The Cone Path Secret — Before the tow rig’s engine cooled with a tick-tick-tick, Rafferty had already chalked three arrows on the shoulder. Read the full story →
Before the tow rig’s engine cooled with a tick-tick-tick, Rafferty had already chalked three arrows on the shoulder. He wanted his handmade game, Cone Path, to beat the radio’s boring safety drill. The rules were his: set the cones so a marble could roll from one to the next without crossing the black tar crack. Wind smelled like warm rubber and clover beyond the guardrail.
Then the little hatchback slid crooked off the lane, one wheel hanging in the ditch. The driver was safe, but cars hissed past too close. Rafferty’s uncle reached for the usual straight line of cones. Rafferty held up his chalky hands. “Try my path,” he said, pointing to the zigzag he had made. A straight row told drivers to move over once; his crooked row made their eyes follow each bright cone, farther and farther away from the hook, cable, and swinging bumper.
The mystery solved itself in orange stripes. Every passing car gave the tow truck room, and Rafferty felt taller than the boom he had helped protect. Ever since, crews on that country highway set cones in Rafferty’s zigzag when a car must be lifted, and if you trace the cones, you can still find his first chalk arrows under the tick-tick-tick.
