Miss Jean looked at the children with a sharp, almost painful relief, and she looked at the three teenagers like they were saints.

Jerry couldn't help looking at them like that as well.

The firemen ran at the fire, trained their heavy hoses on it. The paramedics concerned themselves with the teens. Jerry watched as they checked vital signs , slipped the oxygen thing onto their noses, and on the kid with the black hair, who was hurt much worse than the others, he watched as they cut off his clothes, dressed the worst of the burns, and started an I.V. on him. The kid didn't stir the whole time.

The tow headed kid, the mean looking one, had come to with the oxygen they'd put on him, and he ripped it off.

"What the hell?" he said, eyes blazing. A paramedic spoke soothingly to him and while that didn't seem to calm him down, his glimpse of the kid with the black hair did.

Miss Jean had the kids well in hand, she'd soothed the ones who were crying, quieted the ones who were screaming.

Jerry approached the paramedics.

"Can I go with these boys to the hospital?"

The paramedic glanced at the kid with the black hair, checked something on the I.V. dripping into his arm, then turned to Jerry.

"Ah, sure, you can go in the ambulance with that one," he pointed to the boy with the dyed yellow hair, the boy who had first approached him and who had run first into the church.

"This kid here," the paramedic jerked a thumb at the mean looking tow head, "he wants to go with this one," and he pointed to the other kid, who looked very bad to Jerry, dying bad.

"Okay, thanks," he said, and climbed into the ambulance with the paramedic and the kid.

Night came quick as the ambulance sped into Tulsa, and it seemed to hit every pot hole. Jerry wanted a cigarette, but a square orange sign on the oxygen tank said, "No Smoking". So he watched the boy as they went along and couldn't help notice how young he looked.

"Who are you?" Jerry whispered, and his fingers itched to hold a cigarette.

The boy stirred, moaned a little.

"I think he's coming around," Jerry said to the paramedic driving.

"Where…?" The kid had opened his eyes, and his voice was hoarse.

"Take it easy, kid. You're in an ambulance," Jerry felt almost edgy, not wanting this kid to panic. He was used to four year olds, not 14 year olds. Or 13, 15. Who knew?

On the way to the hospital he fielded the kid's questions but thought his own thoughts.

He should have gone into that church. Those kids were his responsibility, he should have gone.

These kids here, what did they have to do with it? He was reminded of the shorts he used to see at the movies, the hero coming in and saving the day.

He hung his head. That's what these three did. They came in and saved the day. If they had not come those kids would have burned to death.