My dad was angry. And when he got angry, everything and everyone either made themselves scarce or stood around to get trampled. I was doing the former when my dad’s trumpet voice yelled for me.

“BOROMIR!!”

Summoning up my best smile, I emerged from the closet. “Hey… Dad. How’s it-?”

“WHO ATE ALL OF THE ICE CREAM?”

“Ice cream? I know nothing about ice dream, Dad. Honest.”

It was then that my brother made his entrance.

“Greetings, Father and Boromir. I see that Father is terribly displeased, possibly due to the atmospheric and questionable conditions of this metropolis.”

“Huh?” Daddy scratched his head.

“He means that you might be mad at all of the air pollution around here,” I translated.

“Precisely.” Faramir beamed.

“YOU LITTLE RAT! I CARE NOTHING FOR THE ATMOSFERIC… WHATEVER YOU SAID!” roared my father, aka the Steward of Gondor.

“The Atmospheric conditions.” Faramir struck a smug pose. I frantically waved at him to keep quiet, but although he was smart, he wasn’t Dad-wise. “Don’t you know anything about-?”

With one move, Dad grabbed Faramir, lifted him off the floor and shook him hard.

“Miserable thing! Don’t you realize that I have the power of life or death over you? I could kill you today if I wanted!”

“Actually,” Faramir gasped, “It would look quite dreadful to the common populace of Minas Tirith if you were to kill your own son. Perhaps, rebellion and an uprising could follow at such an appalling act.”

“WHAT?”

See what I have to live with?

************************************

Dad was a crazy maniac whose idea of being a Steward meant that he could basically do whatever he wanted. Faramir was a pipsqueak, who was buried in his books all day. He needs new glasses every month.

And there was me. I tried to live up to our family name. The problem was that most of the responsibility fell on me. A sixteen-year-old kid. By the time my eleventh birthday had rolled around, I was trying to balance the checkbooks and figure out the mysteries of a savings account.

I’m not complaining or anything. But it would be nice to have a break. That’s what I was trying to do when Faramir burst in upon me while I was taking a nap.

“Boromir! You must go try to reason with our father! I fear that if we don’t, he will act very rashly and perhaps destroy this abode we are currently residing in!”

“Oh, great. Did he make another trip to the hardware store?”

“Even worse, I fear! He went to the annual Pyromaniacs of Gondor convention at the town hall today! REMEMBER LAST YEAR?”

“Sheesh, calm down Fari. I’ll go over and talk to him.”

“Certainly. I will be busy with Hierloch’s epic of “Beren and Luthien.”

“Why can’t you just talk normally?”

“Because my way is more colorful!”

“FORGET IT!” I slammed the door and jumped onto a horse. I’ve never really liked horses, but I haven’t been able to get my license yet.

I made it just in time to the Hall to see Dad leaving with a bunch of sparklers, two lighters, a flamethrower and five packs of matches.

“Hold it, Dad!” I jumped off of the horse and tried to wrestle away the stuff, but Dad had a death grip on it.

“No, my dear little Bori! I MUST HAVE THEM!”

“No… you… must… NOT!”

“Yes I must!”

I could see this was getting us nowhere. I tried to reason with him.

“Now see here, Daddy. If you don’t give these things to me, you’ll burn the whole house and the city down.”

“So?”

“Well… we don’t want that to happen because Sauron wants to burn the city down.”

“WHAAAAT? WHO IS THIS SAURON???? HE STOLE MY SECRET PLAN!!! ARGH! I WILL MAKE SURE THAT HE PAYS FOR THIS!!”

While Dad ranted about Sauron, I gently took all of the fire stuff and dumped it into a garbage pail.

“Whew. At least that’s done.”

The next day, I was busily trying to balance the checkbooks and figure out how much money we had when Dad burst in.

“Boromir!!!! I NEED MONEY!”

“Then go earn it,” I muttered, while trying to add up 3,167.56 and 45,787.5.

“I DON’T NEED TO EARN IT! I AM DENETHOR! THE STEWARD OF THE CITY!”

“I don’t care if you’re the Lord of the Sun!” I yelled, “You’ve abused the allowances I’ve set you on, you break all of the budgets and nobody wants to give you ANY MORE CREDIT!”

“But, Boromir, I am the Steward.”

“So?”

“So I need money to fund the housing projects being built along the borders of this city and to finance the new education system being brought up.”

Okay, you might think that I was pretty stupid not to see through his plot. But I was busy and I wasn’t thinking. So I handed him ten thousand bucks and he trotted off.

It wasn’t until one of the servants told me some startling news that I realized my mistake.

“WHAT did you SAY?” I shouted.

“Your father has just created an atomic bomb and says he will blow up the city if he doesn’t get various articles used in starting fires.”

“Oh, great!”

Just then, Faramir came in.

“Boromir, have you seen what’s on TV?”

“No. Do you think I have time?!”

“Yes?”

“NO!”

“Oh. Well, father’s on TV right now.”

“Oh, sweet merciful Eru,” I muttered. I dashed into the living room and saw Daddy in the Tower of Ecthelion, holding up a bomb and yelling.

“And I WANT A LOT OF MATCHES AND STUFF LIKE THAT!!! I CAN KILL EVERYONE IF YOU DON’T!!! HOOHOOHOOO!”

What Dad didn’t notice was the fact that the police had quietly hiked him off his feet and were dragging him to the asylum.

“Whew.” I stumbled back to my room, when the best idea of the year popped into my head.

“Hey, Faramir.”

“Yes, brother?”

“You know how you’re so smart and all that?”

Faramir grinned and chortled, “Well, to be modestly appropriate… I suppose my academically enabled-”

“THE POINT IS YOU’RE SMART ENOUGH TO HELP ME WITH THIS!!!” I shoved the checkbooks into his hands.

Faramir instantly brightened up and set his calculator brain to work (he’s in love with math), and I turned around and was suddenly stopped.