“I hate that bloody stuff,” Optima said, picking at the fraying plastic surface of the old bath. She tapped the metal and made it ring.

Finn peered over her shoulder. He was getting taller than her now. He’d put on a spurt this year. “Why?”

“It keeps peeling. Mam got it resurfaced about three times and every time the plastic starts peeling away in a year. It feels so nasty when you’re sitting in a hot bath.”

“Looks nasty too,” Finn said. “I’ll fix that for you, no problem.”

“Sure you will.” She went off and put the immersion on for a hot bath, leaving him to his own devices.

An hour later the immersion was making its stop-and-start noises to say the bath water was boiling now. Optima went into the bathroom and turned the taps on and stuck the plug in. The soap fell into the water and she picked it out and washed her hands, absently whirling the soap in her right hand so a scent of orange-flower moved in the steam. Finn followed her in, tripping over her hair towel, and poured in a jug of slimy-looking liquid. He was holding his inhaler in one hand. He was wearing swimming flippers, for some reason. He sat up on the end of the bath, put his feet in and started flapping the flippers.

“Hey, don’t be putting that crap in my bath!”

“Bacteria,” he said in an important tone. “It’ll eat the plastic.”

“It will, yeh,” Optima said, grinning. “I’ll be waiting.”

Finn paddled his flippers around as the water flowed in.

“And get your fins out of my bath, Finn.” She snorted.

“Ah feck, it’s not working.” He sat there as the bath filled up, until she tut-tutted and turned off the taps.

Finn’s phone rang, and he pulled it out of his shorts pocket. “Howya, Mam. Where are you now?” He put it on speaker so Optima could hear.

“We’re in Arizona, on the way to New York,” said their mother. “Back day after tomorrow.”

“Come on now, enough,” Optima told Finn. “I want my bath. Out!” She pulled the plug to let the water out. He was splashing his flippers in the last of it when she plugged in again, turned the tap on and tied up her hair in a scrunchie.

The bath filled up. Finn said “Mam, I tried something to get that nasty plastic off the bath.” He named the mixture. “Oh, and I used that test tube of stuff you’d put in the rubbish, for the hell of it.”

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

It meant nothing to Optima. She was more for working quietly with Da on music. Finn and Mam were the science nuts.

“Enough, now,” Optima said. She reached for the bath gel and squirted a good trail of it into the hot water. Finn flipped his fins to mix it in. The scent changed to pine and coconut.

She went out to get her bathrobe, and heard her mother’s voice saying “Go to—” and a burst of static interrupted, then “…Desmond” — then a terrified scream from Finn – “Mam! Mam! MAM!” She ran in. Finn was sitting with a piece of glass and a few gold and silver threads dissolving in his hand, and still shrieking. His hand was clutched into a fist. He opened the fist. The inhaler was gone, but the metal phial from inside it rolled in his palm. The flippers were gone. His glasses were gone. The plastic surface on the bath was crawling up and disappearing. He went quiet. “She said to put the plug in, quick,” he said in a steady tone.

Optima grabbed for the plug, but there was nothing at the end of the chain.

Finn pulled her back against the wall as the ceiling came down, followed by a slab of water that splashed on the ground. More kept coming. It dripped and stopped.

“What is it, Finn?”

He took her hand and put it in the bath, where the last water was disappearing. She felt a shivering tingling going up her skin. Her smartwatch strap shuddered against her skin and the watch dropped into the water, whipped around and fell into a few metal components. Her hair fell down around her shoulders, and her polyester blouse disappeared.

A chattering came from above. Optima wrenched open the old metal-framed window and leaned out. The slates on the edge of the roof were dancing. The same sound came from the house next door. Birds rose up, shrieking alarm calls.

“It’s the plastic washers on the roof nails disintegrating, and the slates slipping down,” Finn said, his voice shaking.

His plastic-destroying recipe worked.

“You can’t tell anyone –” she said, then stopped. “It was only a cup full, Finn. Less.”

“Yeah,” said Finn.

Then she got the smell. “Gas, Finn! Get out!” She grabbed him by his T-shirt and threw him out the door and heard him running down the stairs and out the front door. Optima raced around the house, opening all the windows and doors, grabbing a bundle of clothes as she ran.

She got out and saw Finn running barefoot from house to house, pounding on the doors and shouting “Gas leak! Get out! Quick!”

Optima ran after him and took him by the wrist and ran. As she went, she saw the postman coming up wheeling his bike, a lit cigarette in his mouth. She screamed at him to put it out, to run, and pulled Finn down the lane between the houses to the field at the back, and up onto the hill.

The explosion spread from house to house. In the houses with the windows and doors open the flames burst out and — mostly — died back more or less immediately. But in the closed houses… there was a long wait, then a series of terrific booms, and whole houses crumbled and fell into rubble, with flames raging over the top. Two of these were the houses on either side of the lane.

Now they could see the whole road. Then the road surface went up, rippling along one side, where the gas mains ran, with a long roar, and turning the corner to the next street.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” Finn said. “We need shoes.”

“Go to Desmond, Mam said?”

“Uncle Des?”