School Reunion. Epilogue.

It was three years since that fateful school reunion I attended with my wife Char. The fateful school reunion where a few of Char’s former schoolmates had tried to play a prank on her. Two of them, and also Char, had died. Two of them had survived but with severe burn wounds. And now our five year old daughter Tina was starting school. Today was her first day. I looked at the clock on the kitchen wall. It was half past three. Time for me to go collect Tina.
I waited outside as all the kids came rushing out. And then Tina came out, escorted by a teacher.
“Mr Sning?” The teacher asked. “I wondered if I could have a word?”
“Certainly,” I smiled.
“Tina was playing with this boy in the playground today,” the teacher started, when we’d all gone indoors. “It was my fault, I should have been paying close attention. But now the boy is in hospital with severe burn wounds.”
My stomach suddenly felt as though there was a boulder inside, and my heart skipped a beat. “Is he all right?” I asked.
The teacher smiled. “He’ll live. But what concerns me is how he got the burn wounds in the first place. One minute your daughter and this boy were getting along nicely. I turned to talk to another child, and when I turned back, the boy was being a bit rough, pulling on Tina’s pigtails a bit too hard. I started over to tell him off, when suddenly he caught fire. Like human combustion, or something… Mr Sning, are you all right? You‘ve gone pale.”
“Yeah, I’ll be fine.” I looked down at Tina, who was smiling back up at me. But it wasn’t Tina’s face I saw. It was her mother’s…