Michael

It was a rather stormy afternoon and we couldn’t go outside. I was playing my favorite video game and was just getting to the really good part, when the screen went black. Oh, No! What happened I thought? Did the cat pull the cord out of the wall again? Then I noticed that the lights were out too. The power had gone out. Now my game was lost and I’d have to start all over again and I had almost beaten the game!

It was really dark in the game room and I wasn’t sure if I should try walking without any lights. As I sat in the dark wondering what to do the room became lighter. I thought the power was trying to come back on but it was only mom.

“Michael, are you okay?” Mom asked as she came into the room with a candle.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I said. “When is the power going to be on again? I was almost to the end of the game.”

“I don’t know Mike,” Mom said. “But there are many things we can do until it does come back on.”

“Nothing will be as fun as my game,” I grumbled.

“Sure it will,” Mom said. “Come on, we’ll see what your sisters are doing. They should be in the living room with your dad.”

“Do I have to?” I whined. “They aren’t very fun or interesting.”

I have one older sister and three younger sisters. We never get along. I followed mom back to the family room and sat down on the sofa with my sisters. Danielle, my older sister was reading a book with a flashlight. I made a face at her as I sat down but she had her nose in her book and didn’t notice. Just like always, I thought to myself.

We all sat in silence for a while, and then mom and dad tried to get me and my sisters to talk. I never could talk with my sisters. They don’t like video games; all they do is read and do crafts. I tried anyway.

“So what score do you think you could get on Bot Blaster?” I asked my sisters.

“Bot Blasters is stupid,” Danielle said. “All you do is blow things up. There is nothing intelligent about it at all.”

“It is not stupid!” I yelled. “Your books are stupid! Stupid!”

Danielle and I kept yelling back and forth. Then my three younger sisters started yelling too.

“Okay! Okay! Why don’t you all try one of these board games,” Mom said loudly. “Dad and I will light more candles so you can see better.”

Danielle and I argued over the games. We both wanted to play different games and we weren’t letting our younger sisters get a word in. So mom decided what game we would be playing so we would stop fighting. I got to go first since I was the only boy. We played Yatzee first for a long time. Then we decided to play UNO. We started having fun playing together.

We stopped to eat sandwiches for dinner. Then after dinner my sisters and I continued our game of UNO. We were playing and laughing and having so much fun. All of a sudden the lights came back on. Andrea, Guinevere, and Tessa yelled, "Oh, No!” and ran for the light switches. All the lights were turned out again and we continued to play by candle light.

We had so much fun and got along well enough that now mom and dad light candles once a week for us to play our board games. The one night a week we all get along and there is peace in the house. I finally realized that you can have fun without video games.

The End