When my mother came home from work that day, the babysitter was fast asleep on the couch and little Stevie was locked in the closet, fast asleep with half-digested fried eggs drying in his hair.
Technically speaking, an alcohol is any compound that contains a hydrogen-oxygen pair, known as a hydroxyl group, that's bound to an atom of carbon that's saturated, meaning all of its electrons are bound to something else.
He began by removing from each trunk an inch-thick strip of bark that covered a network of long, hopelessly tangled fibers that were puttied with a sort of gummy flour.