Two Minute Savers Saga BY Josephina Johnson

I imagined a choir of angels serenaded me as I clumsily unlocked the door and presented myself for my mother's inspection. The whole saga probably lasted about two minutes, but the sudden panic sears through my memory and marks it as the most frightening moment of my life.

Right before fourth grade, the zipper of my pants became stuck in the changing room of Savers. This may not sound like all that dramatic a situation, but for nine-year-old me, it was momentous. Locked inside a big red box with no roof and a tiled floor, surrounded by an ever-clanging store, and harangued by my impatient mother, I desperately tugged at the unrepentant zipper. Then, struck by sudden inspiration, I remembered what my mother had told me only the night before: we could all go to heaven, and then be saints. As a future-saint, I reasoned, I had the ability to work miracles. But still, I hesitated. How did one go about causing a miracle? Was it presumptuous to assume that I could?

Surely a little miracle, like unsticking a zipper, wasn’t too big a favor to ask of God. In the end I settled on prayer. I’d ask Mary to cast the miracle for me. That way, if it didn’t work, it was her fault, not mine. Slumping with relief, my sweaty forehead pressed against the cool mirror, I stumbled through the Hail Mary under my breath. And, behold, my pants could zip. I imagined a choir of angels serenaded me as I clumsily unlocked the door and presented myself for my mother’s inspection. The whole saga probably lasted about two minutes, but the sudden panic sears through my memory and marks it as the most frightening moment of my life.