One-Shot Finch Saves Town from Mad Dog

By Isabel Price

 

      On just another Saturday in February, a strange and unexpected change of events occurred.  Two Finch kids spotted what they found to be old Tim Johnson, Mr. Harry Johnson, the local Mobile Bus driver’s dog.  Though, he wasn’t just the ordinary liver colored bird dog the pet of Maycomb today, he was affected by a disease the town knew as mad dog.  Mad dog turns any dog or creature that it infected into a sick and wild beast whose mind and body has been corrupted with sickness, causing them to walk crooked and lunge at throats with a killing bite, spreading the disease.

 

      The kids had run back to their home, yelling about their sightings for the town to hear and asked their housemaid for help, Calpurnia.  Calpurnia took action by dialing all of the phones in the neighborhood, notifying of the events.  In minutes, every single door around in Maycomb was locked closed including mine.  Moments later, the mad dog Tim Johnson had decided it’s path, slanted down the street and slowly made his down the road.  At this point, my house was only about thirty meters away and heading to pass straight by my house.  I stared out the window, my door locked tight with hope that the mad dog wouldn’t test its strength.

 

      Then, the sheriff of Maycomb County, Mr. Heck Tate, showed up with Atticus Finch, local lawyer with a hidden talent that would soon come into play.  The mad dog was in front of my house now, far enough away from the two men, that they needed a one-shot kill.  If they missed, it would go straight through the Radley’s house or into another.  I waited for the sheriff to take the shot, but he didn’t.  Instead he handed the gun to the lawyer who stood next to him, a move that nobody understood at the time.

 

      Tim Johnson turned towards my house and it seemed as if he had seen me through the window.  I held my breath then nearly jumped when I heard the crack that caused the mad dog to fall to the street.  He was dead.  The lawyer who held the gun had shot and hit the dog from all the way down the street.  That lawyer was Atticus Finch who saved the town from the mad dog, reviving his past title, the One-Shot Finch.