Ben asked tom if he actually liked whitewashing the fence and tom answered saying it's not everyday where a boy gets a chance to whitewash a fence. And it immediately got ben's attention, so he watched him paint and got very interested in it.
To make experiments with animals and not with humans
A simile because it uses the word "like" to compare the day to the walk through the oven (in other news, slightly uncomfortable with that simile)
<span> he fells very sick to how his creation has come to be</span>