There's one really cool thing about our apartment.
Well, actually, there are two really cool things.
The first cool thing is my bedroom, where I do most of my inventing.
The second cool thing is our fireplace.
Most apartment buildings don't have fireplaces.
But our building is really old, and there are lots of fireplaces.
We have one in our living room.
Shortly after Tate stopped yelling at me for taking the last granola bar, my mom came home from work.
It was raining outside.
Thunder boomed and lightning flashed.
"This is a good night to make a fire," my mom said.
So after dinner my mom built a fire in the fireplace.
Molly, Josh, and Jenny came over.
We all sat on the rug in front of the crackling fire.
We played cards while the rain beat against the windows.
Soon Molly fell asleep.
She still wasn't getting much sleep because of bad dreams about monsters.
We let Molly sleep and played cards without her.
I was getting sleepy myself when I heard the wail of a fire engine.
Then came the sound of a smoke detector in our building.
Molly woke up suddenly.
"Is the apartment on fire?" she cried.
"No," my mom said. "Everything is fine here."
I glanced at the fire in our fireplace.
The fire was almost out.
But the sound of the siren was really close now.
I ran to our front windows and looked out.
"The fire truck stopped in front of our building!" I cried.
"And the firefighters are jumping out!"
My mom looked alarmed.
"Uh-oh. We'd better get out of the building fast!" she said.
Most of the people who lived in our building were already standing outside on the sidewalk.
Mr. Chen was there, and Molly's mom and dad were there with Caswell.
They rushed over and gave Molly a hug.
"I called the fire department," said Molly's dad.
"Our TV exploded!"
Most little kids would be scared.
But not Caswell!
Instead he was grinning and looking pretty excited.
"There was a big bang and lots of smoke!"
We watched the firefighters enter the buidling.
They were wearing special helmets and carrying long hoses.
Soon they came outside again.
One was carrying Molly's TV.
"Everything is fine," the firefighter told Molly's parents.
"Except for your TV," added another firefighter.
"I guess you'll need to buy a new one."
"Maybe one of the monsters from Monster Madness made it explode," said Caswell.
The first firefighter laughed.
"I don't think that was the reason," he said.
"The fire was probably caused by the lightning."
"Thank goodness we're all safe!" said Mrs. O'Donnell.
I noticed that Molly didn't look sleepy anymore.
She looked happy.
Just before we all went back inside, she leaned over to me.
"Iggy," she whispered.
"This is the best thing that ever happened!"
"The fire truck coming to our building?" I said in surprise.
"No," said Molly. "My family's TV exploding."
She grinned. "No more watching Monster Madness after school every day!"
I nodded. I hadn't invented anything to solve Molly's problem, but it had solved itself.
Molly didn't have to worry about scary monster shows anymore.
Molly's parents left the TV sitting out on the curb.
"Good-bye, TV!" said Molly happily.
There was one thing she didn't expect though.
Her mom and dad bought another TV the next day!
So Caswell and Lucy went back to watching Monster Madness.
And poor Molly went back to not sleeping.