There Was a Fire?!?!: The Epic Story of Wednesday

by BCK

Wednesday was, for lack of a better term, ridiculous. We- meaning the students at my school, not me- started a fire in the dumpster.


The fire started during lunch. I was hanging out by the pull-up bars with my friends and a few annoying people that wouldn’t go away. There was a basketball game to the right, but there were only weak people playing. So I decided to play some soccer with the little sixth and seventh graders away to my left. Eighth graders have a reputation of cheating, mostly because we don’t know how to play, and of being racist, which was Stephen’s fault. So when I went over to talk to them, they yelled in their little kid, high-pitched voices for me to go away. As always, I promised I wouldn’t cheat, and as always, they didn’t buy it. I had just turned away, and was walking back to my friends to tell them to help me steal the soccer ball, when somebody cried, “There’s a fire in the dumpster!”

Everyone that could hear turned around, and amazingly, there were huge flames jumping out of the recycling bin, quickly burning those many papers and other things. Everyone crowded around in a state of frenzied excitement. I looked away to see if the security guard, Mr. Weekes, had noticed. He hadn’t. I looked around and saw people who had heard the news rushing up in waves to the yard. Others continued against the crowd to inform the ignorant of the event. I found Jack and Stephen.
“This is crazy!!” I yelled over the noise
“Whaaaoooah!” yelled Jack back.
“Stephen, what do you think?!!” I screamed
“About what?!” he screamed back.
“THE FIRE!”
“THERE WAS A FIRE?!!?!?!” he exclaimed. This cracked me and Jack up. And we were still laughing when somebody yelled, “It’s gonna blow up!!” Everything went deadly quiet as we pondered the possibility. Then, as a huge crowd, with Jack and me leading, the whole school fled to a safe distance, approximately ten yards away.

“Somebody pull the fire alarm!” someone yelled. At once, several people raced across the yard to the different locations of the fire alarms. We know where they are, given that they get pulled a few times a week. I saw Alex go to the fire alarm in the boys’ locker room, and other people pull the others. Soon the blaring sound of the fire alarm added to the tumult.

By then Mr. Weekes had come over to see what the deal was. He took one look at the fire, and radioed to the principal, Ms. Crockett. She didn’t feel like dealing with it, so Mr. Taylor, the vice principal, arrived. Now, Mr. Taylor is intimidating. He’s about 6’5”, used to play on the NBA, and constantly scowls at potential troublemakers. But he’s a pretty chill guy.

As soon as his head appeared, the cry went around, “Mr. Taylor’s here!” Everyone ran for cover. Mr. Taylor took one look, and radioed the whole staff, and soon everyone working at the school was pushing back the line of students, snatching phones and cameras taking pictures, and interrogating the possible suspects. Eventually they herded us down into the lower part of the yard, where everyone wandered around excitedly, coming up with all sorts of crazy ideas about what was happening, who did it, and whether school would let out early. We commonly have fire drills, where everyone lines up and stays good so you don’t have to listen to Ms. Crockett drone on and on about paying attention. But in that situation, all those fire drills were easily forgotten. People were running around screaming, making jokes, socializing, and being crazy. We were completely unprepared for the blaze that had been ignited in the dumpster.

“Wait! Did anyone here get this on video?!” I exclaimed to Jack and Stephen.
“F*#@&%$!!!” exlaimed Jack.
“Get what on video?” asked Stephen.
“The fire!” Jack and I shouted.
“THERE WAS A FIRE??!?!” yelled Stephen. This cracked us up again.
For the rest of the day, Stephen was constantly yelling, “THERE WAS A FIRE?!?!”

At the end of the day, the joke still hadn’t worn off. It was a great day.