It was a normal Saturday morning. I woke up, ran down the stairs, grabbed a bowl of cereal, sat my butt down in front of our big console TV, and started watching Looney Tunes. I loved Looney Tunes when I was little. After I had eaten, my mom told me I had to take a shower. Like always, I goofed off until she yelled at me to get my butt upstairs and into the shower. There I went up the stairs, hanging my head because I wasn’t done watching cartoons.
I started the shower and jumped on in. Being the lil’ girl I was, I started playing around in the shower. I was a mermaid running from the evil shark that was trying to eat me. Of course, here comes Mom, “Stop that horseplay and clean up, we have things to do today!” I cleaned up and got out. As soon as I was in my bedroom, I realized that I didn’t have my favorite pants in the drawers. They were cool pants; Pepe la Pew was on the pocket, go figure. I wrapped myself in my towel and ran down the stairs through the living room and to the dreaded basement door. I stood there at the top of the stairs, not really wanting to go down. But I was on a mission; I needed my favorite pants. If Mom was dragging me around with her today, I wanted those pants.
I turned the light on and made my way down the steps. As I turned the corner, the lightbulb flickered and went out. Scared, I high-tailed it up the stairs. “What to do, what to do …” I stood there saying to myself. Standing there in the kitchen trying to figure out how to get the gosh-darn pants, out of the corner of my eye I spotted a box of birthday candles. “That’s it!” I will use a candle to light my way down those stairs.
I lit the candle and slowly ventured down the noisy steps. With each step I took, the step would make a noise and I would jump. Finally, I reached the bottom. At the bottom of the steps was a window with old dry curtains. What came over me after that I could not tell you, but I had stretched my arm out and held the candle to the curtains. Like I said, they were old and dry. The candle lit the corner of the curtains. I stood there and stared at the flames, watching them burn up those hideous curtains. I snapped out of it. Took my towel off and put the little fire I had started out.
I went into the laundry area of the basement, threw my towel on the floor, and started rummaging through the clothes looking for my pants. I must have been in there, what seemed like forever, trying to find my Pepe la Pew pants. As I was throwing the clothes left and right, a weird smell hit me all of a sudden. I walked out of the laundry area and lo and behold, a third of the basement ceiling was on fire. I guess I didn’t put the little fire out as well as I had thought. The room was filled with thick, black smoke. The flames were huge. I ran into the laundry room (mind you I am naked), and grab a garbage pail. Dumped out the garbage onto all the clean clothes I just threw all over the floor. Tossed that pail into the sink and filled it with water. I left the water running, ran out, and with all my might, tossed the water into the flames. By the time, I ran back and filled the bucket up again, the flames had seemed to spread across the ceiling. I started to cry and became overwhelmed with panic as I stood naked as a jaybird watching the basement go up in flames. Through the tears and fear inside of me, I ran frantically back and forth from the laundry area to the other room trying to put out the fire I had caused. Finally, the fire was out.
Crying and covered in soot, I grab my towel out from under the pile of clothes and wrapped myself up. I started my way up the stairs, crying and knowing I had to tell my mom what had happened. That made me cry even harder. As I turned the corner to go up the three steps to the kitchen, there stood my great-grandfather.
