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against the hedge, put his cap in place, and chanted my little song:
    “Remember remember the fifth of November,
    Gunpowder treason and plot
    We see no reason why this merry season
    Should ever be forgot.”
    Mr. Tuttle appeared from the back of his house, and I shouted out, “A penny for the guy!”
    He didn't come any closer. “Johnny?” he asked.
    “Yes, sir,” I said.
    “Come to the garden.”
    He led me there, round the side of his house. “Look at this,” he said. “Look at my roses.”
    I felt an awful thump in my heart to see his garden again, the same one I had found from the footpaths. It was Mr. Tuttle's roses that had stuffed my monstrous guy.
    “I'm trying to save what I can,” he said, going straight to the bushes. He pulled the branches apart. “See how they're splintered? The frost will get in there, and the mulch that might have kept them warm is gone.”
    Mr. Tuttle let the bushes snap together. He stood up. “I'm livid,” he said. “I've never been more angry. These roses are all I have; they're like children to me.”
    I hung my head.
    “Do you know who did this?”
    My heart, which had sunk, fluttered again to think he didn't suspect me. “No, sir,” I mumbled.
    “Well, it's no concern of yours. You only came to get a penny for your guy.”
    I couldn't let him see it. The thorns of his roses stuck out from every part of the guy. “You don't have to give me a penny,” I said.
    “Nonsense,” said Mr. Tuttle. He groped through his pockets and pulled out a florin. It was riches to me, twenty-four times what I'd asked for. “I'll give you this if you can tell me why I should.”
    I thought it was obvious. “Because I have to buy fire-works,” I said.
    He smiled, and I felt sorry for him. “But why, Johnny? What's the story behind the fireworks and guys?”
    “Treason and plot?” I guessed.
    He could tell I didn't know, but pretended that I might. “Indeed,” he said. “Guy Fawkes was a Catholic, wasn't he? He hated James the First, the Protestant King, and tried to blow up the Parliament buildings on the day that all the Lords and all the Commons and the King himself would be there. But he was caught, wasn't he? He was arrested in the coal cellar with his barrels full of powder, ready to set them off on November fifth. He was hanged for treason, as you say.” Mr. Tuttle held out his hand. “There you go.”
    I stared at the silver coin pinched in his fingers. I'd rarely owned a shilling, let alone a florin. But something inside me wouldn't let me take it. “I didn't really know,” I admitted.
    “You do now.” He pressed the coin in my palm. “I wish all the boys were as honest as you, Johnny.”
    I felt miserable.
    “Now, don't fret about my roses. Perhaps I can still save something.”
    I went on to the village, though not as cheerily as before. I sat by the Victoria Inn, with the gangly guy leaning against the wall like an old boozer, and the men smiled and the ladies giggled as they passed. I looked up at them all, shouting, “Pennies for the guy!”
    All I got was a grubby old farthing, one penny and a ha'penny. Then I dragged my guy to the hardware store and went in to buy my fireworks. I asked for rockets.
    “Rockets?” said the old geezer inside. “Are you mad, boy? Don't you know there's a war going on?”
    “But it's Guy Fawkes Day,” I said.
    “No rockets. No Catherine wheels. It's only what's left over from last year, and the best of it's gone already.”
    I went away with two whizz-bangs and an old, bent tube of Crimson Rain, feeling as though all my joy in the day ahead had vanished in Mr. Tuttle's garden.
    In the morning I started school again. I walked through the village, kicking at stones, and Sarah caught me up at the post office. She came too suddenly for me to go a different way, and though I tried to keep ahead of her, she could walk very fast for a girl. She skipped along at my side with my satchel on her shoulder, and the boys teased me in