Rosie lives in a small Texas town. Her town has no paid firefighters. Instead, the town has a volunteer fire department. The volunteers are a group of men and women who have learned how to fight fires and help out when needed.

When Rosie came home from school, she was greeted by the sight of her father in the kitchen. He hadn’t shaved. The corners of her mouth turned down.

“How did the job hunting go today?” Rosie asked.

“There’s nothing out there right now,” Dad answered.

Three weeks ago the machine-repair shop where Rosie’s father had worked for years had closed down. At first her father had been optimistic that he could quickly find a new job. But the days had passed without any offers. Rosie’s mother had just taken a second job part-time to help support the family.

“I’m just starting dinner,” Dad said. “You want to help?”

“Sorry, I have homework,” Rosie said. She poured herself a glass of juice, went into her room, and shut the door.

Rosie usually loved helping in the kitchen, but she didn’t want her father to see how worried she was. Rosie’s mother was doing O.K. for the family, but her second job was only temporary. It would last only until October. Rosie knew her father was looking everywhere for a job, but he just wasn’t having any luck. She didn’t know what would happen if he didn’t find a job. To top it all off, she had to deal with the kids at school. She didn’t want anyone feeling sorry for her.

After Rosie had finished her homework, she started writing about the day’s events in her diary. At the top of the page, she wrote, “What will happen if Dad can’t find a job?” She was just beginning to write about her fears when she heard her father shout, “Rosie! I just heard on the CB radio that Mr. Becket’s barn is on fire, and Mike said it’s bad. You’re going to have to come with me. Get a jacket and shoes on while I leave a note for your mom.”

For as long as Rosie could remember, her father had been a member of the town’s volunteer fire brigade. In all those years he had never failed to respond to a call to fight a fire. Rosie couldn’t believe she was actually going to be at the fire with him and the other volunteers. Tossing her pen and journal onto her bed, Rosie quickly scrambled to put on warm clothes. She ran into the hall.

As Rosie and her father drove onto Mr. Becket’s land, she saw a reddish glow in the sky. They hopped out of their truck, and Dad threw on his firefighter’s jacket. Snapping the strap of his helmet under his chin, he rushed over to help aim the heavy hose of the town’s only fire truck. All 10 of the town’s volunteer firefighters were there. They shouted to one another as they ran back and forth, throwing buckets of water on the fire and beating out the flames that were trying to spring up outside the barn. Rosie had never seen a fire raging like this one. It was like a hungry monster with a thousand yellow arms. The arms kept grabbing at the wooden sides of the barn, the grass, and the black sky itself.

The smell of charred wood filled Rosie’s nostrils. She stood next to Mr. Becket and watched as her father helped control the water hose and keep it on the flames that shot out from the barn. Each time the firefighters managed to extinguish one part of the fire, it seemed to flare up even more brightly somewhere else. Rosie gasped as one wall of the barn fell, and flames came close to her father’s face. But he didn’t give up. He and the others held tight to the hose. One smoke-blackened hour blurred into the next until finally the last little flame was beaten out. Rosie wandered into the crowd to find her father. She spotted him quickly. He was pulling off his soot-stained jacket. When he saw her, he put his arm around her shoulders and said, “Come on. The Hemingways down the road have food for us. Let’s go eat.”

The Hemingways were Mr. Becket’s nearest neighbors. They had made several pots of coffee and laid out platters of meat and cheese for the firefighters to make sandwiches. Rosie was tired and didn’t think she was hungry, but her stomach growled when she saw the food. She stood close to her father and chewed her sandwich as she listened to the conversation.

Finally Dad said, “Time to go, Rosie. It’s almost one in the morning. Your mother will be waiting up for us.”

Rosie couldn’t believe how much time had passed. All her earlier exhaustion had dropped away as she stood in the circle of brave firefighters. She listened as her father and the others shared memories of other fires they had handled over the years. She hadn’t realized how many emergencies her father had responded to.

Rosie and Dad sat quietly as they drove down the winding roads that took them back home. Dad finally broke the silence. “Everything’s going to be fine, Rosie. I’ll get another job. It’s just a matter of time.”

Back home Rosie saw her diary lying on her bed. She picked up her pen to finish writing what she had started earlier. But she wrote nothing. What she had planned to write didn’t seem quite right anymore.

As she sat there staring at the page, her mind raced with images of her father fighting the fire. She thought about the words her father had said to her on their ride home. She closed her diary, put on her pajamas, and climbed into bed.