"Boys!" Mary snarled as she marched into the fire department.

Mary couldn't help but pause a moment when she walked inside. Now here was a place that was worth coming to. There were bright colors and shiny pieces of metal and reflections and windows. She would very much like to linger on this late fall morning but she knew she couldn't. Whatever Blaise was screaming from up there, hanging from the steeple, it would have been cruel to leave him.

"Shouldn't you be in school, Mary?" one of the firefighters asked. Though Mary was only eleven, she had a look of frustration and forbearance of one much older.

"There is a boy hanging from the church tower."

The five men standing in the large garage stopped and looked at her.

"What?" one asked in English.

"There is a stupid boy hanging from…"

She jumped when the alarm went off.

"Just got a call!" Another man ran into the garage. "Some crazy kid is hanging from the steeple at the Catholic church!"

"That's what I was trying to tell you!" Mary yelled.

The small garage erupted into activity and Mary fled to a corner to stay out of the way. With an explosion of noise and activity the fire trucks raced out of the garage.

In the quiet after the last truck drove off Mary glanced up at the windows high on the walls then at the nice, neat squares of light on the clean floor of the garage.

"What a waste of light." she muttered to herself. With a sigh she turned and walked back to the church with the crazy boy hanging from that stupid, light-blocking steeple. If God truly loved her, He would have Blaise Pascal knock the steeple down so that at 9:30 in the morning the light would hit the window of that nice building a block over and…

Julie Drahuta hated mornings.

Mornings should be calm, pleasant times. If she had her way, the day would begin slowly, comfortably. There would be time to sip some coffee, read a newspaper, have a nice quiet breakfast.