BY EOLAS PELLOR
Copyright is held by the author.
“Sparklers is 10 cents for a pack of five,” Pops Rafford sighed. He’d had the same conversation 10 times already today and expected he’d have it many more times before he closed up for the night, but the two boys were oblivious to that fact. The younger boy watched his older brother counting their money.
“We got 37 cents,” Pat said, looking up at the white-haired, old man.
“Will that get us the burning schoolhouse?” Joey added, peering over the shop counter.
“That’ll cost you $1.25,” Pops answered. He wasn’t an unkind man, but business was business.
“Sparklers are pretty good,” Pat said, trying to convince the younger boy. “And we could get three packs! That will last longer than the burning schoolhouse, and it’s more fun because you can wave them round.” His little brother stuck out his lower lip and shook his head. Pat knew his brother’s heart was set on that favourite, but he had to try.
Pops turned to get a packet of navy-cut tobacco for an adult who’d come in, so the boys left, the store-bell tinkling as the door closed behind them. Billy was waiting with their bikes. He could tell right away that the expedition had not gone well. Buying fireworks might be one of the highlights of the year, but balancing wants with assets was never an easy task.
“Last year you could have got firecrackers,” Billy said. “They was just a nickel for twenty.” He kicked a stone with his sneaker in frustration.
Durrand’s ban on firecrackers was a sore point with the youngsters. Their neighbourhood perched on the edge of the city, and just past Pops’ store, there were fields, meadows and woodlots to explore. What business distant city hall had deciding what fireworks Pops could sell was beyond the boys’ ability to grasp, as were arguments about injuries and liability.
“We’re 88 cents short,” Pat said. “Even if me and Joey got our allowance a week in advance, we’d still be 33 cents short.”
“Might as well be a $100,” Billy agreed. “All I got is a nickel.”
May the 24th — known to kids as Firecracker Day, whatever its official name — was only four days off, and there was little chance of them finding more money before it arrived. Pat pushed his bike past the trash barrel that Pops had placed near the door to the store and a glass Coke bottle that someone had left leaning against the wall fell onto the dirt of the parking lot.
Joey dropped his bike and scooped up the bottle with a triumphant whoop.
“That’s two cents!” he said, and he hurried inside to collect the deposit from the store’s owner. When he came back, he had a question.
“Pat, how many bottles would we have to return to get enough to buy the burning schoolhouse?” His brother thought for a moment.
“Forty-three bottles,” Pat replied. Joey peered into the trash can while the others watched. There was one more bottle there, and Billy, who had the longest arms, pulled it out. Gap-toothed and grinning, Joey hurried to collect the deposit on the second bottle too. They now had 41 cents.
They rode home, scanning the ditches, and found three more discarded bottles, though one of them was broken, probably when it was thrown from a passing car. Still, four cents was four cents. Joey’s bike had a basket mounted on the handlebars and they placed the bottles in it. Then they looked all around the empty field between the wartime houses where they lived and found three more bottles.
“How many more bottles do we need?” Joey asked.
“Thirty-seven,” Pat replied. “It’ll take forever to get the money this way.” Joey didn’t seem that concerned though.
“I’m gonna look along the fence around the old Cemetery,” Joey announced. Billy and Pat watched him go.
“He’s not afraid?” Billy sounded impressed. Most kids in the tough neighbourhood called Little Chicago avoided the cemetery at all costs.
“If he really wants something, he won’t give up,” Pat said, “Even if he is scared.” Billy watched the younger boy disappear around the corner.
“We could take the money you got, and the deposit money, and just buy some sparklers.” Billy said, in a last plea for reason. “At least we’d have somethin’.” It was tempting, but Pat had promised Joey. He shook his head.
“Why does he want the burning schoolhouse so much?” Billy asked. “It’s not even that good. Roman candles are better, and Howlers at least make a bang. The schoolhouse is just a fountain that sets a paper-box on fire.”
“I guess, but Joey says it makes everyone happy, thinking of their school burning down,” Pat said. “If that’s what he wants, then we’ll get it somehow.” Billy nodded his approbation of Pat’s loyalty.
***
It was about then that some of the other boys came by, and asked Pat and Billy if they wanted to play baseball. There was a ball diamond behind the nearby school and they rode their bikes over. There were only about seven guys on each team, but that didn’t really matter as the ball had a loose cover and rarely got hit out of the infield.
At the bottom of the third inning Pat started to wonder where Joey was. His younger brother’s search of the cemetery fence couldn’t have taken that long, and he never had much trouble finding his big brother. Little Chicago was only four blocks wide and three blocks long, and everyone knew everyone else; someone would have told him where they were. Pat began to worry he’d get in trouble for losing his little brother and took two strikes.
At the top of the fifth inning and Pat was playing outfield. The stitching on the old ball was coming loose, and not many hits were getting out of the infield, so he had plenty of time to scan the streets around Giesbrecht Public School for the familiar shape of his brother. When he saw him at last, he felt some relief, but he was a little puzzled as to why Joey was hunched over.
Billy noticed that Pat was looking at something and stood on the pitcher’s mound staring in the same direction.
“Time out,” Pat called, and he hurried over toward the street. Billy and the others were not far behind, curious about the interruption. When they got closer, they could see that Joey had tied a skipping rope around an old laundry basket that he was dragging behind him. There were five boxes piled up in the basket, all full of pop-bottles, plus a few loose ones.
“What’s this?” one of the other guys asked.
“Deposit money!” Joey said, excitedly.
“You found this many bottles?” Billy asked him. The idea that the old cemetery was a secret gold-mine of deposit bottles had never occurred to him.
“I found three,” Joey said. “I searched along the edge of Giesbrecht Cemetery, all the way over to East 27th Street, when a man saw me. He asked what I was doing, and I told him I was collecting bottles so we could buy the burning schoolhouse for Firecracker Day. He told me that he had lots of pop bottles in his garage. I could have them, as many as I could carry, if I got ’em out of there.”
“Where did the laundry basket come from?” Pat asked.
“I was trying to carry all the boxes when I seen Joanne, from my class,” Joey explained. “She loaned me her mom’s old laundry basket, since it was going to the trash anyway. I borrowed her skipping rope so I could pull it better.” He looked around at the others, proud of his problem-solving abilities.
“So you got all that man’s bottles,” Billy asked.
“Sure did,” Joey said, proudly. “How much do we got now, Pat?” It took a couple of minutes for Pat to count up the bottles, and to figure out how much the deposit would be. Pat hadn’t had the heart to tell him they might not have enough. He hoped he’d made a mistake but was pretty sure that they were still four bottles short.
After the interruption, no one could agree what the score had been, so they decided to quit rather than start over. Billy, Pat, and Joey dragged the hoard over to Pops Rafford’s store.
“You collected all of these?” the old man said, his eyes going wide as the three boys hauled their loot inside. Joey nodded excitedly. Pops scratched his head.
“Well, legally, you know, I don’t got to give you the deposit back if you didn’t buy the bottles from my store,” he began. Pat’s heart sank. He’d heard that speech before and felt bad if Joey did all that work for nothing.
“On th’other hand, I got to admire you young fellers for persevering like that.”
“Oh, why don’t you just give them the money,” a man sitting at the lunch counter called.
“I was planning on it,” Pops said. “Or, since you worked this hard to get it, how about I just swap you these bottles for the burning schoolhouse you wanted?” Joey stood there with his mouth open, looking up at the white-haired man. Pat didn’t say anything; his brother had done the real work. It was up to him to decide.
“Yes, please!” Joey said, with a smile spreading across his face. Pops reached into the glass-fronted display case and pulled out the prized firework. He didn’t even ask the boys for the other money. They carted the bottles out back and stacked the empties in the wood and wire cases the soft-drink companies used for the bottles.
After they’d stacked them, Pat and Billy went back into the store and came out with four packs of sparklers and some penny candy in a paper bag. It was going to be a better Firecracker Day than they’d imagined.
***
Eolas Pellor spent 30 years teaching in inner-city schools, in Toronto, Canada. Before that, he worked as a reporter and editor. He has been writing seriously since 2023, and his stories have appeared in more than 25 on-line publications and print anthologies.