9*I dont think making your own firework is safe or legal. (This sound interesting)
Jacob Stone was frustrated.
Cassandra was planning an end-of-summer party, an eveningfor them all to relax after a busy summer of saving the world often three timesbefore Friday. Nobody was too enthused, but once Ezekiel let it slip that hehad a house with a pool and a bit of acreage, Baird quickly volunteered the propertyas the venue. Ezekiel’s face fell, and Stonesuddenly got into the party spirit.
He volunteered to help get supplies and found himselfchecking around town for fireworks. After all, what was an end-of-summer partywithout fireworks? He was quickly finding, however, that Portland was maybe alittle stricter on such things than Oklahoma had been.
Cassandra returned from her own party errands and slowlywalked into the Annex, a perplexed look on her face as she peered overeverything on the table. There were rather innocuous items – paper, scissors,tape – but there were also chemicals – combustiblechemicals – and fuses. Cassandra rolled her eyes and dropped her bags ontoFlynn’s desk. She headed towards Jenkins’s lab, speaking as she walked.
“Ezekiel, I knowyou’re not happy about us invading your little secret lair, but I don’t think blowingsomething…” she started. As she neared the lab, she ran into Jacob, who waswalking towards the Annex with a container of potassium nitrate in his hands. “Oh.Jacob. What are…what are you doing?”
“Making party supplies,” he said with a boyish grin.Cassandra nodded, and he walked by her.
“Oh,” she said as he walked by. Then, her brain put two andtwo together, and she ran after him. “Wait! You’re what?” She joined him in the Annex. “What does that mean exactly?”
“What’s a summer party without fireworks?” he said with thesame grin from before.
Cassandra’s face lit up. “Oh, I got some!” She ran over toher bags and pulled out 4 packs of sparklers and a package of ground spinners.Stone’s face scrunched up in disgust.
“Those ain’t fireworks, Cassie,” he said.
“Wait, you’re making, like, fireworks fireworks?” she asked, her eyes wide.
“We had these partiesback home,” he said. “Me and the guys would get all these firecrackers, Romancandles, sometimes even some sky rockets, head out to the middle of nowhere;shoot ‘em off.”
“But you boughtthose, right?” Cassandra asked.
“Yeah, but I couldn’t find anything like that around here, andJones supposedly has all this land, so I’m makin’ ‘em,” Stone shrugged.
“I don’t think making your own fireworks is safe or legal,” Cassandra gently pointed out.“I mean, you’re holding chemicals,Jacob. What do you know about making fireworks?”
“I Googled,” Stone said with another shrug, holding up someprint-outs from the Internet.
“Oh my god…” Cassandra muttered to herself.
They went back and forth for another few minutes and, onceCassandra realized that today was the day Jacob Stone had chosen to be completely stubborn and there would be notalking him out of this or changing his mind, she sighed and resigned herselfto the fact that she’d have to help him, if only to keep him from killinghimself.
Later, an explosion sounded just as Baird and Flynn walkedthrough the Back Door.
“What the hell wasthat?” Baird called as her heart rate returned to normal.
“It sounded like it came from that way,” Flynn said,pointing. “Isn’t Cassandra’s lab that way?”
By the time Baird and Flynn arrived, the white aftermathfrom the fire extinguisher in Stone’s hands coated half the room, and Cassandraremained in the same position she’d assumed when the explosion occurred – onher knees, curled into a ball underneath a table, safety goggles still intactagainst her face.
“It’s okay to come out now, darlin’,” Stone said, bendingover to look at her.
“I think I’ll stay down here, thanks!” Cassandra said. “I told you this was a bad idea!”
“Told you what wasa bad idea?” Baird asked, her voice stern and loud.
Stone, still crouched down to look at Cassandra under thetable, turned to her again, as her wide eyes slowly met his. They were in bigtrouble.
Story by imagination-parade/Stephanie
