."
"I'm not upset about that!" I sobbed back at her.
"Well then, what's the matter?"
I started breathing heavier, I could feel my heart pounding as I gathered up the strength to confess to murdering my neighbor. Right as I opened my mouth, my dad opened the door. "I just got a call from Howard," he started, Howard was one of our nosy neighbors "I guess the old lady down the street started an electrical fire from her stove and died from carbon monoxide poisoning from all that smoke."
"Oh, that's so sad!" my mom replied "The poor woman."
All at once I felt the color rushing back to my face, my heart jumped back into place, and I smiled the biggest smile imaginable! I hadn't killed her after all! Not thinking, two words came running out of my mouth. "Thank, God!", I exclaimed.
"Megan!" my mother shouted at me, "I've never known you to be so insensitive."
"Oh, sorry......I'm gonna go pick out fireworks with the boys."