GAME ON

Chapter 36~ A mistletoe

JASMINE'S POV.

Christmas morning smells like cinnamon, bacon and performance anxiety. It feels too good to be true, because beneath this facade of a quiet family is a chaotic scene waiting to happen. I'm not jinxing it, it's just our nature.

Breakfast was a success with no food fight or choking incident. But it's like thirty minutes till we have lunch and the house is really quiet.

My house is never quiet. With six brothers, quiet is illegal.

John is in the living room trying to put up lights and just like every year, he falls off the ladder . It's now considered a Watterson's Christmas tradition.

Though Melissa panicked and checked on him to make sure he doesn't have a concussion or something.

Jake who is supposed to be watching John wasn't ready to catch him, which is also tradition. He's never ready to catch a falling John.

Jayden keeps secretly eating cookies before lunch. He hides them behind his back when Mom walks past.

Jeremy is on the floor wrapping gifts which he's doing very terribly. There's more tape than paper honestly.

And the twins are in the kitchen. I'm assuming they are trying to get milk or orange juice, but the smoke and the smell of terribly burnt bacons say otherwise.

"JASMINE!" Dad's voice cracks through the house. "THE TWINS! THE STOVE!"

It's not a complete sentence but it does totally explain the situation. And I already knew something was going to happen.

I rush into the kitchen and I'm met with smoke. A whole lot of smoke. Coughs start erupting from my throat and my eyes squinted because of the foggy vision.

The twins stand by the stove. Big eyes. Holding a black pan. Inside the pan is... actually was... bacon. Now it's a black brick with flames.

"We were just trying to help," Jason says.

"It caught on fire," Jaxon adds.

The fire alarm screams. BEEEEEP!.

Dad bursts in behind me. His face is pale. "Oh my God. Oh my God. The house! The house is-"

Mom walks past dad. She doesn't yell. She doesn't panic.

Mom turns the burner off, takes the kitchen towel off the oven, wets it and hits it hard on the pan. The flame chokes and dies.

She opens the window, cool air rushes in and pulls the smoke out.

Phew!

"Boys" she says. Her voice is calm and flat. The scary kind of calm. "Upstairs. Now."

The twins scurry out of the kitchen and up the stairs to their room. I doubt there'll be any more shenanigans from those two.

Dad leans on the counter with his hand on his chest. "Honey,I swear I aged ten years."

"You age ten years every Christmas Norman" Mom says. She looks at me with a smile "Your father's a doctor. Can fix a heart but can't a fix bacon situation."

Dad groans. "I'm a surgeon, not a fireman!"

Soft footsteps approach the kitchen and all eyes turn to the kitchen door. The sound was foreign, unlike our loud footsteps.

Mom looks at Dad. Dad looks at the smoke. At the black pan. At the blaring alarm.

"Norman" Mom whispers. "Pull it together."

Dad straightens, takes a deep breath. Plasters on a smile. "Right. Right. We're fine. Everything's fine. We're normal." Dad whispers to himself and I sigh.