The teachers ushered us outside onto the soccer field. Immediately the entire seventh grade split into cliques, some people informed, others lost, some people scared, others amused. Regardless, everyone wanted to discuss what had happened with their friends.

“What was that?”

“A boy set the school on fire -“

“No, he broke a toilet-”

“I heard-”

In bits and pieces, the real story became clear. It turned out that a guy had set off a firecracker in the boys’ bathroom down in the Unified Arts hallway. He’d sustained pretty serious burns on his leg – he, it transpired, was the same boy I’d passed in the hallway with sparks on his pant leg.

What bothered me most were the people who found the story funny, amusing.

“April 18th is going down in history as Firecracker Day,” declared a classmate of mine.

“Alex,” I said, shaking my head, “You’re crazy.”

I still felt oddly shaken by the events. Minutes dragged by. I amused myself by playing tic-tac-toe with my best friend, but all I wanted to do was go home.