Mack was busily working his part-time job. Janitor work was easy but it was tedious. Wipe a floor, dip your mop into the bucket, clean it some more, punch out. Mack was not cut out for that kind of a job. It was too damn routine, too predictable. Mack wanted a job where someone would challenge him and make him think on his toes. One involving travel would be nice.

Uncle Palo had it figured out. He was the head chef at Mamalantsa, a local Filipino restaurant. Something went wrong there every minute, Uncle Palo was always busy. He chuckled, Mamalantsa was the Tagalong word for ironing clothes. Nothing to do with restaurants, but people would eat anywhere that sounded exotic.

The amusement didn't last long, though. It never does when you're mopping. Mack now wanted more than anything else for something interesting to happen, or someone interesting to come by.

“I don’t wanna a shot!” screamed a small girl as she ran down the halls of the hospital. Her curly black hair was falling from her pony trail and her hazel green eyes were wide and terrified. She saw the man who was mopping the floors and hid behind him. “Don’t let her get me mister!” she said tears welling up in her eyes “She wants me to get a shot with a needle this big” She used her fingers to exaggerate the size of the small needle that would have been used.

Angel Harper was not one that liked shots, in fact she knew for a fact that no one did. Mommy had told her that she had to have one, but why did she need some stinky shot? It seemed like an adult way to punish a child. She didn’t think she did anything wrong and the truth was she couldn’t really remember her last shot. Did it hurt? Of course it did! How could it not hurt?

She looked up at the man, then looked down the hall to see if her mother was coming or not.

Makaha chuckled, needles seemed really damn big when you were that small. Of course, there was just an element of creepiness with someone putting a sharp piece of metal into you. Take a big piece of metal and it's a sword. And then after they poke it into you they squeeze it and put some weird liquid into you. No wonder the kid was scared.

"So tell me," he began, "what's the shot for?"

Little Angel looked up the man gad to have a partner in her troubles. Maybe if mommy saw that shots were a bad thing then she wouldn’t have to get one. Would she still get the lollipop? Maybe if she was real nice to the doctor he would let her have one.

”I don’t know but as soon as I saw the needle I ran for my life. Mommy says the shot is important, but I think that she is trying to be mean!” she said her eyes wide.