I didn't light it but I tried to fight it

My Odyssey of the Mind team, pictured below during our skit, was a heavy favorite to win the competition in Chisinau and then enter the European finals in Berlin this spring. I hand selected the smartest kids I could find for the competition during an assiduous 4 week tryout but as it turns out it was all in vain. The chosen few spent a lot of time on the play, as you can see from their costumes, but a fire during our performance sparked, amongst other things, a debate between the judges over rather or not it violated competition rules. Before our presentation one judge told us that the contained fire, an important part of our plot, fell within the guidelines. Other judges, however, didn’t agree. As it turns out we came in second place, or second last, depending on which judge you ask. As I told me kids after the scores were in; they’re damn lucky I was just in Berlin.