The first book in the Delilah Street, Paranormal Investigator series, 2007

For the first time in the history of humankind, the turn of the millennium was tracked around the globe like an incoming comet zooming over the earth from the black night sky.

People every where joined to watch the exciting evidence of this invisible moment of time arrive. Exploding nebulas of fireworks in the midnight heavens marked its passage. Space satellites and television stations tracked its progress.

From the Pacific islands and Australia to China, where fireworks and gunpowder were born, to Europe to America, rockets were bursting in air, just like in the national anthem. They illuminated the edge of oncoming midnight.

A world globe stood next to the TV screen so we kids could track the necklace of fireworks circle the earth. On TV, men and women in exotic locales – Singapore, Sri Lanka, Krakow, Paris, New York City, San Francisco, Peru, Easter Island -sounded breathless and triumphant. They announced the magical millennium moment over their microphones as the thousand-year turn of the centuries overtook each of the world's time zones.

Even the littlest kids in the orphanage were allowed to stay up past midnight to watch.

The oldest at eleven, I thought that there could be no more delicious moment than standing under those glittering showers of light with a microphone like a lollipop in my hand, telling everyone all about it.