COOKING FIRE

When the sun peaked in Jada’s room and touched her eyelids, Jada was not please. She turned and covered her head with her white linen sheets but the sun’s growing heat forced her to get up. She stomped to the window, flung it open, and whispered angrily through gritted teeth, “How dare you.”

Jada’s anger turned to annoyance when she heard her mother, Mrs. Straust, call chirpily from downstairs, “Jada, I can hear that you are up. Join us, sweet baby.”

Jada went downstairs, taking each step as if she were climbing down a steep snowy slope. Mrs. Straust quickly embraced her and smothered her face with kisses. She did not notice that Jada went stiff, hating being hugged while she was grumpy.

Jada noticed that her younger sister, Janine, was already at the kitchen counter, using a knife on her own for the first time. Janine looked up at her and grinned. Her joy was almost contagious, almost. Jada was annoyed by that too.

Today was the day that Mrs. Straust would teach Janine how to make her special ginger chicken fried rice. Jada had no love for the kitchen.

Jada’s father waltz down the stairs fixing his tie. He tripped on the final stair, spinning several times trying to reacture his balance. Jada giggled quietly. Mrs. Straust was quick to the rescue. She grabbed him by both elbows and hugged him.

He looked down at her lovingly, kissed her forhead and said, “What would I do without you?”

“Fall to pieces,” she replied jokingly.

Jada was no longer amused.

Mr. Strausted kissed both daughters quickly on the cheek as he bolted out the door. Mrs. Straust stood by the door and waved goodbye until the car disappeared.

“BBBBBRRRRRIIINNNGGGGG!”

The phone rang

“BBBBRRRRIIIIII…”

“Hello, good morning. Oh, Hi Linda. Bake sale plans? Give me a moment, please.”

Mrs. Straust half ran, half glided to her bedroom to finish her call upstairs. She was going to take a while.

Janine was still grinning.

“What are you so happy about?” Jada asked doggedly.

“What are you so sour about?” Janine Retorted? “Have a seat sourpuss.”

Jada sat by the kitchen counter watching her little sister. Janine was 10 and tall for her age. Her bright smile endeared everyone to her while Jada was forever glum.

Mrs. Straust had forgotten completely that she was monitoring Janine in the kitchen.

Janine felt grown to be cooking without her mothers supervision.

“I’m going to turn the stove off,” Jada said. “You know not to cook without Mom.”

Janine stepped in between Jada and the stove and pleaded, “No, Sis. Please.”

Jada was not completely immune to Janine’s charm.

“Fine. If you insist, but be careful.”

Janine put the vegetables she was cutting in the pot to steam. She checked on them constantly. She was very nervous but eventually relaxed and took her pot holder off. She laid it too close to the stove.

The pot older caught fire and Janine panicked. She used her bare hands to hit the pot holder from the stove and it burned her.

The scream awoke Jada who was dozing at the counter.

She ran to help her baby sister but the tap for the sink would not turn spin.

Jada decided to get water from the bathroom. She left Janine alone.

Janine did not want the fire alarm to go off so she thought and thought what to do. She remembered, in Science class, her teacher had said, fire needs oxygen to live so if you smother it with dirt, it will die. Janine decided to smother it with what she could find.

Janine threw a table rag on the burning pot holder but the fire did not die. She then threw another and another. The fire was growing out of control.

Jada came back in time to realize that the entire kitchen was ablaze and the sprinklers were not working.

They both yelled for their mother who came down the stairs like superwoman on a mission.

Mrs. Straust did not panick. She grabbed both girls and ran outside.

She called the fire department who sent a firetruck immediately. It took five minutes to arrive.

The firefighters could not save the kitchen, it was completely destroyed. The rest of the house was just wet from the firefighters spewing water everywhere.

Jada looked at the smoking house from under her mother’s left arm while Janine sulked under her right arm. Jada thought, what would happen if she slept late like she usually did. She sniffled a little, looked up and whispered, barely audibly, “Thank you.”