A jiffy later I reached my pop's new ladder and started to start up when I heard somebody running behind me and saying in a husky whisper, "Hey, Bill! Stop. Wait! Let me hold the ladder."
I looked around quick and it was Poetry behind me, and I knew he was right. My pop had taught me never to go up a ladder until I was sure the bottom of it was safely set so it wouldn't slip, or unless somebody stayed at the bottom to hold it so it couldn't.
A jiffy later, I was on my way up, and another steenth of a jiffy I was at the eaves, and, being a very good climber, I scrambled up the other little ladder that was made out of nailed-on boards, to the red brick chimney. I had to be as quiet as I could, though, on account of not wanting Mr. Black to hear me on the roof. I also was going to have to be careful when I took the board off so the sound of it sliding off wouldn't go down the chimney through the stove.
In another jiffy I'd have had the board off, and have given it a toss far out where it wouldn't have hit Poetry, and then I'd
have been on my way down again, but when I took hold of the wide, flat board, I couldn't any more get it off than anything. I gasped out-loud when I saw why I couldn't get it off, and that was that there was a nail driven into each end of it, and a piece of stove pipe wire was wrapped around the head of each nail and then the wire was twisted around and around the brick chimney, down where it was smaller, and that crazy old board wouldn't budge—an almost new board, rather, and as soon as I saw it, I knew it was the board out of the swing which we have in the walnut tree at our house.... Why, the dirty crooks! I thought. They wanted it to be sure to look like Bill Collins put it up here.
I was holding onto the chimney, in fact I was sort of behind it, so I wouldn't slide down.... I could hear sounds down in the schoolhouse of somebody doing something to the stove, which must have been Mr. Black finishing laying the fire, 'cause right that second I heard a sound like an iron door closing on the big round iron Poetry-shaped stove, and almost a second later, a puff of bluish smoke came bursting out through a crack where the board didn't quite cover the chimney on one side, and I knew that the fire was started. I knew that in a few jiffies that one-room school would be filled with smoke, and a mad teacher would come storming out to see what on earth was the matter with the chimney, and I'd be in for it.
"Hey!" I hissed down to Poetry, shielding my voice with my hand so the sound would go toward Poetry instead of down the chimney. Poetry heard me and dived out far enough from the schoolhouse to see me, and I hissed to him, "It's too late. The fire's already started. What'll I do. I can't get it off. They've wired it on. If I had a pair of pliers, I could cut the wire."
And Poetry yelled up to me and said, "There's a pair in the schoolhouse."
The awfulest sounds came up the chimney from down inside the schoolhouse, and I could just imagine what Mr. Black was thinking, and maybe was saying too. Smoke was pouring out of the chimney beside my face, but I knew the crack was too small for all the smoke to get out, and the room down there would be filling up with smoke....
What on earth to do, was screaming at me in my mind.... Then Poetry had an idea and it was, "Come on down quick, and let's run. Let's leave the ladder and everything!"