Under the Highway

It was summertime. The little girl had finished third grade, and would go to fourth at the end of summer. She had been in the same school for about half of third grade, which was a very long time for her to stay in one place. She liked her school, her house and her new stepfather. She had actually made some friends at this school. She didn’t usually bother, she knew she would be moving on soon so it was just not worth the trouble.

On this particular sunny summer day she was playing with her friend Kelly. Her grandparents had a hatchery about half a mile from the little girl’s house. They would often play there. The little girl had always loved chicks. When she lived with her dad they got chicks every spring. She loved how soft they were and the little peep peep noise they made. At the hatchery they had chicks of all kinds, many varieties of chickens as well as quail, guinea fowl, and pheasants. The little girl loved to hang out there and play with them. Her friend’s grandparents didn’t mind if they played with the chicks as long as they did not let them out or do anything to hurt or scare them.

It was also really fun to play in the warehouse. It was full of bags of feed. They were stacked up really tall, sometimes all the way up to the roof of the building. They could play on them as long as they didn’t tear them open. It was really fun to climb up there and the little girl loved the way it smelled in there, like molasses and grain.

The last time they had played here they had wandered off into the woods behind the warehouse. They had found a culvert under the highway. It was made out of cement and the girls had to crawl to get in it. They had gone all the way through it to the other side and they thought it was really fun. Today they were going to go back again. The little girl had brought some things to make it really fun. She grabbed a cigarette lighter and a can of hairspray from her mom’s bathroom. She was going to make a fire and teach her friend how to make a flamethrower. She had told her friend that she could make one and Kelly had doubted her so she wanted to prove she could do it, and starting a fire was always a good idea.

They found firewood and brought it to the middle of the culvert. Soon the little girl had a nice fire going. She loved making fires, she loved fire. She was having a great day, playing under the highway. They could hear cars going over the road, they could watch the fire and when it was burning just right she took a burning stick out of it and held it up and sprayed the hairspray on it and just like magic instant flamethrower. Her friend Kelly was appropriately impressed so she did it a couple more times.

Eventually Kelly wanted to give it a try. So the little girl handed over the hair spray and Kelly gave it a try. As soon as the flame came shooting out of the can Kelly freaked out and dropped the can into the fire.

There is really only one thing to do when you are 8 years old, in a concrete culvert under the highway and your friend drops an aerosol can into the fire, and that is of course run like hell. The girls crawled out of the culvert then ran straight to the warehouse. Just as they got to the big door they heard the boom. It was much louder than the little girl expected. She had heard lots of cans explode when they burned garbage but this one was in a concrete culvert, it was much, much louder. The girls hid in the stacks of feed, they were afraid that Kelly’s grandparents would know what they had done.

They climbed all the way to the top of the stack in the very back and waited for her grandmother to come out, she didn’t. But they stayed hidden just in case. Then they heard sirens, and more sirens. They stayed on those stacks. They could hear voices and radios and more sirens and they stayed on those stacks.

They didn’t come out till Kelly’s mom came to pick her up. The little girl rode her bike home. She was calm now, she knew no one knew that they had done anything. She went into the house and her mother was lying in her bed watching tv. Her Stepfather was not home yet. She went into the living room and watched cartoons, and for the most part forgot all about the fire and the aerosol can.

It was a fairly normal night. Her stepfather came home and made dinner. They watched tv and she was just about to go to bed when the news came on. The little girl froze when the news camera showed all the fire trucks and police cars on the highway by the hatchery.

They lived in a fairly small town, only miles from the air force base. An aerosol can exploding was apparently a much bigger deal than she had expected. Someone called the cops and the cops called the base. There were cops and MP’s from the base investigating. The little girl thought to herself, well that explains all the sirens. Just as she was thinking that her step father looked at her and said, “ weren’t you playing with Kelly today at the hatchery?” Without hesitating at all the little girl said “Yeah, we heard sirens but we didn’t know why they came” and she went to bed.