e 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!"

"But it's my pop's ladder, and it's our swing board, out of our walnut
tree swing."

"I say, let's _run_!" Poetry half yelled and half hissed up to me, and
for some reason, knowing I couldn't get the board off the chimney, and
guessing what might happen if I got caught, it seemed like Poetry's
idea was as good as any, and so I turned and started to scoot my way
down the board ladder on the roof to the ladder Poetry would be
holding for me, and then--well, I don't know how it happened, but my
boot slipped before I could get my feet on pop's ladder, and I felt
all of me slipping toward the edge of the roof--slipping, slipping,
slipping, and I knew I wouldn't be able to stop myself. In a jiffy,
I'd be going slippety-sizzle over the edge of the eaves and land with
a wham at Poetry's feet. I might even land on him and hurt him; and
even while I was sliding, I heard a sickening sound in the schoolhouse
somewhere, like a stove was falling down, or a chair was falling over
or something, and then my feet were over the edge, and I was grasping
and grasping with my bare hands at the slippery roof, and they
couldn't find anything to hold onto, and then I heard another sound
that was even more sickening than the one I'd heard in the schoolhouse
and it was a ripping and tearing sound, and then felt a long sharp
pain on me somewhere and I knew my trousers had caught on a nail or
something....

R-r-r-r-r-r-ip!... R-r-r-r-r-r-ip! Tear-r-r-r-r-! And I knew that when
I would hit the ground in a few half jiffies, there would be a big
hole in my trousers which I'd have to explain to Mom when I got home,
as well as a lot of other things to both Mom and Pop.

The next thing I knew I was off the edge and falling and the very next
thing I learned awful quick, was I had landed ker-wham-thud in a snow
drift at the foot of the ladder.

10

Even while I was falling and scared and feeling the long sharp pain
running up and down my hip where I'd probably been scratched by a
nail, I was wondering what would happen next--what Mr. Black would do,
and what would happen when I got home, and also I was wondering how
bad I would be hurt when I fell--and then I lit ker-fluffety-sizzle in
that big snowdrift....

And there I was, Bill Col