How to Burn It All Down (and Why)

Sensitive Content Warning: Emotional & verbal abuse, suggestion of drug use, bullying

How to Burn It All Down (and Why)

Introduction  

You already know my name, Mr. E., but I guess I have to say it again for the video log, right? Everyone calls me 4-6 because they can’t pronounce my real name. My experiment for Beginning Science for Young, Enlightened Minds, Section 11, is this: I am going to set my parents’ money on fire. Science starts with observation, and mine is this: Mom and Dad never talk about money. The only things they don’t talk about are the things they hate. (They don’t talk very much.) So if they hate money, what could I do to make them happier? I’m going to make money go away, and maybe fire is the way, and that is my hypothesis.

Day 1

           The good news is that I have never been caught lying before. All I had to do was cover my gills with a blanket until they turned pink. I timed it just right too: just as Mom and Dad went to work, too late to find a babysitter. Then I could put all my effort into the experiment, starting with breaking into my parents’ safe by listening to the clicks of the lock. I’m not supposed to use my Ryet hearing, but this is for Science. Being half-Ryet isn’t good for anything anyway, except for pretending to be sick and opening safes.

           This $50 bill is a square shape, and it has an ear on the left side to show listening between cultures and a saucer in the middle to show the day the Ryet arrived, even though Mom says Ryet ships don’t look anything like that. I thought it would be paper, but it feels plastic, like everything else on this dumb human world. I don’t feel bad about destroying it anymore.

           The conditions are good for fire safety, I guess, which means they are bad for just about everybody: dark and cold and wet and eralo (because you said I could embrace my Ryet heritage as long as I didn’t shove it in anyone’s face). I also took Mom’s plediade necklace because it is conveniently flammable when you hit it against the rocks in the backyard.

           The money burned a lot faster than I thought it would. The flame was purple and orange and blue at the same time, and it was the only bright thing in the whole outside. It ate the money like it was starving to death. The money stood no chance—it gave up right away and wrinkled in on itself until it was nothing but dust. I burned my fingers on the ashes, and it felt like proof.

           Maybe there is a way to make the flames last longer.

Day 2

           So far, no has noticed that approximately two $50 bills are missing, and I think that is a good sign that my hypothesis is correct. A bill takes approximately 11 seconds to burn all the way. It’s not very long, but I keep seeing the bright ghosts of flames against the eralo sky afterwards, so I guess the flames win.

Day 4

           Today, I set two bills on fire at once because I couldn’t do it yesterday. I missed the chemical smell of the smoke, and the way it is white and empty, but mostly I missed the flames. I missed making nothing out of something.

Day 5

           You said recording our authentic reactions was important, so here’s mine. Heck. (You said we could use bold for emphasis, Mr. E.) Mom noticed the money was gone.

           I thought she would be happy, but instead, she said to Dad, “What have you done now, Waylan?” (My Dad’s real name is Waylan. It is a dumb human name. Even 4-6 is better than Waylan.)

           The scientific term for this is: accusation. Similes according to my Dad who I asked for help: witch hunt, paranoid, and fukee nonsense. I couldn’t find that adjective in the dictionary, so I am guessing on the spelling. I think the Ryet word is telun, but Dad says he won’t have any Ryet dictionaries in the house, so I am not sure about that one either.

           So far, the hypothesis is not going according to plan, but you said that all good scientists experience setbacks and that failure is a part of science. So I will keep burning the money. I don’t even have to pretend to be sick. They don’t notice when I climb out of my window to set their money on fire, and they don’t notice when I come back. I guess this is good for the experiment.

           Because they did not notice when I came back in, I hid behind the chair to watch Dad’s bank robbery movie to learn more about money. I am glad Mom is paranoid about human banks and keeps all the bills at home. Bank robbery seems very hard, and I still don’t understand how you would carry accounts out, let alone set them on fire.

To help me learn about fire, I have been drawing it in my notebook. I have gotten so good at the wavy shapes, I can make a whole notebook page look like it is on fire. Because I have been practicing, I am getting really good at setting money on fire. I only have to smash the necklace twice, and the flames appear like they were made by Gol. (Please don’t tell my Dad I said that, Mr. E.—he says Gol is a false abomination and we shouldn’t talk about heathen gods.)

Day 9

           Sorry I have not been able to write down my observations for so long, Mr. E. As you know, a dumb human kid who I will not name because I am not a snitch poured some milk in my juice, so I had to go to the hospital. Then Dad was really mad about it, and I had to stay home.  

           He is always mad lately anyway because Mom is still doing witch hunt and fukee nonsense that Dad is taking the money, so she installed a lock that only Ryet fingers can open. I recorded their argument as evidence for my experiment.

           Dad: “I’m not Ryet, and thank God for that. I couldn’t have taken the money. What have you done with it?”

           Mom: “What are trying to say, Waylan? I know how important the money is for this family! Do you?”

           Dad: “Who do you think is paying the bills? The only reason I haven’t left already is because of the government stipend—”

           Me: “Dad, what’s a stipend?”

           Dad: “I’ve had enough from one alien bitch for today. I don’t want to hear it from her brat too.”

           I stopped recording after that. I would like to tell my Dad that he is the one who is an alien bitch.

           Anyway, I have burned the entire stack of $50 bills, so I am moving on to $100 bills. Even though they are both money, the 100s have orange and red strips that glitter in the light, and it makes it look like the face of the Ryet president and the human president are on fire. I think this is another sign that my hypothesis is correct and what Mom would call an awspecious sign from Gol.  

           Last night, I dreamed that I set the entire house on fire.

Day 10

           There are only four more days after this day. I am running out of time, and my hypothesis is not going well. It’s true that money was definitely making Mom and Dad unhappy. When it was there, they hated it. The problem is that when it is gone, they hate it even more, and they hate each other too.

           Mr. E., you said that I should brainstorm with question and answer to myself. Question: why are my parents still unhappy? Answer: some of their money is gone. Question: what is the solution to make them happy? Answer: only some of the money is gone. If all their money is gone, then they will be happy. And if they aren’t?

           Well. At least I get to burn it all down.

           Every day, my whole afternoon is purple-orange-blue flames, and the blue in the flames looks like a beautiful blue sky. Even when the flames are gone, my fingers and my shirt smell like smoke, so I have been using my shirt as a pillow to fall asleep. The ashes get in my gills, and then every breath feels like I am setting something on fire. Every day, I am not happy unless I set something on fire, so that is convenient.

Day 11

           It is a good thing that I have been practicing lying. I only have three days to burn all the money before the experiment is over, and I needed to move the money from the house to the burning place, and I couldn't do it while my parents were there.

           You will be proud, Mr. E.: I used problem-solving skills! I pretended to answer the phone and take a message from the government. I told Mom and Dad that the government was offering an extra stipend for human-alien couples, but only if they were together, and only in Toronto, which is the farthest place that I know. I looked up the real phone number and address for the real Ryet embassy there and wrote it down like a person told it to me. It worked!

           So while Mom and Dad argued all day while they packed, I spent the afternoon in the yard burning money. They think the neighbor is burning leaves, and they shouted about that too. After they left, I used my Mom’s secret phone that she uses to text her Ryet friends, and I sent a message to the babysitter.

           “Hey Brooklyn, thank you but I do not need a sitter this weekend after all. 4-6 will be staying at a friend’s house to finish a school project.”

           This is what the babysitter wrote:

           “thanks for letting me know, but next time could you please tell me sooner? I have a lot of things i need to do. not very many people would agree to watch a ryet kid like me”

           Anyway, I guess it worked. I thought about setting the phone on fire too, but I didn’t.

           Have you ever seen a $100 bill burn up, Mr. E.? It feels like watching everyone else’s dreams die. I recommend it.

Day 12

           The eralo weather is not working in my favor. It kept blowing the money, so the neighbors probably think that God or Gol or whatever is favoring them. I had to find some boxes to put it in, so I went in Mom’s closet and found some. Some of them had bags of white sand, so I threw the bags out in the rain because white sand is probably useless and I needed the boxes. As it turns out, money is also very heavy, so I used my problem-solving skills, and I made a sledge out of my Gol-Boy blanket.

           By the time I moved all the boxes, the gray sky had died and turned to black, but I couldn’t eat or rest or anything until I did at least a little bit of the experiment. I really missed setting the money on fire.

Day 13

           I love the way the ashes smell. They smell so good that today, I put a little bit of the ashes on my tongue. It burned. All good things burn.

Day 14

           Today is the last day of my 14-day experiment, and I am out of time. I dumped out all of the bills out of the boxes. I am a scientific expert at fire now, so I spread the bills out in a blanket to increase the amount of surface area, then I poured oil over it. It only took one strike, and then a bill was on fire. Then two. Then three.

           Then all of them were on fire.

           Now my jacket has started steaming, and my gills are sticking. I can’t even see the eralo sky because everything I can see is fire and smoke. The sound is like Gol is judging everyone; I guess I am a heathen God too. My second eyelid went down because it’s too bright, and my mouth is gritty with little bits of burnt money.

           Everything is on fire. Everything is on fire, and it’s spreading. I have to—wait. I had to quickly run away because the fire is eating up the whole yard, and the house is in its jaws.

           I guess some siren trucks are here. Mom and Dad are here too. They got out of the car, and they are yelling, but nothing and no one can cross this wall of fire.  I hope it eats them too.

           Oh, I am supposed to do a conclusion

Conclusion

           Mr. E., you said that sometimes scientists discover unexpected conclusions, and here is mine. I hate money, and thank God for that, but I love setting it on fire. I love climbing out of my window like a lie. I love the way it only takes one strike to make something that will eat everyone alive. I love the way the colors in the flames never stop moving like they are impatient to make the money nothing, nothing at all.

           The fire is still burning. It is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.

Sincerely,

4-6

Beginning Science for Young, Enlightened Minds, Section 11