The Lighthouse on the Rock

In the middle of the sea, on a big black rock that could only be reached by boat, stood a tall lighthouse striped red and white like a giant stick of rock. And from its top, every night for a hundred years, a golden beam had swept across the water, telling the ships and boats: Careful! There are rocks here! The safe way is this way!

At the bottom of the lighthouse, in a little stone cottage, lived Ziad with his father Mansour, the lighthouse keeper.

Ziad was ten. He loved lots of things: football, grilled fish and pirate stories. But there was one thing he didn't love at all: chores.

Every morning, his father woke him at dawn. "Come on, champ. The lighthouse won't wait."

Then they climbed the long spiral staircase together — exactly one hundred and twenty steps — up to the glass room at the very top. There sat the great lens, taller than Ziad himself, made of hundreds of glittering pieces of glass.