One Hot Night

So, some of you might know that my UBS was corrupted.  ( I lost all of my pointless dabblings :'( ) and Well, I was pretty upset.  Being me, I didn't have very much of it backed up.  That included the 20 some pages of the novel I am working on.  But because of my Amazing brother, much of what I lost had been recovered.  I have even found loads of my test from Biology.  So as I was going through the heaps of renamed files I ran into this narrative I wrote for English Freshman year.  Yes, I know some of the sentences are badly done (like this one) but  I was a freshie.  I thought the lesson of the past might, in someways apply to the present.  So Challenge Accepted technology stuff.   

One Hot Night

            Who would have ever thought that I would be standing outside in twenty degrees weather not wanting warmth, or in other words, fire?   Normally my family calls me a firebug; I guess that means someone who enjoys playing with fire.  But on this cold night, I wanted nothing more than the fire to disappear. 

It was after a hectic Monday at the Link.  My mom had surgery on her hands earlier that day, and she couldn’t use them at all.  It was a good thing my dad was home or we would’ve never gotten through dinner.  After the chaotic meal, I decided to unwind by watching a missed episode of Criminal Minds.  All the children were in bed and the house was quiet, or at least as quiet as our house gets.   Leaning back in the plushy computer chair, I prepared myself for a night of doing absolutely nothing of importance.  Soon, I became totally engrossed in solving the mystery and was all but oblivious to life around me. 

So little did I know that while I was helping master-mind cops catch a serial killer, my dad was solving the mystery of a super hot ceiling.  My eldest sister’s room had been smelling funny for a few days.  None of us thought much of it since we have an old house with a fireplace and, well, it’s Kayla’s room.  But luckily my dad looked into it farther and found that Kayla’s ceiling was almost too hot to touch.  Now, a strange smell is one thing, but a scalding hot ceiling is weird, even for Kayla. 

            After a final few minutes of peace, I was jerked from my fantasy and told to start putting coats and hats on half-asleep children.  The word ‘fire’ kept being thrown around like a baseball during a game.  Everyone was scrambling to get out of the house.  Personally, I was confused.  Just a few moments ago the house was calm, and all was well.  Now it was like trying to play football in the dark; there was a lot of running into things and quite a bit of shouting. 

As a grumpy David was thrust into my arms and a blanket chucked at my face, I overheard my mom trying to call the fire department.  Notice I said trying; my brother soon had to take over talking because my mom couldn’t even remember the color of our house, let alone the address.  This is what anesthesia and surgery does to her. 

            After what seemed like a lifetime, all nine of us kids were piling outside trying to keep the four younger ones from waking the whole neighborhood. It was a pretty vain attempt because if the crying kids didn’t do it, the five fire trucks might.   They soon came wailing down the street with enough noise to wake the dead.

 Freezing in the chilly November air, we shoved all the kids into the bus, which is actually a twelve passenger van, and tried to get them to fall asleep in their car seats.  Soon they calmed down and some fell asleep.  Alli and I tried our best to cover them up with the mismatched coats and blankets we had grabbed in our mad dash. 

After everything had settled down, Joe and I, being entirely insane, left the meager warmth of the bus to stand outside and watch firemen poke holes through Kayla’s ceiling.  It was a blessing and a curse that I had left all my blinds open so we could see right into the house, and straight to the action.  I guess now it was really starting to sink in that we had a fire in the house.  Before, it all seemed surreal.  But with my parents down the driveway talking to the multiple firemen and the smell of smoke in the air, the truth was undeniable.  Standing in silence, I watched my own story unfold before me. 

            Joe looked over at me and obviously trying to lighten the mood said, “Tori, have you been playing with matches again?”

            “Nope,” I replied, keeping up the charade.  “But…I was rubbing some sticks together earlier.  That must have done it!”

            We laughed and went back to watching the hole in Kayla’s ceiling grow, as if we were watching an exciting movie.  As the silence grew, I heard one of my sisters saying, “I hope my room isn’t dirty. That would be embarrassing.” 

            “I don’t think the firemen are really going to care about the state of your room ,” I said over my shoulder.  Secretly, I hoped this was true, because, as usual, my room was a mess. 

            “Darn! Why did I wear these pajamas? On the one night I decide to wear these pajamas, this happened.”

            I glance over at the car and shook my head. 

            “I think we will have a little more to worry about than your pajamas, Alli.” 

            I watched mom and dad talking with the firemen and the hole in the ceiling growing bigger, and I knew that it was going to get worse before it got better.  But what can be said when life takes a sudden turn but ‘Challenge Accepted’?