Adventures of Pudge

FIRECRACKERS

It was the 5^th of July; the 4^th had been rather uneventful for Pudge. He had been allowed to sleep late and then had gone to a

baseball game in the afternoon. Following the game there was a fireworks display at the park and then a wienie roast. All of

these were fun things but Pudge wished that he had had some firecrackers of his own. His dad had said no.

On this day after the 4^th Pudge decided to go to see if any of his friends were there, maybe he could get a ball game going.

He knew that Dan was at the beach and Phil was away at camp but perhaps he could find someone he knew.

Nobody, except for a man with two small boys flying a kite. “I think I’ll look for some dud fireworks,” Pudge said to himself. “

Maybe there’ll be one or two good ones among them.”

Pudge searched all around the park and found many that had not fired but none of them had wicks. He was very

disappointed and was about to throw them all away when he recalled learning last year about cat and dog figts. He

remembered that you took two duds and bent them in half, then you set them down facing each other and lit them both. The

object was to see which one would force the other backwards.

“Even better,” thought Pudge. “I’ll just dump all the powder on the back porch and light it. That should make a terrific fire.”

When he arrived home his mother was in the living room so Pudge sneaked around to the back porch and proceeded to

empty the powder from the firecrackers onto an old cookie sheet he found there. Then, Pudge struck a match and held it over

the powder. POOFF! The flames were unbelievable; before Pudge had a chance to pull his hand back it was on fire.

His screams brought his mother running. She had the presence of mind to throw water on Pudge’s hand and then on the fire.

Fortunately also, she treated his burns quickly and prevented them from being serious.