The Young Arsonist

Another misadventure from my youth

They say that confession is good for the soul. For that reason, and the fact that my father can no longer kill me, I am going to share a secret with all of you, a deep, dark secret which I have never before revealed, not even to my wife. My father bought an old sea captain's home in Portland Maine in 1956. I was five years old, and i would spent the next thirteen fateful years living there.
One of my most memorable experiences took place when I had just turned 11. My mom and dad took a very rare mini-vacation to Florida, without the kids! They had invited a couple of our cousins to stay with us while they were gone. I always loved pranking people, and I had a real masterpiece planned for the occasion.
Our guests were going to sleep in my sister Linda's room, While they were all downstairs watching our old Zenith console television, I put my plan into action. I nonchalantly got up from the couch, stretched and yawned, and sauntered out of the room. When I was out of everyone's line of sight, I quietly but rapidly padded up the stairs. Moving to the creaky old attic stairway, I very slowly and gently climbed to the attic and opened an old steamer trunk, where I had stashed my big surprise. It was a life size dummy, which I had crafted from one of dads old suits, I had stuffed it with newspaper, and tied some old shoes to the pant legs. The crown jewel was an old rubber Halloween horror mask. I crept to my sister's room with the dummy slung over my shoulder.I wasn't worried, because I could hear a lot of laughter downstairs. They all were engrossed in a new tv show called "The Beverly Hillbillies. Man, that Elly May was hot! I hung the dummy from a light fixture in the middle of the ceiling. The lighting wasn't atmospheric enough, so I took the shade off the lamp on the nightstand and wrapped a pillow around the bulb until I had the lighting that I had envisioned.
I went back downstairs and joined everyone in watching the show. It seemed like an eternity for it to end. I was just sitting there, giggling like a fool, when there was a loud banging on the front door. We all jumped. We jumped even higher when we heard a man's voice screaming very loudly, “Your house is on fire!”
We all ran out of the house onto the lawn, and when I looked up, I saw heavy smoke and flames pouring out of Linda's windows. "Take me now God," I whispered. Oh, I forgot to mention that my father was chief of the Portland Fire Department. After the firefighters put out the fire, and the captain in charge said it was safe, We all went back into the house. I ran up the stairs, lying to myself, saying that it wasn't so bad. They extinguished it quickly. As I walked down the hall to Linda's room, two firemen passed me. One of the fireman was saying to the other, with a huge grin on his face, “Do you know whose house this is? Chief Callahan's!” I was mystified as to why two firemen could be so cheerful after a fire. I walked into Linda's room and reality kicked me in the balls. Everything was black and charred. It was a total loss. Thankfully, the dummy had burned up entirely, but I felt the fear crawling up my back.
The next day, my parents arrived, looking very grim, especially my father. When he and I spoke, I couldn't look him in the eye. If I did, I was sure he would see the guilt within me. A week later, my father told me that the fire investigator's report on the “incident” was ready, and told me I could keep him company at the investigator's office. “He knows”, a voice whispered inside my brain. When we arrived, I told him that I had really bad cramps, which by now I did, and could I please wait outside? He just shook his head and sighed loudly, walked into the office, and closed the door behind him. I could hear low murmuring emanating from the room. I casually picked up a Reader's Digest, and tried to read a bit called “Laughter The Best Medicine”. How ironic. My hands were shaking so badly that i couldn't even read the page, let alone turn it!.
When dad finally came out, I was about to throw myself at his feet, blurt out my confession, and beg for mercy. But before I had a chance to, he said, “There was a short circuit in your sister's radio.” My heart soared, but I forced myself to remain composed. “Yeah, I said, "it's probably because of all of that loud music she's always playing".
I had survived another of many close calls.