*Chapter 11* Fire

Daisy, Max and Leo had moved to Korea less than a week ago and now they had started a fire in their apartment. No one could speak their language or understand what they could possibly be trying to do.

“Well, we can at least go outside and try to warn them,” said Max. “Maybe we can point at the mountain and show them that they need to head up there to stay safe from the fire and out of reach of the flood.”

Max and Daisy and Leo put on their rain coats and went out the door. Their neighborly old woman came out at the same time as them and tried to look inside their apartment.

“She knows what’s going on,” thought Daisy. “She’s reading our minds.” Max quickly shut the door and they all walked to the stairs while the old woman was locking her door. When the three of them got to the stairs, people were going down and chatting rapidly in Korean. The kids didn’t know what they were saying but could only guess that everyone was wondering why the fire alarm went off. When they reached the bottom of the stairs, everyone was standing there with the umbrellas and raincoats. In Korea, people rarely go outside without protecting themselves because of the acid rain.

The fire trucks came and asked the people some questions, but no one seemed to know what was going on. Everyone was shaking their heads and looking at the building. From the parking lot, you could see each apartment’s window of every room in the twenty-one story building, but nothing seemed to be going wrong.

The three children were huddled together to keep warm and try to stay dry when their parents came running through the parking lot. They had heard the fire alarms and seen all of the people when they got off the bus. Mr. and Mrs. Mathews were shouting their names trying to see if the kids had made it safely out of the building. Daisy shouted, “Mom!” and Mr. and Mrs. Mathews ran over to the three children. Their mom and dad hugged them in a big group hug and then asked if the kids knew what happened.

Leo looked at them and then started crying. “We started the fire, mom and dad.”