In the summer, when I was 15 or so
myself and two friends were out a-wandering by some huuuge fields. One of them decided it would be a funny idea to begin flicking matches around, and soon there was a small smokey fire beginning to spread through the dried grasses. As fire generally does, it began to grow, until it looked as if it would get out of hand.
We tried stamping it out, but it was beyond that, and the only method left was to smother it with my new jacket. I refused point blank, after all, who wants a brand new singed and smokey coat?
So off we wandered, rapidly, in the opposite direction for about 15 minutes. The fire was huge now, and spreading like, um, wildfire.
A tractor appeared on the horizon and began to chase us. Run run run. Soon enough we were being shouted at by a farmer, from the opposite side of a ditch and a barbed wire fence. There were fire enginey noises getting closer as well.
We managed to evade the farmer and set off homewards, with a thick black column of smoke spreading in the distance.
After a while, the panic subsided and we found it kinda funny, the smoke was covering a vast area now, and it was rather (uncomfortably)amusing because we hadn't been caught.
As we neared home, still walking along a trail by more fields, the twunt that had been flicking matches decided that he was going to fish a golf ball out of a water trough, which took a stupid amount of time. The guy was definitely an idiot.
It was then that the farmers struck. In a pincer movement, they outflanked us and were a little miffed to say the least. They were violently angry as the damage was severe and with a bit more violence and the threat of even more, they got our names and addresses out of us and eventually let us go.

The police came by a few days later, and both my mates were conveniently on holiday , so I was left being grilled by a rather imposing fellow, with a monobrow that could only mean werewolf. Luckily this had been my first offence (or rather the first time I had been caught), and the farmers were planning to torch the field later in the year anyway, so I was let off with a warning. I did think that I was going to end up ripped to bloody shreds the next full moon though.

Moral: Stay away from muppets with matches, never wear your new coat in a field and beware shape-shifting policemen.
( Kallus speaks for the Spores, Tue 2 Mar 2004, 20:48, Reply)