My little sisters and I stood patiently around the kitchen counter, chatting about multiplication and division. My mom tossed the paper plates down on the counter. There was a Jack’s frozen pizza in the oven-our go to dinner.

“What’s that smell?” my youngest sister, Lauren, asked; but we all knew. The suffocating scent of smoke and burning pizza began to fill the house. We looked at each other, eyes widened in horror. We knew what was about to happen.

“Quick! Open all the windows!” my mom screamed as the smoke alarms blared. Of course, this set off my dog who barked like a squirrel was tormenting her.

“It’s raining!” I yelled.

But we still ran around the house opening the windows and doors, trying to get the wretched smell out and make the alarms stop. Not only was everyone developing a migraine, but now there was water pouring onto the floorboards.

My younger sister, Haley, took the handle of a broom to try to turn them off, but ended up blindly punching at the ceiling. I could only imagine what my neighbors thought.

Several minutes later, the chaos ended. We grabbed towels for the floors and closed the windows, but everyone was stunned at what had just happened, including the dog.

We were left in complete silence, along with a very burnt pizza.