Cooking Dinner

This passage describes what happens when a boy tries to make dinner for his friend and her family.

Lexile Level: 1100L

Categories: Adventure

It had seemed like such a good idea, cooking dinner for Angela and her family. Ms. Anderson had agreed to let Antonio use her kitchen, and while Angela was at band practice, Antonio danced around the kitchen cutting vegetables, marinating his entree, and whipping cake batter. All was going well until he accidentally brushed the side of the skillet in which he was warming a large puddle of vegetable oil. As he jerked his hand away, he bumped the skillet's handle, sending oil sloshing over the rim. When the oil made contact with the gas grill's open flame, it ignited immediately. Within seconds, Antonio was staring at a flame over two feet tall. His first response was to toss the glass of lemonade that Ms. Anderson had made for him onto the fire. This created a cacophony of sizzles, but led to no reduction of the flame. Next, he grabbed the poppy seed cake he had pulled from the oven minutes earlier and tossed it into the skillet. This managed to muffle the flames momentarily, but they quickly regained their strength.