She and her son have been burned out of their home twice in the past seven months, yet Lori Pasteryk wouldn't take so much as a french fry from me when I met her at a Wendy's to talk about it.

Last September, the family of two was among those burned out of an apartment building on Center Avenue in West View, and an arsonist is now serving 18 to 23 1/2 months for that crime.

She found another place on the other side of West View so her son, Shawn Victorian, could continue in the North Hills schools. It was part of a nice duplex on Georgetown Avenue.

It was until May 2 anyway. She was picking up Shawn about 3 o'clock that afternoon at his school bus stop when a friend called him on the cell phone he'd just gotten for his 13th birthday less than two weeks before.

Your house is on fire, his friend said.

"This better not be a joke," his mother said.

Eight firetrucks were there when they reached their block.

"Imagine pulling up and seeing this," she said when we drove over to the place.

The fire started in the other half of the duplex. A teenaged neighbor discovered it when he got home from school. Fortunately, nobody was in either home but her son's room was destroyed with the rest of his birthday presents. Smoke and water damage elsewhere left them homeless again.

She didn't have renter's insurance. What are the odds of this happening a second time to the same family in seven months?

About the same as it happening the first time, an insurance salesman would tell you, but that knowledge comes hard.

She's embarrassed. She didn't call me. Her mother did. Seven months ago, I wrote about the first fire because Shawn had provided the information that led police to a quick arrest of the arsonist, whom Shawn had caught trying to steal his bicycle.

"I love God and I think he's mad at me," Ms. Pasteryk said, though she doesn't know why.

She works about 30 hours a week as a cook at Ozzie's Bar and Grill in West View and her boss's sister, Adrienne Hickman, has taken them in. Ms. Hickman has four sons, three of whom are still at home, and her 13-year-old, Paul, goes to school with Shawn.

"I feel so bad for her," Ms. Hickman said. "It's so hard the second time to get help."

Ms. Hickman's own father, Cuddy Albert, died in a fire when she was only 3. All she has of him is a photograph. She and her sister, June "Junebug" Hyde, both have told Ms. Pasteryk to be grateful her only losses were material.

Ms. Hickman said the two can stay with her family as long as the need is there, though she jokes that Ms. Pasteryk doesn't fold laundry the way she'd like.

Dishes, pots and pans and some furniture survived the fire, as did some photos. But lost were a sofa, love seats and beds donated after the last fire by Big Brothers and Big Sisters, area businesses, friends and strangers.

Ms. Pasteryk opened her car trunk to show me bags of clothes, toys and toiletries donated recently by North Hills faculty.

"I'm very thankful," she said. "It's just -- we need a roof."

She has a valid Section 8 voucher, the federal program wherein she pays a portion of the rent and the government picks up the remainder. So far, though, landlords she has contacted don't want a Section 8 renter.

All she needs is a decent rental in the North Hills School District, so Shawn can stay in a school where he has done well and have a little stability in a year that's been way too rocky.

If she gets that, "I'm fine. I don't need anything else but that. I can get anything else along the way."

Is she going to get renter's insurance when she finds a new place?

"Absolutely," she said.