The Smoke Stack Surprise — Every day after school, Gus lowered a tin cup into the river bend and waited for the water to stop wobbling. Read the full story →
Every day after school, Gus lowered a tin cup into the river bend and waited for the water to stop wobbling. The left bank smelled like wet grass and flowers; the right bank coughed smoke and hot metal. He wanted one clear sample for the town meeting, but the cup always came up cloudy. “Hold still, you slippery soup,” he muttered.
Until one day, the river burped a bubble shaped like a question mark. Because of that, Gus followed the bubble’s plip-plip trail past the buzzing power towers. Because of THAT, he heard snickering inside the oldest smokestack, the one nobody checked because it was “too boring.”
Finally, after waiting through three smoky sneezes, Gus caught the culprit: a soot sprite hiding a tiny rain whistle in the pipe. Gus blew it once. Clean rain pattered down, the factories hiccuped, and the river ran bright enough for fish to flash silver. Next time you see that split river bend, can you spot where Gus waited for the water to stop wobbling?
