The Secret: Lindsey almost caused Patrick’s death.
How?
Lindsey had always been curious. At the age of nine, she was “daddy’s little helper” with his projects around the house. Mr. Connor didn’t just have her hand him tools. He taught her how things worked as he installed or fixed them – the heater, garage door, the outdoor motion activated lights. She loved it all.
One day, Lindsey helped her dad fix the ice maker in the refrigerator. While he took a break for a phone call, she played with the magnets that her mom used to hang photos and artwork. When her dad returned, he explained how magnets worked, how the metals in the sand could be attracted to them and more powerful ones could be made with electricity to pick up things like cars.
Lindsey was convinced that she could make her own, but she needed help. Who better to help her than her little brother, Patrick? He was an inquisitive kid as well and loved it when his big sister taught him stuff. Lindsey excitedly explained to Patrick what she remembered about magnets and what they were going to do. They pulled out two metal tracks from Patrick’s toy train set. They sat underneath the kitchen table near an outlet. Lindsey wanted to see the sand move based on their magnets, so she ran outside to grab some from their mom’s planters.
She returned to a blood curdling scream from her little brother. The clatter of chairs hitting the floor immediately followed. The sight Lindsey saw caused her world to stop. Patrick flopped back and forth underneath the table with the chairs strewn about. The lights that were on when she left were now off. She ran to Patrick and he cried in pain when she cradled him.
Lindsey was grounded for a month and forbidden to go near outlets for electrocuting her brother. All science experiments had to be supervised from then on. As they say, curiosity killed the cat. In Lindsey’s case, it almost killed her brother.