Blessed Are Those Who Mourn by Kristi Belcamino Page B

pockets. He has a book bag slung over one shoulder. We stare at the fire for a few seconds.
    â€œHow long you been at the weekly?” I ask.
    â€œThree years. My father keeps getting on my case. Tells me I’m not a real journalist until I work for your paper.”
    I scoff. “That’s absurd. You are a real journalist. We all have to start somewhere. I worked at weeklies. They’re great training grounds. Do you have a card?”
    Red creeps up his jaw to his ears. “No, we don’t have business cards.”
    â€œThat’s okay.” I dig around in my bag. “Here’s my card. Let’s get you in to talk to the editor about working for us someday.”
    â€œReally?” The corners of his mouth turn up in a grin.
    â€œHell yes.”
    I know firsthand that plugging away at a weekly for a few years is harder than some of my colleagues have ever worked. Many of them graduated with a master’s in journalism and landed at my paper with very little boots-­on-­the-­ground training.
    I glance around. Rick Mason is nowhere to be seen. The clock is ticking and deadline is looming.
    â€œScrew waiting around,” I say. The kid’s eyes widen.
    I walk over to a group standing nearby.
    â€œYou guys live here?”
    â€œRight over there,” one woman says, pointing to a house down the block.
    â€œDo you know who lives in those houses?”
    â€œYeah. Dan and his family. His son is right there, across the street. A man with some kids lives in the blue one,” she says.
    The flames are extinguished on the blue house, and the firefighters are concentrating on their efforts to contain the fire at the green house, which still has spurts of flame shooting out of the attic roof and window. A ladder truck holds a firefighter with a hose, who’s leaning close to the roof and aiming a high-­pressure hose on it. Right when I think how dangerous it is, the ladder lowers. A few seconds later, there is a loud popping noise and flames shoot out a window right near where the firefighter was.
    The ­people around me gasp.
    I head back toward the weekly reporter.
    â€œDillman, take a walk with me.” I don’t wait to see if he follows, but when I get across the street and am in front of the man in pajama pants, he is by my side.
    â€œHeard you were Dan’s son,” I say to the man, who is shading his eyes to watch the firefighters work.
    â€œYes.” He bounces up and down, his eyes darting around him.
    â€œDid everyone in your house make it out safe?”
    â€œYes, thank God,” the man says, tugging on his pajama pants.
    I sigh with relief. Nothing about a kid yet.
    â€œI’m with the Bay Herald, and he’s with the Pleasant Valley Weekly, ” I say. “Can you tell us what happened?”
    The son in the flip-­flops describes how he was watching TV when he heard a loud popping noise and a bang, and when he looked up, his window was engulfed in flames. The fire had leapt from the house next door and broken through his windows. The two houses are only about five feet apart.
    â€œI ran screaming from my room for my mother and my grandmother,” he says, pointing at a bottom window. “My grandmother’s room is in the attic, so we ran up there. I had to pick her up and carry her on my back. When I got to the bottom of the stairs, I looked behind me and the stairway was filled with flames.”
    â€œGrandma okay?”
    â€œYeah, they’re giving her oxygen over at the ambulance around the corner,” he says, now pointing behind us.
    I scribble as fast as I can, trying to get every word. I glance over at the weekly reporter to see if he is getting all these great quotes, but he stands there holding a pen and nodding. I shoot him a glance with a raised eyebrow. He has no notebook.
    I rummage in my bag and hand him one. He looks at it like he doesn’t know what to do. I mimic scribbling notes on