Stargazing- Uncle Percy

Oh my god, the day has been so tiring! It felt like it would never end. First that haunted house, then that amusement park, and there’s still more lined up! There’s a meteor shower tonight. I wouldn’t miss it for the world. Of course, it was a disaster though. We trusted uncle with a lot of stuff we probably shouldn’t have.

It was four in the afternoon when we finally reached back home from the park. Of course, Tamara had to drive us back because uncle was so drowsy from the roller coaster he almost fainted. Well, we learnt two lessons today. And, of course, there’s a third one lined up. Never trust uncle with a telescope. We pulled into the driveway and got back into the house. The meteor shower was scheduled to start at 9:06 in the night. So we had around five hours to make cookies, set up the telescope, clean off the terrace and get the air mattresses out. But first, we needed food.

After wasting one hour on burgers, sodas and an episode of ‘Her Private Life,’ we began work. Aunt and Pepper went into the kitchen to bake the cookies and make sugar frosting, Tamara and me went to the terrace to sweep it off, and uncle went to buy a new telescope.

Aunt and pepper set up the oven and began baking. Today’s recipe was chocolate chip cookies. Aunt got the sugars and flour out, and Pepper began melting the chocolate for the glaze. Aunt was experienced so our cookies would turn out great. But I wish I could say the same for Pepper. She literally put all the chocolate in a plastic cup and put that in the microwave. The dish melted and our kitchen nearly caught fire. Once aunt made sure her precious kitchen was all in one piece, she put the cookies in the oven and started the glaze herself. The first thing was to melt ten bars of white chocolate. Once that’s done, divide it into four equal parts and take two spoons out of each of those. Then we mix light blue, dark blue, pink and purple food coloring into all the separate cups. The smallest one stays white.

Once the glaze was done, they smelt something burning. The cookies were overdone! They rushed to the over to take it out. The bottom part of each cookie was all black. This time it was Pepper who saved them. She took a knife and scraped off all the blackened parts. Then she helped scatter the glaze over the cookie. After this, she took out two tubs of ice cream and filled a scoop in between two cookies. Ice cream sandwiches!

Meanwhile, Tamara and I had taken the vacuum cleaner onto the terrace and were looking for a plug point. We finally had to bring up an extension cord and work with that. The terrace was so dusty. It took us half an hour to vacuum it. Once that was done we started mopping. “Ha, I always thought our terrace had white floors. We’ve not been up here for so long,” Tamara said. The floor, however, was wooden brown. It was nice, but for Tamara, the red carpet wouldn’t have been satisfactory. We finished mopping it up and spread out sheets, set up a few tables, the ice cooler and smaller lights. I wonder if we'll see any stars at all with all these mini lights.

Uncle pulled into the driveway at 7. We clamored around him trying to see what he got. “The air mattresses were too expensive. So I didn’t get them. And here’s the telescope. It requires assembling, which you can leave to me,” he said with a haughty air. “Percy, how much exactly did the air mattresses cost?” “130 dollars for the king size.” “Percy that’s lower than the average price of a good air mattress. If anything it was cheaper! Now go back and get four of those and then come back and help assemble the telescope.”

An hour after the chaos, we heard uncle pull into the driveway again. “The 130-dollar airbeds were all sold out so I got four of the 300-dollar ones instead,” he announced, walking in with four boxes. Aunt looked like she could explode, but for once didn’t say anything. I wonder how long before we’re all starring in the next season of “All Of Us Are Dead”.

We set up the air mattresses while aunt and uncle began assembling the telescope. Uncle picked up the lens and may have dropped it. So there goes the 500-dollar telescope too. I’ll go make preparations for a funeral and then stay out of aunt's sight for the rest of the year. Goodbye!