Posted by bgerritsma | Posted in Uncategorized | Posted on February 22, 2017
Brad Gerritsma
Mrs. Roskamp
LA, 8B
17 February 2017
Mystery of the Abhorrent Arsonist
“Junk, Junk, Junk, that all there is in this old house.” muttered Brandon, “I can’t believe you hold on to this much stuff.”
Brandon and Sally were going through all of Sally’s stuff that was stored in the attic of their house. Sally loved to hold onto things, and there was everything from toothbrushes to tables in the attic.
Brandon would have liked to get rid of it all, but most of it meant something to Sally, and going through it in the hot stuffy attic with itchy insulation sticking to your pants was one of the things that both she and Brandon dreaded. The house was very old, but Sally loved it. Prices for homes all around their neighborhood had spiked almost three times what most people would have paid for them, because a major oil company wanted the land to drill oil. Oil was found under the neighborhood, and the oil company wanted to drill for oil.
Brandon wanted more than anything to just move out of the house to one three times as nice. He thought that if they didn’t move out soon, when Oliver, their baby boy grew up, he would want to stay to. The house meant something to Sally though and she just didn’t want to move. So Brandon had gotten an extremely good insurance plan for Sally. If anything happened to the house, they would get the exact price it was worth, Sally loved it because she never wanted to leave the house.
“I think after this we should invite some of our friends over for a party” said Sally.
“Sounds great,” said Brandon, “I need a break from this.”
“We can invite your friend Joe, and I can invite Lydia and Samantha.”
“That sounds good, only I’m not so sure about Lydia and Samantha, if they bring their husbands, John and Tom….” said Brandon
“Yeah, they will probably burn the house down,” added Sally sarcastically.
“Wouldn’t that be tragic,” said Brandon with a hint of sarcasm.
“Really though, it can’t be that bad, you know how much Joe’s wife Jane wants to get even with me for the time I accidently put a hole in her nice new shoes” said Jane.
“Yeah, but you really did destroy her band new shoes, but let’s invite them over and if they bring their family, so be it” said Brandon.
“Ok, I’ll call Lydia and Samantha and invite them to come over tomorrow, on Friday night, and you can call Joe.”
“Sounds good, anything to get out of this stuffy attic.”
One day later, the preparations were set, unfortunately, Brandon and Sally’s friends were bringing their families along, but it wouldn’t be too bad, after all, what is the worst that could happen?
“Hey your guys, come on in!” said Sally, opening the door for the newly arriving guests. Joe came in and started talking with Brandon, but Jane went down stairs to check social media on her phone.
“Sorry about that,” said Joe, “My wife has forgotten her manners, let me go down and bring her up.”
“No, really, it’s ok, let them hang out down there for a while, we can bring her up once we have dinner” said Sally, not really caring if Jane never came up at all.
“Ok, well, it looks like the Robertsons are arriving just now,”said Joe.
Sure enough, Tom and Lydia got out of their brand new Ford F-150 pickup truck. Tom had gotten a new truck after Brandon’s truck had rolled down a hill, pushing it off a cliff, and into a lake. Tom suspected that Brandon had really drove his truck straight into his truck to destroy it, but Brandon insisted that he had not.
Tom didn’t even acknowledge Brandon, and went straight downstairs to join Jane. When Lydia walked in she greeted Sally and they went into the living room to chat.
20 minutes latter, Samantha and John arrived. Samantha ran up to the door and rushed in to join Sally and Lydia. While John reluctantly sulked off to join Brandon. John had a long lasting rivalry with Brandon, which went way back to second grade when Brandon had won against Tom in t-ball.
After a while of chatting they all sat down for dinner to eat together. Unfortunately, during dinner, a discussion on politics turned into a heated debate, which quickly rose to a shouting match. Which with two bloody noses, 3 black eyes, and a dislocated shoulder. Thankfully, Lydia was a nurse and able to relocated the shoulder, but John stormed off to the backyard, saying that he was going to start a fire to roast marshmallows. While Tom marched off to downstairs to sulk in a guest bedroom, and Jane quickly got up to join him in the north-east guest bedroom, where it was dark because the setting sun didn’t shine in the windows.
“Well, that didn’t go so well.” said Sally, as she got up to clear the table.
“Yeah, I think I might go up to check on Oliver.” said Brandon, walking with his plate past the kitchen, and after a few seconds, went to the living room, then after a short pause, up the stairs to Oliver’s room. Sally always liked to watch the sunset from behind Oliver’s windows.
“I’m going to go help John start the fire” said Tom, talking a lighter from the kitchen drawer.
“Can you start a fire in the fire place for me?” asked Kim.
“Sure, honey, I’ll do that right away” said Sally.
“That’s odd,” thought Sally, “I thought we had three lighters, and there aren’t any left. Well, I guess I will have to use matches.”
Sally walked over to the fireplace but was surprised to find that all the newspaper in the cabinet next to the fireplace was gone. “I wonder who took that? I told John where the newspaper for starting the bonfire was.” thought Sally.
Sally when over to the recycling bin where she pulled out an old pizza box to start the fire instead.
“Sally! The house is on fire!” screamed Brandon from upstairs, running down the stairs with Oliver in his arms. “I looked out from Oliver’s room, and the downstairs north-east bedroom wall facing the backyard is completely on fire!” said Brandon as he shifted over Oliver in his arms to brush off a piece of insulation from his pants.
“Everybody out of the house!” yelled Sally.
Thankfully the main floor, and the surrounding walls had not caught on fire yet, and everybody made it out of the house safely.
Brandon handed Oliver to Sally, who ran out to the front yard where all of the others had gathered. While Brandon ran out to the garage to grab a gas tank and some spray paint bottles, and take them out so that the flammable spray paint and gas would not explode. Finding that they were missing, he ran out to join all the others just as the entire roof collapsed, bursting into a huge fireball.
Brandon and Sally’s house burned down to the ground that day, destroying everything they owned. No one ever found out what or who started the fire, yet strangely, Brandon didn’t seem too upset, and he was always looking on the bright side, and tried to keep his wife thinking positive. Thankfully, Brandon and Sally’s insurance covered it, and they were reimbursed the full value of the house. They moved to a beautiful house on the shores of Lake Michigan, where Brandon and Oliver, when he got older loved it. Yet Sally still missed the house, and each day felt secretly betrayed at the terrible crime that her husband had done. For the police would not believe her when she told her story.
Solution:
Brandon started the fire in the attic of their house, taking the missing lighter, and newspaper to help get it going. The fire spread quickly in the attic once it was started, and Brandon rushed down with Oliver in his arms, but in his haste, forgot to check his pants for the insulation that could stick to them, which he noticed when he got down stairs, trying to brush it off without drawing attention to it.
Brandon said that he saw the fire from the west facing window in Oliver’s room, from which would be impossible to see the east or north facing wall of the north-east guest bedroom. Also, when Brandon ran out of the house, the roof collapsed, which would be impossible if the fire was started where Brandon said it was, because 20 seconds before, there had been no fire on the main floor.
John, Jane, and Tom did wreck some of Brandon and Sally’s property, but not with fire. John, when he when out to start the fire, really took the bottles of spray paint to put graffiti on the side of Brandon and Sally’s house, but the graffiti was destroyed when the house burned down.
Tom said he was going to help start the fire, which he did using the gas tank from the garage, but only after he slashed the tires, and smashed the windows of Tom’s truck. He did this to get revenge for on Brandon for when he thought he destroyed his truck. Brandon didn’t notice this because the garage collapsed during the fire, completely destroying his truck. And finally, while Jane was downstairs, she ripped, shredded, and destroyed every last item from Sally’s wardrobe to get revenge on her for the time Sally wrecked her nice new shoes and burned her foot.
