Old man Clancy needed a good scare. When Teddy walked past his house to the school bus, Clancy spit in his hair. He called the cops when Teddy and the other kids played football in the road. He even kicked Muddy, Teddy’s dog. After helping his collie limp around the house for a month, he’d had enough.
Teddy’s older brother, Jake, once showed him that filling a plastic bottle with certain pool cleaners, depositing tinfoil, and then sealing the concoction with a cap would cause the bottle to fizz and explode. He’d ask Jake to make the potion, but ever since Teddy started middle school, Jake wanted Teddy to learn the hard way.
“Don’t be a pussy,” Jake said.
He repeated to himself what his brother told him when he worried over when his mother would get home after her late shifts: “Man up, kid.”
Teddy would man up. He decided to test the formula by himself in the woods. He set a loaded bottle next to a bush and dashed behind the safety of a nearby tree. For a few minutes, he thought that the experiment had failed, but when the explosion came, it felt like an earthquake.
Clancy would feel this earthquake. The plan was simple: trigger the formula, set the bottle on his doorstep, ring the bell, and flee to cover. Clancy’s awakening would be golden.
He lived in a large house three blocks down the road and was the head of the neighborhood watch, so Teddy had to be stealthy. He couldn’t wait to see Clancy piss his pants thinking that the bomb was real.
He snuck up Clancy’s driveway and plopped the bottle down on his doorstep. After igniting it, he rang the bell and scrambled behind the bushes of a neighboring house. Clancy opened the door, his rumpled face reddening at once. Teddy beamed as Clancy hurled expletives into the summer air.
Then the explosion came, and a chunk of the ravaged bottle careened into the yard just a few feet from the bush Teddy hid behind.
Clancy teetered back and forth and then grabbed his throat—a shard of plastic protruded from it. He retched as black blood seeped from his neck. Falling to his hands and knees, he attempted to cry out for help, but all he could do was moan and wheeze. He dragged himself to the edge of the yard, leaving a crimson stream behind him,
Teddy froze.
Teddy’s Collie rushed around the corner and jumped onto Clancy, who tried to yell but could only spit blood. Muddy bit into Clancy’s arm, sensing his fear and aggression. A woman across the street screamed and ran over. She tried to pull Muddy off of him, but the dog’s bite was too strong.
“Get help,” she said to Teddy. “He’s dying.”
Teddy felt like he was dreaming.
“Now,” she said, gritting her teeth at him. “Now. He’s dying.”
But Teddy didn’t move. Teddy didn’t move for hours.
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