We’d been running through the sprinkler, back and forth. The cold water was like needles, but the sensation only lasted for a moment, and then you were through the arching spray and on the other side. Once we’d cooled off, we walked two blocks to the store for ice-cream.
It had been above 90° in the shade for a week, and a couple of days had bumped up past 99°, and we saw the big thermometer outside Pop Rafford’s store had broken, the red liquid inside trickling down the word wooden siding, and dripping onto the gravel underneath it.
Billy swore it had smoked when it dribbled out, and the guys started arguing whether thermometers contained a deadly poison that could kill everyone in Durrand, or an acid so dangerous it could skeletonise your hand in seconds if it splashed on you. Billy was firmly in the acid camp, but Pat was an equally convinced member of the poison persuasion.
Joey, Pat’s younger brother, licked the drips from his ice-cream sandwich, while the others argued.
“But if it was poison, then why would they put thermometers in your mouth?” he asked. “If it’s acid, why don’t it dissolve the siding?”
Comments
Be the first to comment.