Me and Mike
... Mike and I looked up in terror. ... The day started off simply enough with a trip next door to see if Mike could play baseball after lunch. ... After nearly bruising my knuckles knocking on the front door I could see Mike tromping down the stairs from his second floor bedroom. ... Mike and I were playing catch the day before, so the grounding sentence must have been announced that night. Mike¡¦s groundings usually had something to do with one or all of his four sisters. ... Mike jumped up and disappeared into the pantry. ... ¡¨ Mike was on a mission to return our depleted team to full strength with his tactical move to bake a cake for the family. ... Mike was mixing ingredients in a bowl with a energy commonly reserved for mixing cement. ... When I turned around Mike was staring at the instructions on the cake box he had just pulled out of the garbage pail and reading out loud, ¡§¡¦pre heat the oven to 325„a. ... I was working the oven controls and had just selected the ¡¥350„a¡¦ setting when Mike ordered, ¡§get that big cake pan with the cone in the middle out of the pantry. ... In a moment Mike was reaching over my shoulder. ... Mike filled the pan with the goo that he had prepared from the directions on the cake mix box and his own special addition to the concoction. ... Mike carefully set the pan in the oven. ... I positioned the match tip over the hole that Mike had pointed out and the match blew out. ... ¡¨ Mike scowled. ... ¡§Here, let me in there,¡¨ Mike ordered. ... Mike grabbed three matches out of the box and bunched them together. ... The ol¡¦ Roper exploded belching a cloud of gray smoke that engulfed Mike and most of the kitchen. ... It happened so fast I didn¡¦t know whether to grab Mike or just run out of the house. Mike was dazed and tried to regain his balance. ... The weight of Mike landing on the oven door was enough to tip the ol¡¦ Roper forward and acting like a catapult launched the cake pan from its position on the oven shelf, past Mike onto the kitchen floor. ... Mike slithered around in the goo for a moment while he got oriented to which way was up. ... Mike wiped the front of his face with his hand and crispy hair particles mixed with cake mix goo fell to the floor. ... ¡¨ The blast had singed all the hair on the front of Mike¡¦s face. ... The top of Mike¡¦s head looked like smoke and fire damage had laid waste to a forest of trees leaving only the trunks covered with soot. ... ¡§Gees, Mike, I¡¦m sorry. ... ¡¨ I turned to go down stairs and heard Mike mutter to himself something about everything was going to be all right. ... Mike was scrapping what was left of his cake experiment off the kitchen table into the garbage pail, when I returned with the coal shovel. ... ¡¨ Mike yelled. ... ¡§We¡¦ve got to wash the floor,¡¨ Mike declared. ... The next thing I remembered was Mike filling a bucket at the sink. ... At this point I was of no use to the clean up effort so I stood and watch Mike swirl the mop across the floor. ... Mike in desperation sloshed the contents of the bucket over the entire floor. ... No matter how much Mike mopped he couldn¡¦t get the water up fast enough. ... I knew Mike was exhausted. ... We hung up the final towel on the line and Mike turned to me, ¡§Let¡¦s go watch ¡¥Cisco¡¦ while the floor dries. ... Mike finally tore himself away from the TV, walked into the hallway and screamed, ¡§Oh. ... I followed Mike upstairs and loaded up with every book we could find. ... I stood silent as Mike went through the chain of events: ¡§I wanted to bake you and dad a cake and he couldn¡¦t light the oven and then it exploded and the cake mix was all over the floor, and then we tried to clean the floor and the tiles started to curl up and we got these books to keep the tiles down.