Dead end in Norvelt Chapter 9.

  Jacks father makes him dig a hole because he wanted to build a bomb-shelter. While he was digging he was thinking about the evolution of weapons how it started from caveman sticks to atomic bombs. One day, a biker got flattened by a cement truck. It was bad news for him but good news for Jack and Miss Volker because he liked writing obituaries. Miss Volker describes the state of the dead body to Jack and Jack writes it down. 

 They investigated the death and found out that the last person that saw the biker was Mr.Spizz who was poisoning the rats at the dumb. Miss Volker made a death certificate and the next day was when Jack will work on the obituary.