On This Day of Independence

By the fourth of July, Collette felt about just as bad. The nastiness had wormed its way into her right ear, which made things all the worse. She hadn’t showered in three days. The house looked much as though it had been dumped upside-down. Puck had a large red rash which had woken him up the night before. That was the way of sick days.
“You boys manage to destroy the house very quickly,” Collette said to OLeif, looking over the damaged living room.
“Hey, when you’ve got a skill, you’ve gotta use it,” he replied with an OLeif smile.
By the afternoon, however, Collette got herself together and the three drove over to the house for a celebration with family (except for Dad and Frances who were at Philmont), plus all of the Combs and Grandma, Uncle Larry, the entire Tecumseh family, Augustus, and Magnus.
Dinner was barbecue, deviled eggs, potato salad, and veggie slices while everyone sat in circles and talked about various things. Linus shared his stack of Cheez-Its with Puck.
“Here you go, dude,” he said.
Puck looked warily at the cracker and then stuffed it in his mouth.
Fireworks frenzy began shortly later. Linnea climbed to the roof to light off several rounds with Carrie.
“Not under the treehouse!” Carrie cried to the boys, as they lit one off.
“What?!” Linus protested, “You’re the one shooting fireworks off the real house!”
“Yeah, but I paid for that one,” Carrie replied, pointing to the treehouse.
Before leaving, Collette slammed her index finger in the car door, but there was a slice of chocolate chip cookie to make up for it.
And by the time dark arrived, the firecrackers were cracking to kingdom come.