Two brothers roasted marshmallows over a stove, or at least they tried to. While one of the brothers roasted his marshmallow perfectly, the other brother’s melted off the skewer and on to the metal coil of the burner and caught on fire.

The first brother’s eyebrows shot up in panic, and he threw his exquisite marshmallow aside, on to the counter. Meanwhile, the other brother used the tip of his skewer to try to remove his oozing, burning marshmallow from the hot coils.

The first brother found the fire extinguisher in the cabinet under the kitchen sink.

“Stand back,” he told his brother, and he sprayed white froth over the stove top and nearby counters.

The other brother marveled. “It looks like snow.”

“I should never have got us into this in the first place,” said the first brother, his gaze was cast down low.

He put the fire extinguisher away and pulled out a bunch of rags. Meanwhile, the second brother shrugged his shoulders and went to the living room. He plopped himself on the sofa and turned the TV on.

The first brother looked at the blanket of foam that covered the stove and tightened his fists around the rags. “Aren’t you going to help me?”

The other brother didn’t answer.

The first brother shook his head and then got to cleaning. After about fifteen minutes, the job was done. But he was in no mood to watch TV with his brother, so he went to take a shower.

When the boys’ mother came home, she went into the kitchen to get dinner going.

“What happened in here?” she asked.

“Anything good you see,” the second brother said, “was not me. I’ve just been sitting here, watching TV. Anything bad you see, might have been related to me.”

The mom frowned and waited for the other brother.

“Why is my kitchen so clean?” she asked the first brother over dinner.

The first brother couldn’t look his mom in the eyes, so the second brother spoke up: “We wanted to roast marshmallows. Mine caught on fire. He used the fire extinguisher to spray the fire out, and then he cleaned everything up.”

“You wanted to roast marshmallows over the stove?” the mom asked.

“We tried to,” the first brother said. “But everything went wrong.”

The mom grabbed the bag of marshmallows from the cupboard.

“Then try again,” she said as she tossed the bag on to the table.

And together, they did.