Dad's rule on lightning

"Brother! Brother!" Christian, one of my junior siblings, screamed at me from the doorway, his face groomed with anger. I didn't know he'd been calling for long because I was wearing earphones and I was buried inside my duvet, enjoying Psquare's Mixtape, coupled with the sound of heavy raindrops on the roof.

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"Yes, what is it?" I angrily responded, my body unmoved on the bed.

"Daddy is calling you. If you don't come and meet him now, it's not going to be funny," he replied.

I tried responding, "When did he...?" Upon turning towards the door, I noticed that Christian left immediately after delivering his message. My dad is the type who would come with a bucket of water to splash on anyone in bed, so I got up and sluggishly walked to the parlour.

"You see how stupid you are. You're the eldest, and you don't know what's bad. Look at the TV," my dad welcomed my presence with insults in the presence of my junior siblings lined up in front of him like they were facing the end-time judgement. He pointed at the TV.

Immediately, I turned my eyes to the television, my heart sinking. I had messed up big time. I had violated one of my dad's rules: to use a piece of cloth to cover the screen of the TV whenever it's raining and lightning.

"I'm sorry, Daddy. I totally forgot to cover it, and besides, I thought these ones already did that because they were in the parlour when the rain started," my voice was as meek as that of a thief caught red-handed. I moved to the TV side to cover it because it was still raining heavily, but I couldn't find the pieces of cloth.

"Where did you guys put the piece of cloth we use to cover this?" I asked my siblings who had left to their various corners with their phones. All of them kept quiet, totally glued to their phones.

"Is it not you I am asking?" Frustration was written all over me, and I felt like stoning them with my phone.

"Are you not the ones he's asking?" My dad chipped in with a fiery voice, and immediately, all of them jacked up from the corners and walked to the TV side to join me in searching for the piece of clothing.

Out of the blue, a sharp bolt of lightning crackled, catching me off guard. Instinctively, I yanked my shirt in a flash and slapped it onto the TV screen to prevent the lightning from damaging our TV.

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The lightning's intensity struck hard, vibrating through the tiled ceramic floor. We froze in place, anticipating the inevitable roar of thunder. Yet, it never echoed. After waiting for about five minutes standing still on the spot like 'Aloe Vera' robots, my siblings returned to their positions and resumed pressing their phones. I looked around, and the presence of my dad in the parlour was not a welcome idea to me. I turned and began to stroll back to my room. Just a few steps in, all I heard was, "Bring those phones here! Come and drop them on this table!"

I ran off quickly to avoid being called too. It was my dad ordering my siblings to submit their phones to make them stop pressing because light from phones magnetises lightning when it strikes. My siblings were optionless; they submitted their phones and came to meet me in my room, and I laughed at them to stupor.

Thanks for reading.