Dinner Disaster by Alta Fairbourne

 My family always looks forward to a delicious dinner after a long tiring day.  Salma, our cook and maid, made us one of our favorite family meals, beef and barley soup. The big pot of warm soup was on the stove waiting for dad to get home so we could all eat. We excitedly ran into the kitchen grabbing plastic bowls and shiny spoons, wrestling each other to get first in line. After a long graceful prayer, we dug in. We served ourselves huge ladles full of soup into our bowls. I got a plate of salad and topped it with tangy Italian salad dressing. My family was already outside on the deck, sipping their hot soup and munching on the purple grapes in the middle of the white plastic table. Off our deck while we eat, we can see the dark blue ocean and the waves in the distance as they crash onto the coral reef.

“I think this is a bug!” Porter said as he held up a small black dot on his finger that looked like pepper. “ No, that can’t be a bug,” my mom assumed. She looked closely at the dot and noticed its small black legs. “Its definitely a bug,” I said, trying to make my mom puke. “Ahhhhhh! There is bugs in my soup also!” my dad screamed, knowing what I was trying to do and following along. Everyone started to pull out little bugs out of their soup freaking out in disgust. I laughed because I hadn’t even taken a bite yet; I was concentrated on eating my salad. We ran into the kitchen to check the barley that the cook used to make the soup. We pulled it out of the cabinet and we didn’t see anything until we shook the bag. There was a grey webby egg sac at the bottom of the bag full of little eggs waiting to hatch and multiply in our barley. Tons of bugs crawled out of every corner in the bag eating at the barley my family had just devoured.

We all went crazy! Adam was puking up chunky yellow barf in the guest bathroom as he had eaten the whole bowl of bug-infested soup! Porter was trying not to puke as we watched Everett hurl in the kitchen sink. My mom was walking around plugging her hers and humming to herself to block out the barfing sounds of everyone in the house; she hates barfing more than anything in this world. My dad and I made gagging sounds to try to make my mom barf. Porter finally cracked. He ran to the kitchen and started to puke like crazy. Then he left the room when my mom called for him. When he came back, we noticed there were crawling bugs in his barf! My dad and I started to laugh so hard when he continued to puke more. My dad and I don’t barf easily or get grossed out easily either so we continued to say gross things and make people barf. It was so fun.

Once everyone started to settle down we took videos of the bugs in the barley and laughed about everyone’s puke show. My dad and I never revealed that we were the ones who but the bugs in Porter’s barf. I wonder what gross food we will have next. Moths in my cereal, maggots in my noodles, ants in my cupcake frosting - I will just have to wait and see.