Hello reader. Welcome to your adventure. When you are ready to embark on a journey that will both surprise and entertain you, continue reading. I must warn you first, though. This adventure may not be as pleasant as you would like it to be.

You are now in England during the renaissance. You live in a large city along the Thames River. Your father is a blacksmith. His workshop is a confusion of anvils, fire pokers, and suck, located on the edge of the town square. You and the rest of your family live in the level above your father’s workshop. You are returning to your house from church. You race through the cold, brisk autumn air with your three-year-old brother, William, jogging behind you, urging you every other millisecond to slow down so that he can hold your hand. You reach your father’s workshop well before the rest of your family and enter your chilly wooden house. You rush to your parents’ room and jump on your parents’ bed, spreading yourself out upon the faded quilt; feeling very relieved that you are far from the church and the Dukely brothers, Thom and Jacob. The Dukely brothers are two nasty bullies that constantly pick on you or your little sister, Elizabeth.

Staring into the fire that is barely continuing to burn in the fireplace, you decide to gather some wood from the bin next to the hearth. You build up the fire until your family gets home, and then leave the room quickly and quietly hoping that your parents won’t notice that you have been working on Sunday. Your mother calls your name and tells you to come into the kitchen at once. Groaning the entire time, you drag yourself into the kitchen and plop yourself down in a chair. Your mother explains to you that she wants you to take a basket of food to Mrs. Muramur, a very old widow who lives on the other side of town with her stern-faced daughter and disgusting hog of a son-in-law. You sigh, take the basket, and leave the house at a rapid pace because you don’t want to be in the cold longer than you are required to be.

After you give the basket of food to Mrs. Muramur, you run home without noticing a cloud of smoke in the distance. When you reach the center of town, you see an immense raging inferno where your house ought to be. The flames greedily devour the pile of disordered wood you used to call your home. A group of me and standing in the Town Square like a couple of parliament members, arguing whether or not they should put the fire out because you are not allowed to work on Sundays. In front of the fire, you see the neighbors running to the nearest water pump to fill up buckets and then back to the fire, flinging the water on the dancing flames in an attempt to put out the blaze and save their own homes. You don’t see your family in the wild frenzy. You don’t see your family anywhere. You begin to worry. Where could they be? Where is William? Elizabeth? Mother? Father? Where are John and his wife, Catharine? Where are Mary and Margaret, your older sisters? The questions keep coming to you in a river of doubt. You run up to Mr. Jacksby, your neighbor, and ask where your family is. He responds with one shattering word. Gone. Your family died in the fire. The fire that you caused when you put more wood in the fireplace in your parents’ room. You are alone. You hate it. You wish that you had held William’s had on the way home from church. You wish that you hadn’t gotten home early. You wish you had not worked on Sunday. Now there is nothing you can do. You begin to cry and whimper and moan. Downhearted. With no one to tell you everything will turn out all right.