Disclaimer: I'm pretty sure it's all Mike White's.
Pyromaniac
Chapter II:
Aunt Mildred's Computer
"Now just help your Aunt Mildred set up her computer," Mrs. Jones told her son as he relunctantly slid out of the Volvo. "It shouldn't take but a few hours."
"But, Mom," Freddy grumbled, "I did set up her computer--last week!"
"Well, she wantsher favorite--"
"Only," Freddy interrupted.
"--great nephew to show her how to use it," Mrs. Jones finished with a wry smile. "I'll pick you up in about two hours."
Two hours? Freddy suppressed a groan as his mother pulled out of the driveway. It might as well be two days...
He turned and slumped up the dravel walkway, preparing himself for the worst.
The glossy black door swung open before he even set foot ont he porch steps. "Freddy!" an elderly lady greeted happily, her arms stretched before her expectantly.
"Hey, Aunt Mildred," Freddy greeted in return, though less enthusiastically, as she folded him into a hug, engulfing his nostrils with her stomach churing medicinal scent.
"Come in, come in," she dragged him over the welcome mat and into the house before plopping him onto an over-stuffed couch. She then bustled off for some refreshments. "I hope you like lemonade. And your Uncle Albert buoght some chocolate biscuit from the store when I told him you were going to visit! Isn't he the sweetest thing?"
"Um, yeah, sure," he replied absently as he glanced around the room, in search of the computer that he had wasted his last weekend setting up...he could have sworn that it was in the corner next to the sewing machine...
Then he spotted it. Oh, it was still standing next to the sewing machine, but both the monitor and CPU had been covered with what he could only infer to be over large tea cozies. He cringed, wishing the bits of technology the best as he got to his feet.
"Aren't they adorable?" his aunt had re-entered the room with a tray overflowing with cookies, chips, and a pitcher of lemonade. She set it down next to the sewing machine next to the computer monitor. "I thought it would give the thing more personality!"
"Hmmm..." he made incoherent but thoughtful sounds in the back of his head before taking his seat again; Mildred may be elderly, but he had see her chase after the paper boy and she was fast.
"Now, young man, I want you to teach me everything about this contraption that has you and the rest of your generation locked inside for days on end."
Freddy suppressed a sigh; it was going to be a long afternoon.
Two hours later, Freddy finally taught his great aunt the uses of the technological mouse, explained to her that the keyboard was just like a typewriter except more advanced, convinced her that, no, her knitted coverings did not help while looking at the monitor ("But, dear, it's so dark and...ominous! Surely you don't expect me to look at it all day!"), which led to him showing her how to turn on the computer and then a few minutes were then dedicated to Freddy reassuring Mildred that, yes the "black ominious pit of doom" lit up when someone turns on the power button. Now they were beginning on "Icons 101" where he showed her all the desktop icons (fortunately there weren't that many) when his aunt whipped out a pair of knitting needles and started to knit a little "cozy" for the mousepad.
Now, Freddy considered himself a patient person--scratch that, his ADD disproved this belief. He considered himself a nice person, but this was proving to be too much. He had homework to do, he had band practice in less than an hour, and he was sure his mother was the one who should have been teaching Mildred, despite the mother's claims of not understanding "that computer nonsense". So he found himself suppressing the umpteenth sigh before clicking on the My Computer icon...thank the God of Rock that this was the last bit...
"Oh, dearie," sighed Aunt Mildred as she looked up from her yarn, "I don't think I'll be able to learn all this by the end of today. Do you think you can come by tomorrow and help me out?"
Freddy stared in disbelief. She hadn't been listening to a word he had spoken in the past half hour or else she would realize that electronics weren't as confusing as most claimed them to be.
"After all, you are my favorite--"
Only, he interrupted mentally.
"--great nephew!" finished Mildred as she tied a knot to secure the final stitch. "There, now, let's see how this looks on that rodent pad."
"Mouse pad," he corrected automatically.
"See, this is why I need you to come and help me out!"
Patience, Freddy, his mother's voice echoed in his mind. After all, she is an elderly lady who longs for companianship.
"Isn't it adorable?"
He twisted his face into a grotesquely amused expression as he nodded with little sincerity, quickly reaching to one side for the half empty pitcher of lemonade. His perepheral vision's depth perception, however, caused him to grab the thin air next to the large plastic jug. His hand immediately collided into the pitcher, causing it to fall off the table and land, upended, on top of the CPU.
"Oh, dear," Aunt Mildred looked at the mess mildly. "It's gotten on the CUP..."
The image projecting from the monitor shuddered and pixellated before turning to a strange black-green. Freddy knew before he looked at the spill that something had gone bad.
"Well, I better clean this up," Mildred had set aside her knitting needles and was making her way across the room into the kitchen.
Something sparked, a wire flickered, and an acrid smell slowly permeated the room.
Mildred returned, armed with a mop and bucket. She sniffed the air. "I don't remember putting anything in that makes this smell..." she said ponderously before she began to mop.
The plug sparked, the wire flickered, and the acrid smell grew stronger.
"I have a bad feeling about this..." Freddy murmured as he stared at the CPU.
Sure enough, his gut feeling was realized as strange popping noises started to interrupt the monotonous hum of the computer's fan. Smoke started to trail out from between the plastic covering.
He groaned; he told his parents to buy a Macintosh but they just laughed and said he was a kid and didn't know what he was talking about. Obviously they didn't know Leonard, the madly talented boy in his class who was capable of putting together light shows in less than three days...
"Is it...is it suppose to do that?" asked the bewildered Aunt Mildred.
He groaned; he told his parents he would screw this up...now the house would burn down and Aunt Mildred will never speak to him again...
Wait, why was he groaning? This was an opportunity of a lifetime!
"Albert!" Mildred called up the staircase. "I think the computer's on fire!"
Footsteps pounded down the creaky oak stairs and a tall gangly man with an impressively white beard leapt in.
"Fire?" he asked, sniffing the air experimentally.
This strongly reminded Freddy of a little white bunny he had when he was younger...
...before it "ran away", as his parents put it.
A fire extinguisher was wrenched out from a cupboard in the kitchen and Albert danced around the CPU, enthusiastically spraying at the smoking plastic. The compressed agent flew Freddy's nose and he leapt to his feet--he never liked fire extinguishers.
When Albert was finally satisfied, the computer stood gallantly in its singed knitted covers and its foamed bits, but Freddy knew it was a lost cause: had the PC been an actual person, it definitely would have wished to melt into the floorboards.
"If it does that, then why wasn't there a warning?" Aunt Mildred pondered aloud.
"What in heavens names happened here?"
Mrs. Jones stood in the foyer, staring at the scene before in shock.
"The computer broke," Uncle Albert said gruffly as he made his way up the staircase.
"Oh, don't mind him, Nancy," Mildred said reassuringly. "He's never approved of catching up with the new generation."
"Of...of course," Freddy's mom said weakly.
"Well, I suppose he's right, this one time," the aunt said thoughtfully. "I don't think I could bear having something so dangerous in my house."
"Of...course..." Mrs. Jones repeated, unable to find the words to respond to this.
"Yes, well, goodbye, Freddy," Mildred embraced him again. "You're my favorite--
Only, Freddy's mind grumbled.
"--great nephew. Take care, Nancy!"
"Of...course."
As soon as the car doors were shut, Freddy's mother turned to her son.
"I didn't do it!" he said automatically.
"What did happen?"
"Oh, the computer was so embarrassed when Aunt Mildred decided to dress it in her knittings that it just exploded from embarrassment," he replied with a shrug.
Mrs. Jones didn't say anything; sometimes it was just better to not say anything.
Well???
Constructive criticism would be pretty good...or anything...really...
Semi-creatively yours,
Chikin Wang