ATLANTA — At least someone was excited about staying up past her bed time as “Crossover Day” turned into a late-night session in the House.

Katherine Scott, 11-year-old daughter of Rep. Martin Scott, R-Rossville, was in her third year as a House page and decided the best day to serve is the usually long day that’s the deadline for measures to pass at least one chamber or be considered dead for the session.

“It’s more fun than the short days,” she said outside the chamber after an 8 p.m. dinner break, ready to deliver more paper notices to legislators. “And you get to go to bed later.”

In fact, she was dubbed “Last page standing” from Crossover Day 2007 in a photo that ran in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Rep. Scott said.

This year Katherine had a playmate at Rep. Scott’s desk during the down time — her 9-year-old sister, Libby. It was her first year with page duty.

“It’s pretty fun,” Libby decided. “I can’t usually get to go inside the floor of the House.”

“You don’t?” Katherine asked in a little disbelief.

“Well, not while they’re in session,” Libby clarified.

To stand until the last bill, you need to pace yourself. Legislators got anxious around 6:30 p.m., one representative requesting a break for an “interbasin transfer” because of the pace of passing bills was so fast he was afraid to miss a vote.

Speaker Richardson promised a break soon, but it didn’t come until about 8 p.m., meaning lawmakers got their greasy chili dogs and onion rings provided by a local restaurant a little cold.

Then everyone just got a little loopy.

When Rep. John Meadows, R-Calhoun, stepped up to the well to pitch “the shortest bill ever” (two paragraphs) to protect insurance agents from legal responsibility of anything written or said through an interpreter in another language, he almost found himself in a full-fledged English-only debate.

One representative stood and questioned jokingly about how Georgia only wants to operate in English, so how could there be a bill acknowledging people operate in other language?

“The state of Georgia — that’s a different cat,” replied Rep. Meadows, an insurance agent.

Unfortunately for Katherine and probably fortunately for the lawmakers, they didn’t stay up quite as late as last year. They got out about 10:30 p.m. instead of midnight, and about six other pages were left standing in addition to the Scott sisters.