Bang!
Something exploded close to us, in the very heart of a dense pittosporum tree. For a moment sparks glittered among its myriad leaves: and then hundreds of sparrows, which made their nightly home in its heart, flew wildly out, chirping, twittering, terrified. We were the centre of a cloud of fluttering little bodies; they struck against our faces, so that we had to shelter our eyes with our hands. Above the clamour of the bird-panic rose smothered shrieks and gurgles of delight from Judy and Jack, unseen among the bushes.
“Crikey, that was a beauty, Ju!” came Jack’s voice.
“Jack!” uttered his mother in awful accents.
“Judy! It’s Mother! Grab ’em and run!”
A dim light guided us round the pittosporum, and Mrs. McNab darted towards it. I followed, choking with laughter. A smoky lantern, hanging on a bough, showed the culprits racing towards a heap of fireworks that lay on the ground within the murky circle of light. Near them Jack caught his foot in a creeper and pitched headlong on his face. Judy halted in her stride and darted to pick him up.
And then something happened.
Near the little heap of forbidden delight a cracker that had been lit and tossed aside as useless decided to fulfil its destiny and explode. It was a large cracker, and it did so with vehemence. A shower of sparks fell on a long trail of soft tissue-paper which had formed the wrapping of the parcel; dry as tinder, and sprinkled with loose gunpowder, it flared into flame, and a little breath of wind carried it fairly across the heap of fireworks. There was a quick spitting and hissing as the fuses caught. I seized Jack, who uttered a wail and sprang to save what he could.
“No, you don’t, old chap!” I said, tightening my grip against his struggles.
A string of crackers went off in a spitting volley, and a Catherine-wheel suddenly began to revolve madly in the grass. Then everything caught at once. Rockets dug themselves into the ground, exploding harmlessly, while whizz-bangs and Roman candles and basket-bombs leaped and sputtered and banged in a whirl of rainbow sparks. It was a lavish and uplifting spectacle, produced for our benefit regardless of expense. But the producers wailed aloud in their despair.