The Sparrow Found A House

a novel

Jason McIntire

©2013 Elisha Press

Cover illustration by Tim McIntire.

1

Two Smartphones And A Left Shoe

Jessie Rivera shifted anxiously from one foot to the other, promising herself that if Chris failed to appear in the next two minutes, she was going home without him.  Today wasn’t just any old day at Reliance High School.  This was the day their mother would return with their newly-minted stepfather from a honeymoon in Colorado.

Everything had gone relatively well these last two weeks, with Chris and Jessie in charge of themselves and their two siblings.  She wanted to be sure that all continued to go well, right down to the chicken now thawing in the sink at home.  The recipe she had downloaded said the chicken would require two hours and thirty-five minutes to prepare after thawing.  That didn’t leave much of a margin for error if it was going to be done by six – and if there was one thing she already knew Sergeant Glenn Sparrow valued, it was punctuality.

Jessie started walking as soon as Chris appeared.  He caught up quickly without complaint, and actually began to outwalk his little sister, with furtive glances to the left and right as they sailed across the school parking lot.

“What’s up with the power-walking?” Jessie panted as she struggled to keep up.

“Just walk,” Chris hissed, “for our lives.”

“You’re in trouble with Boomer and Punch, aren’t you?” she guessed apprehensively, skipping steps to stay abreast.  The names might have sounded silly to the uninitiated, but no one who had ever seen – or been threatened by – their owners would dare to laugh.

“Yeah, the ten-cent question goes to Jessie Rivera,” Chris shot back.  “Of course I’m in trouble with Boomer and Punch.  You know I borrowed that money from them.  We talked about it.”

“We talked about it,” responded Jessie with mounting anger, “and I told you to do anything but borrow the money from those thugs!  How much are you into them for?”

“A bill and a half.”

“A hundred and fifty bucks?  Have you lost your mind, Chris?  What are you going to do, pawn your phone?”

“They already took my phone as security,” Chris responded.  “Tonight I’ll go over and see if Marty will loan me the money.  He wouldn’t do it to impress my girl, but he might do it to save my neck.”

“He may save it, but when we get home I’m going to wring it!  You just had to go and make waves when Mom and Glenn are coming.  Do you want Glenn to think we’re a couple of kids?”

“Jessie, you’re fifteen and I’m sixteen.  We are a couple of kids.”

“Not for much longer we’re not.  Just don’t tell Glenn about this, okay?  I’ll help you find a way to work it out.”

“Can you get me the money?” Chris hoped.  “Or at least part of it?”

“I’ll see what I can raise, but this has got to be the last time you get mixed up with the great-ape social set.”

Chris stopped suddenly.  “Um, Jessie, now would be a good time to come up with at least a down-payment.”

Jessie stopped so quickly she almost tripped and fell right into the muscled arms of Punch.

“Yo Tubby,” the giant menace greeted Chris.  “And Tubby’s sister.  What’s your hurry?  We weren’t finished talking to you.”

The situation was not good.  They were on a back street with little traffic at this time of day – a perfect spot for an ambush.  Jessie suspected that Punch and his partner had more in mind than “talking.”

“Hey!”  Boomer was suddenly standing behind them, sweating from what had obviously been a brisk run to catch up.  “Lose the girl, Punch.  Our bizness ain’t with her.”

“Okay, sweetie.”  Punch unhanded Jessie’s arm.  “You and your little pink purse have three seconds to vanish.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”  Jessie stepped over next to her brother, who looked appreciative.  Telling Jessie to run and save herself never even crossed his mind.

Acting brave made Jessie feel a bit of power, so she tried to continue the momentum.  “You guys need to back off now.  You can’t afford to do this.  You’re both one strike from getting expelled.”

This was not the right argument to use on Boomer and Punch, who simply shrugged at one another.  They did look uncertain, though, as they sized up the pair.  Beating up some welcher was one thing, but scrapping with his sister was another.  “Okay,” Boomer said to Punch, “I’ll deal with Braveheart over here.  You keep the lipstick out of my way.”

With that, Punch latched onto Jessie’s arm again and pulled her away from the action.  “Might want to close your eyes,” he snorted.

Boomer towered over the pudgy and terrified Chris.  “You’ve got a rock in your shoe, bro,” he announced.  “Take it off.”

Blank with fear, Chris lifted his left foot and slipped off the loosely-tied sneaker.  In one motion, Boomer swept the shoe from his hand and knocked his other foot out from under him.  Chris went down with a grunt and stayed there, groveling.  “Don’t hurt me, Boomer!  I’ll pay you.  I know this guy; he’ll give me money.  I’ll pay you.”

Boomer started toward him.  “With extra interest!” Chris added.  “Fifty bucks!”

“Good,” Boomer nodded with a smile.  “You’re speakin’ my language now.  But how’s your friend gonna know we mean business, unless we leave you a little calling card?”

In an adrenaline-powered panic, Jessie yanked her arm away from Punch and reached for her constant companion and last resort, her phone.  But Punch had it away from her before the screen was even unlocked.  “Yo Boomer,” he called as he discarded her again.  “Look at this.  Another phone to go with the one we already got from Tubby.”

“That’s mine,” Jessie insisted as she reached for it.  “I don’t owe you anything.”

“That’s true,” Punch agreed.  “But you did sort of co-sign with Tubby, now ain’t that right?”

Boomer thumbed the phone, then suddenly snapped off the back of it.  “Tell you what,” he offered.  “We’ll keep half of it with the deposit.  You can have the screen.”

Jessie knew the day was lost.  At best, they would be going home short one-and-a-half phones and a left shoe.  Chris was back on his feet now, plainly thinking thoughts of desperation.  Almost casually and with the back of his hand, Boomer returned him to the sidewalk with a smack across the nose.  Then, as quickly as they appeared, the two troublemakers were on their way, with a warning tossed behind them between snorts.  “Don’t you kids come to school again without payment in full.”

Jessie suddenly became aware that her knees had liquefied.  She sank down next to Chris and tried to look as if she was checking on him.  “That’s going to be a black eye for sure,” she lamented.  “Chris, how do you get us into these scrapes?  Mom and Glenn will find out for sure!”

“So let them find out.”  Chris dusted himself off and limped down the sidewalk.  “What’s he going to do, throw me in the brig?  I could use somebody finding out how those two crooks are terrorizing the school!  I’m sick of it!  I tell you, I just about lost it with those guys when they started messing with you.  Another second, I would have been on Boomer like a cannonball.”

More like a butterball, Jessie thought to herself as she trailed behind him on still-rubbery legs.  “Just don’t go in the door crying about it.  If you want me to help you get the money, don’t let Glenn find out.”

“Okay,” Chris responded, “but I am not going to school on Monday without two hundred bucks, cash.  So how are you going to explain what’s left of your cell phone?”

“I’ll say I dropped it.  Probably the same time you ‘fell’ and ‘lost’ your shoe.  That won’t really be a lie, exactly.  Let’s turn down here and stop by BJ’s Bargains.”

“Does he have shoes?  My foot is starting to hurt.”

“He has cell phone batteries, really cheap.  Which is good, because I only have ten bucks.  Can’t think why Boomer and Punch didn’t go through my purse and take that too, the creeps.”

Jessie and Chris were arguing again as they emerged from BJ’s ten minutes later.  “Those shoes were only a dollar,” Chris pouted.  “You could have lent me that much.”

“Oh, quit whining like a baby!” Jessie retorted.  “It’s six blocks home.  Don’t you know Dad used to walk miles to school in Mexico, on a dirt road, barefoot?”

“And without a cell phone,” Chris grumbled pointedly.  “I would have thought you could at least do without it for one night.  I’m going to miss mine the whole weekend.”

“Which is what you deserve,” Jessie retorted, “for always boiling up the water and then pulling me in with you.  I don’t know when you’ll ever learn to think before you go and do things.  And we’ll never make it home at this rate.  Look, just catch up with me and get home when you can.  If I run the rest of the way, there’s still a chance I could get the chicken started on time.”

Without waiting for a reply, Jessie took off down the street at a sprint.  Three minutes later, she collapsed through the side door into the family garage – and nearly tripped over a little boy crawling on the floor.  “Moses Rivera!” she shrieked in her best “Mom” voice.  “What are you doing down there?  Someone’s going to break their neck when they trip over you... or over all this junk!  What is all this, anyway?  Did you take apart the lawnmower again?”

“Moe was trying to start the string trimmer,” piped up Katie from her prim perch on the stoop, “and flooded it.  I told him to just leave it alone, but he didn’t listen.”

“What’s that smell?” Jessie wondered suddenly.  “That’s gasoline!”

“It leaked,” Moe shrugged sorrowfully.  “We cleaned it up, though – with towels.”  He gestured to a soggy pile of car towels in the corner.

“Okay, this isn’t happening.  Moe, get this junk in a box and out of the way before Mom backs the car in over it.  And you and Katie do something with those towels.  We need to air this place out.”

Jessie grabbed her phone from her purse as it rang.  The new battery, secured with duct tape, was strangely hot to the touch.  As she tried to answer it there was a sudden, horrible POP, followed by a puff of smoke and a distinct burning smell.  Jessie Rivera was no physics whiz, but even she knew that sparks and gas fumes don’t complement one another.  Almost stepping on Katie’s head to get into the house, she rushed the sizzling phone to the sink and threw it in the water with the chicken, where it steamed and smelled of plastic.

The three of them just stood there and watched it for a minute, drawn from their horror only when they heard the ominous sound of the garage door opening.  Almost immediately, that sound was followed by the most terrible crunching and cracking noises, then a car reversing, and two surprised voices.  Walking around hissing car tires and pieces of what used to be the family string trimmer, Glenn Sparrow and his new bride entered the kitchen to find a cell phone boiling with a chicken in the sink, and Jessie in a despairing heap on the floor.  “This isn’t as bad as it looks,” she attempted.

Just then the door opened again, and in walked the family’s eldest son, sporting a bruised face and hobbling on one shoe.

“Actually,” sighed Jessie in resignation, “I guess it is.”

2

The Changing Of The Guard

Dinner that night was quieter than a church on Monday.  The Riveras rarely all ate at the same table, and much planning had been required to coordinate tonight’s event.  Jessie’s chicken was not only late, but somehow managed to arrive both under-cooked and tough.  It also tasted of hard-boiled cell phone, a fact Moe had observed in the only remark made out loud tonight.

Jessie watched her stepfather as he sawed through his dinner, and wondered what was going around in his head.  She wished now that she had gotten to know him better in the short time he’d dated Mom.  Now they were married, and he was still a stranger to his new stepchildren – a handsome, quiet man in a uniform who liked to spend time with their mother.  After the sudden proposal last month, Mom had gone through the motions of consulting the kids, but anyone could see that she was head-over-heels in love.  To argue would have made Jessie feel like a bug.  Now she wished she had at least asked a few important questions, before it was too late to do anything about the answers.

Once the dishes were cleared away, Sergeant Sparrow finally began to speak.  “Okay.  First of all, I want to apologize.”

A collective gasp was suppressed from one end of the table to the other.

“I should never have agreed to leaving you kids here on your own for two weeks.  And I can assure you, it will not happen again.”

Somehow, what started out as an apology now felt to Jessie like a prison sentence.

“Now I need to ask you some questions about today.  Chris, how did your eye get black?”

“Some kid hit me,” he muttered.

“And took your shoe off?”

“Yes sir.”

“What happened then?”

“It’s all cool now.  It’s fine.”

Sergeant Sparrow cocked an eyebrow, but apparently decided to let the issue go for the present.

“Jessie, what happened to your phone?”

“I bought a cheapo battery and it blew up.  So I need a new phone.  Say – maybe you could sue BJ?”

The Sergeant silenced a laugh.  “No, we’re not suing BJ.  We’ll see about your new phone.  Now, did you see who hit your brother?”

“Not really.  It was some kid we didn’t know.  Like Chris said, it’s okay now.”

“Uh-huh.  Okay, Moe – I know you were just trying to help with the string trimmer, but you can’t go out and do things on your own.  From now on I’m going to be around – so you can just help me, and I’ll show you how to do stuff.”

Moe looked entirely too pleased with that rebuke.

“Aren’t you going to get after me for something, Daddy?”  Katie was grinning with mischievous sweetness.  The word “Daddy” had rolled off her tongue entirely too smoothly for Jessie’s liking.

The Sergeant gave her a narrow glance and a wink.  “You just watch it, young lady – I’ll figure out your tricks.  I didn’t spend twenty years in the military to pass the time of day, you know.”

“So.”  His face went straight again.  “I would imagine that there are some questions, some people wondering about how this family is going to work from now on.  Ask away.  I want to hear every question you’ve got – not just tonight, but anytime.”

“I’ve got one.”  Jessie took a deep breath.  “What would you like us to call you?”

“You can call me whatever you feel comfortable with.”  Obviously he had thought about this beforehand.  “Some form of ‘dad’ or even ‘pop’ is fine, or you can just call me ‘sergeant.’  And when you’re in trouble, of course, you should call me ‘sir.’  A click of the heels is always appropriate, too.”  His eyes twinkled behind the stern look.

“Will there be lots of new rules?” Chris asked with a sense of dread.  “Like a curfew and stuff?”  Jessie tried to kick him under the table for suggesting it, but couldn’t reach.

They don’t have a curfew?  The Sergeant mouthed the question to Mom, who shook her head helplessly.  “I didn’t realize you didn’t already have one.  For now, let’s just say the door will be locked when I go to bed, which is ten o’clock.  As to what you guys are up to before that time, we’re going to have to deal with those activities on a case-by-case basis.  And we’ll be making family dinner a regular practice, so everyone will need to be here from six to six-thirty each night unless you’ve got permission to eat out.”

Already Jessie’s social life was in tatters.  This was worse than she had expected.

“Now don’t anybody panic,” the Sergeant laughed comfortably as if reading her mind. “I’m not going to try to turn this place into boot camp overnight.  You guys haven’t had a dad in a long time, and I’ve never been one, so there’s plenty to figure out as we go along.  Now, your mother has something important she wanted to share with you as well.”

Mrs. Sparrow cleared her throat and began in a quiet voice.  “Kids, you remember that when your dad was alive, we used to go to church sometimes, and Dad would read to us from Daily Light in the morning?  You may notice that there’s going to be more of that kind of thing in our life than there has been the past few years.  You see, I’ve been trying to raise you kids on my own since Dad died, and I’ve realized that I can’t do it by myself.  I’m not strong enough.  And I’m not just talking about needing the Sergeant.  I’m talking about needing the Lord Jesus.  Both your stepdad and I have realized that we need Him very much.  He is the most important person in our lives, and we made our mutual relationship with Him the basis of our marriage.”

The sound of silence abruptly returned to the Rivera-Sparrow home.  The kids would have been less shocked if their mother had announced she was going on Broadway or running for Congress.  No one really knew what to think, what to say, or even how to act.  Jessie defaulted on changing the subject.

“Uh, that’s great.  Wonderful.  Great.  So do you have a job lined up, um, Sergeant?”

“I do, and speaking of that, maybe we should talk about finances.  You kids may be aware that your dad’s death benefit is going away now that your mom has remarried, but there’s no need to worry.  Your mom’s savings, my savings, and my retirement make a pretty good pile, and we’re looking at investing part of that in some commercial properties for an ongoing income.  Until then, my new job at Allred Systems should more than compensate for the reduced income.”

“Allred Systems,” Chris repeated.  “What’s that?”

“Allred is a military contractor over in Kansas City.  I’m going to be a consultant – at the office two days a week and on call at home three days.”

“At home,” Jessie repeated, vainly trying to thaw a smile from her frozen face.  “Three days a week.  How wonderful for you.”

“Yes it is,” the Sergeant agreed warmly, drawing his arm around Mrs. Sparrow.  “Our life here is going to be very wonderful indeed, I’m sure.”

3

Limits

Two slim figures skated up and down the street in the gathering dusk, the squeaky wheels of their roller blades making small wrinkles in the Sunday evening stillness.  Neither Jessie nor her friend Izzie had been on skates in years, and Izzie wanted to know what exactly they were doing out here, sliding around in the dark and apt to break their wrists.  Jessie had skated ahead twice to dodge the question, but Izzie finally cornered her into a driveway and repeated it.  Jessie sat down on the rock retaining wall and stole a glance at the lit windows of her own home, three doors down.  “I just needed to get out of the house,” she said quietly, “that’s all.”

“Come on, girlfriend,” Izzie cajoled, “it’s me you’re talking to, and something’s wrong.  Trouble with your new stepdad?  Oh, that is the worst.  I remember back in the third season of This Lonely House, Giselle’s mom married this wrestler from Crete named Hector, and he seemed nice at first, but then he, like, started bringing all his wrestler friends over and they wouldn’t eat anything without, like, a ton of garlic peppers....”

“It’s nothing like that, Iz – he seems like a good man and I’m glad for Mom to have him.”

“Then why are we freezing our toes and risking our necks out here in the street when we should be at your house catching the season premiere of Stardust In My Eyes on your forty-two-inch plasma TV?”

“That’s actually part of the problem, sort of.”

Izzie gasped.  “No!  Don’t tell me your new dad won’t let you watch anything but cartoons!  Dr. Mezzigo did that to his family in the second season of Nightmare, and he totally ended up dead.”

Jessie rolled her eyes.  “No, there’s no rule about TV.  Yet.  But they’re using the room right now.  Anyway, I’m not sure I want the Sergeant to see me watching something like Stardust until I get a better idea of what he’d say.  He doesn’t seem to watch any TV himself.”

“That is so weird, you calling him ‘Sergeant’,” Izzie noted with an abrupt shiver.  “Anyway, if he doesn’t watch TV, what are they using the room for?  Devotions?”  The cackle died in her throat.  “Oh no.  It is devotions.  Oh my.”

“Hey,” Jessie interjected, “I have no problem with devotions.  My mom was a church person before.  If she wants to be again, that’s fine.  I’ll even go with her if she likes.  I’ll even sing hymns, out of a book, if that’s what she wants.”

“But they didn’t go this morning, right?”

“The Sergeant is starting out slow,” Jessie opined perceptively.  “I think he and Mom have much more in mind for us, but they don’t want to hit us with it all at once.”

“So what are you going to do?” Izzie asked.  “Cave?  Or resist, like the kids on Crazy School did?”

“What I’m not going to do is ruin my mom’s happiness,” Jessie asserted.  “I think the Sergeant can be worked around.  I hope.”

“Looks like your two kooky brothers have been working around him real handy.”  Izzie gestured to the side porch of Jessie’s house, where Chris and Moe were high-fiving their stepfather as they pranced out of the kitchen.  They certainly didn’t look to be celebrating the passage of a new rule.

“I gotta go home now,” Izzie said.  “You wanna come watch Stardust with me?”

“Can’t.  One of the Sergeant’s new orders is no going to other people’s houses without checking first.”

“Check, then – it looks like they’re through with devotions.”

“Just go on, Izzie.  Maybe another time.  I know what I’m doing.”

“Whatever, then.  See you at school.”

Jessie crunched through the yard in her skates and walked up behind Chris as he tossed a football with Moe in the waning light.  “So what were you guys so happy about?”

“We’re going camping!” Moe called out loud enough for the whole neighborhood to hear.  “Next weekend already!  We’re going to sleep in hammocks, and Dad’s going to show us how to make a fire and catch fish and lots of things!”

There was that dangerous word again, Dad.  She might have known Moe would follow his sister’s example before long, but she heartily wished he wouldn’t.  The more the two nine-year-olds called the Sergeant that, the more he would act like it was true – about all of them.

Inside, she found the Sergeant helping her mother with the late dishes.  She cleared her throat.  “Did you guys have a good time tonight?”

“We did,” her mother said with a little glow.  “I wish you could have joined us.  Katie and Moe did.”

Jessie ignored the invitation with a smile.  “Sergeant, I need to talk to you about my phone.”

“Yeah, let’s talk about that.”  He put the last glass into the cabinet, swung the towel over the drainer, and sat down in a kitchen chair.  Jessie sat down on the edge of a chair at the other end of the table, her feet twisted about the wood frame.

“If your phone hadn’t been destroyed,” her stepfather began, “I wouldn’t make this an issue.”

That was an ominous start, Jessie thought.

“First, I personally don’t think that any member of this family really needs to have a smartphone.”

Jessie blinked in pure shock.  How could anybody not need a smartphone?

“I don’t have one,” he continued, “and your mother doesn’t have one either.  She provided those phones for you and Chris at the time simply because you wanted them.  Now, if you really want another smartphone, we’re not going to stop you from getting one.  However, you would need to find a way to pay for both the phone and data plan yourself, which I don’t think would be feasible for you.”  He paused and read the resentment boiling in Jessie’s eyes.  “I do think,” he went on, “that you need to be able to communicate on the go for safety purposes if nothing else.  So here’s what we will do: Your mom and I are willing to buy you a prepaid cell phone, and we will pay for the first 100 minutes and fifty text messages each month.  Beyond that, you can use as much as you want, but you will need to pay for it yourself.”

“I see.”  Jessie’s voice was flat with a suppressed outburst.  “All right.  Good night.”

With that she tried to whirl from the chair, but caught her entangled foot in the woodwork and fell across the dining room in a great pile of crashing furniture and furious teenager.  Bounding up with an “I’m all right” before the Sergeant could move to help her, Jessie steamed upstairs to her room.  She closed the door very carefully so that no one could claim she slammed it.  Then she silently went to pieces.

Of all the people Jessie resented tonight, the greatest focus of her wrath was her brother Chris.  His unthinking stupidity had destroyed both her phone and her carefully-built first impression on Friday, convincing the Sergeant immediately that he was dealing with a bunch of wild and helpless children.  But his attitude tonight was worse.  He should be thinking about the beating she saved him from on Friday, not to mention the one she was going to bail him out of tomorrow.  Yet there he was outside right now, happily tossing the football and dreaming about the upcoming camping trip with the new family hero.  Maybe she would just take her sweet time getting him that fifty bucks on Monday.  That should give him something to think about.

4

Ben

The tenth grade science class had a field trip all Monday afternoon.  With Punch and Boomer either in D-class or absent – one of which was nearly always the case – Chris hoped that he could somehow avoid them today.  In his pocket was a wad of miscellaneous bills amounting to only ninety-seven dollars – all he could borrow and finagle from everyone he knew.  It would certainly seem a lot more impressive with the fifty Jessie had promised.  What had happened to little sister and her promise Chris didn’t know, but she hadn’t shown up with the money by the time his class left for their trip.  Because of this, his heart was pumping like a triphammer, and every stuffed creature in the Natural History Museum looked like the specter of his foes coming to finish him off.

Why had he ever borrowed that money from those crooks in the first place?  Actually he knew the answer all too well.  The reason was gliding past the aquarium right now, ahead by ten feet and above by three social strata.   The only way Heather Beauchamp would ever find out he was alive, Chris had decided, was if he literally bought her attention.  Having no money and poor credit, he had thus devolved, in an evil hour, upon the financial services of the two low-lifes who were now hunting his head.  The cruelest part was, Heather still didn’t seem to know he was alive.  The two of them had a nice evening at the concert, and then she returned to her throne in the stratosphere and he to his hole in the ground.  A hundred and fifty bucks in exchange for a nice evening, a broken heart, and maybe a couple of broken arms, had to be among the worst bargains Chris Rivera had ever made.

Despite his distracted frame of mind, Chris enjoyed the museum tour.  He liked all field trips, as they all involved getting out of stuffy classrooms, but science and history were two subjects that genuinely interested him.  This was a large and well-funded museum, and had two actual complete dinosaur skeletons – not replicas – on display.  Mr. Head had sought, with some success, to instill in his students a deep respect for such things, almost bordering on reverence.  Here in the museum, the normally forceful teacher spoke in hushed tones, like a priest in a temple.  Just now he was going on with passion about the dinosaurs.

“Sixty-five-million years is a mind-boggling period of time, yet the fossilized bones of these creatures have survived all those thousands of millenia, and are here to show us that the giant dinosaurs of prehistory once lived.”

He then asked if there were any questions or comments.  This was normal, but what happened next was not.  Someone in the very midst of the knowledge-seekers had the temerity to pipe up with a challenge. “Mr. Head, I do have a question.  What about the T-rex fossil discovered in 2005, with intact blood vessels and soft tissues?  And the fresh, non-fossilized duckbill dinosaur bones in Alaska?  How could those be sixty-five-million years old?”

The teacher shot a narrow glance at the rebel, which was was followed by the curious stare of every student in the group.  The culprit was a kid named Ben Naylor, new to the class since his family moved into the district that month.

“I take it we have a creationist among us,” the teacher observed coldly.  The way he said creationist made it sound like a moral pejorative.  “And he’s brought his two well-rehearsed counter-examples with him.  Well, young man, you should know that Evolution has thousands of examples, which far outweigh a few anomalies like the ones you mentioned.”

From the instructor’s tone, Chris got the feeling that this wasn’t the first time Mr. Head had encountered such dissension.  He felt terrible for Ben, even though they had barely met.  The kid was shaking visibly and had an embarrassing red blush all over his face, two things that Chris himself often experienced and therefore feared.

The new guy stood his ground as best he could.  “For me,” he said, “nothing can outweigh the historical record of the Bible.  Its author, God, was there – we weren’t.”

Characteristically, Mr. Head launched into an oblique lecture.  “The ancient Norse language,” he said, “had only one word for ‘story’ - saga.  This caused modern historians no end of trouble, because they couldn’t tell when Norse writers were trying to tell a ‘story’ – a tall tale – and when they were relating actual events.  Luckily, the English language does not share this ambiguity.  We have the word ‘history’ for things that really happened, and ‘story’ for Sunday school fables like the Hebrew Creation Myth.  Unfortunately, however, some people still don’t understand the difference.

“You, young man, are obviously one of those people.  You have yet to learn the difference between your Sunday school stories and scientifically proven facts.  I’m assigning you – in fact, the whole class, just in your honor – an extra paper this week.  You must each write four hundred words or more on the differences between myths, like the Bible stories, and historical facts.  Perhaps this will help elevate your religion-washed brain above the level of an ancient Viking.”

“But Mr. Head, didn’t the Viking sagas about the discovery of America turn out to be true, even though people thought for a long time that they were just ‘stories’?”

The voice wasn’t Ben’s.  Chris looked around to see what suicidally presumptuous student had spoken up, and was intensely puzzled to discover that it was himself.  The ensuing counter-chuckle from the class only made things worse.

“One more smart remark from either of you,” decreed Mr. Head in an offended tone, “and I will tell you a story about two troublemakers who left the field trip and reported straight to the vice-principal’s office.  This, I assure you, will be a true historical saga.”

Chris jumped six inches as a hand grasped his arm.  Had Mr. Head called security to have all science-blasphemers and their sympathizers hauled away?  Reality was worse: he looked up into the face of a suddenly-materialized nightmare named Punch.

The group was moving away now, but one student – Ben – looked back and saw Punch and Boomer pulling Chris into a nearby restroom.  “Mr. Head!” called out the despised creationist, “There’s a problem back here!  Mr. Head!  Security!  Somebody?”

Perhaps it was his imagination, but Chris thought he saw the teacher take a glance back before leading his flock around the corner to the next exhibit.

The restroom door slammed against its frame, and Punch slammed Chris against the wall.  “You’ve got two seconds to pay in full,” he snarled.

“I’ve got most of it,” Chris gasped, exaggerating a bit on the math.  Punch rifled his pockets and counted the bills quickly.

“You lyin’ welcher,” he sneered.  “Ninety-six clams?  Is this a bad joke?”

“Ninety-seven,” Chris corrected hopefully.

“Thanks for the count, bro,” Boomer inserted.  “Now we’ll just give you a hundred and three bruises, instead of a hundred and four.  One for each dollar you still owe us!”

“What’s going on here?”

The assailants whirled to see who would dare interrupt one of their “collections” visits.  Chris’s heart sank when he realized that it was just Ben the creationist, alone.  Maybe he was looking to return the favor and defend Chris as Chris had apparently defended him.  If so, he had miscalculated the odds badly.  It would take six guys the size of Chris and Ben to hold their own against these two gorillas.

Boomer glared at the intruder for a moment, then barked, “This loser owes us money.  You better find another john.  Beat it!”

Shaking worse than before, Ben reached into his pocket, drew out a billfold, and emptied it into his hand.  Entranced by the sight of green, Punch and Boomer made no move against him until he had arranged the money in a stack, which he then held out to them.  “This is eighty-five dollars,” he said.  “Will that cover it?”

Boomer scratched his shaved head as Punch thumb-counted the money.  “What is it with you and your dork friends?” he demanded of Chris in exasperation.  “We just can’t seem to get down to bizness without one of them stickin’ a ham hand in the deal.  Okay, your guardian angel here saved you this time, but we’re still not square.  You still owe us eighteen bucks, due tomorrow.”

“What if you just keep my phone?” Chris offered.  “You can use it, or pawn it.”

Boomer blinked back and forth to Punch.  “Okay, Tubby,” he finally agreed.  “The phone makes you square.  You’re cool with Boomer and Punch now.”

With that they were gone, and Chris had never been so glad to see anybody leave anywhere in his life.  “Whoa, I gotta thank you, man,” he said to Ben.  “You’re a prince.  It may take me a few weeks to pay you back, though.”

“No hurry on that.”  Ben’s heart didn’t seem to be in the offer, and Chris ignored it.

“You’ve got the guts of a bullfighter to even come in here,” Chris admired.  “And I couldn’t believe how you spoke up to Mr. Head earlier, even though you were scared to death.”

“I guess you could tell, huh?”  Ben hung his head slightly as they hurried up the hall to overtake the tour group.

“Well, yeah.”  Chris was sorry he had slipped on that one, making his compliment sound like a putdown.  “You know,” he attempted, “I think it’s okay to be scared as long as you still do the right thing.  Even John Wayne said, ‘Courage is being scared to death but saddling up anyway.’”

Ben grinned happily.  “What’s up with offering those guys your phone,” he asked, changing the subject, “when you only owed them another eighteen dollars?”

“Aha, clever me,” Chris replied.  “My phone was history anyway.  My sister told me that our new stepdad doesn’t think we need smartphones, so he’s going to put us on prepaid dumbphones instead.  He’s even going to make us pay for most of the minutes.  I don’t really mind so much, but Jessie is madder than... oh, I don’t know – madder than Mr. Head in a creation museum!”

Ben’s laugh died away gradually.  They were overtaking the group now.  Almost more to himself than to Chris, he said “I wish I had my dad.”

5

Out With It

“You set me up!”  Chris Rivera slammed the door to his sister’s room behind him as he barked out the indictment.

“I did not.”  Jessie rolled her eyes, but couldn’t meet his.

“Don’t give me that trash,” her brother railed.  “I talked to Beth at school – she said she gave you fifty bucks for me this morning – early.  You had it all along, but you would have let me get my head pounded inside out just to get revenge for your stinking phone.  Which you blew up, by the way – not me.”

“I was going to give it to you,” Jessie asserted, “but you left on the field trip before I could catch up with you.   And keep your voice down.  Do you want the Sergeant to hear?”

“I don’t care what the Sergeant hears,” Chris exploded.  “You told me not to tell him in the first place just so you could line me up for the slaughter!”

“That is not true.”

“I certainly hope not.”  They looked up to see the Sergeant suddenly standing in the doorway.

“Oh, Sergeant,” Jessie fumbled.  “I didn’t hear you knock.”

“Let’s go downstairs and talk about this.”

Down the stairs the siblings marched behind their stepdad, each giving the other surreptitious dirty looks along the way.  They sat down opposite one another at the dining room table, with the Sergeant between them at the end.

“Okay, it looks like we’ve got a problem here,” the Sergeant began.  “You both obviously lied on Friday night about what happened to Chris.  Now tell me the truth.”

Jessie pursed her lips while Chris spilled the whole story, with frequent wrathful references to his sister’s treachery and minimal mentions of her saving his neck the first time.  The Sergeant listened, then spoke once he was finished.

“Guys, there is only one right basis for a family, for interactions, for anything.  That basis is truth.  By not telling me or your mom what was really going on, Chris, you put yourself, your sister, and your new friend in serious danger.  Getting beaten up in school is not a game.  Those two bullies could have put you in a wheelchair for life, without even meaning to.  I’ve seen it happen.

“Jessie, you’re to be commended for defending your brother on Friday.  I can see that you really do care about him because of what you did.  However, you must never, ever try to deter one of the siblings from sharing anything with me or your mom.  In fact, I hope that you will choose to share everything with us yourself.  In any case, I can’t overlook the fact that you lied just as much as Chris did when I asked you about what happened to him.  And Chris, I heard you speaking to your sister in a hateful way today.”

“But she set me up for a pounding!”

“Maybe she did,” the Sergeant agreed.  “And then again, maybe she just honestly missed you with the field trip going on.  No one knows the answer to that except Jessie herself, so we’ll have to leave it for her to work out with her conscience.  At any rate, if a sibling has wronged you and you can’t confront that person in a respectful way, bring in your mom or me to sort it out.”

“So what happens now?”  Jessie’s voice was quiet.  Might as well get it over with.

The Sergeant stroked his chin.  “I realize that you guys are used to doing pretty much whatever you feel like doing, with little accountability.  That doesn’t make it okay, but in view of the circumstances, I’m going to go fairly light.  You are each grounded until next Monday morning.”

Jessie let out a long sigh.  One week didn’t sound too long, but having never been grounded before, she wasn’t sure how she would cope with even that.

“I guess that wipes out camp, huh?” Chris sulked.

“Yes, I’m afraid it does.  Katie will be going with Moe and me instead.”

“Katie?” Jessie snickered out loud.  “Have you told her yet that she can’t wear her pink Cinderella slippers?”

“You might be surprised,” the Sergeant replied with a fond smile.

“What about a prior promise for Wednesday?” Chris asked.  “I told Ben I’d come over to his house and hang out after school.”

“Where does he live?”

Chris told him the address.

“I’ll drive you over there on Wednesday myself.  I’d like to meet and thank him in person.  I’ll also reimburse him for the money he paid....”

“Really?” Chris brightened.

“And you can reimburse me later,” the Sergeant finished.  “I won’t, however, charge you any interest.”

“Or pound me if I don’t pay,” Chris chuckled.

The Sergeant raised an eyebrow.  Sometimes it was downright tough to know when the man was kidding.

“On another subject,” Jessie said, “and speaking of money – what about our allowances?  We usually get twenty dollars each on Mondays.  I guess you’ll cut that off,” she speculated as bitterly as she dared, “or make us work to earn it or something?”

“You will need to earn it,” the Sergeant replied, “but no one’s going to make you work any more than anyone makes me work for my salary.  Your mom has been creating a list of jobs and errands that will be available for you to do, at a certain rate of compensation each.  The good news is, you’ll be able to earn much more than you used to get for doing nothing.”

“And I’m guessing if we don’t do the jobs, or don’t do them right, we get zip.”

“Does that seem unfair to you?”

“Oh, of course not.”  There was just a light dusting of sarcasm in her tone.

“Look, guys,” the Sergeant said earnestly, “you’re both going to be of age in a few short years...”  (A loud cheer went up in Jessie’s mind at that, but she didn’t interrupt.) “... and you will be, if you choose, on your own and responsible for yourselves.  When you get out in the world, life will hold you accountable for your actions, and it won’t always be fair.  I would not be doing you a favor to let these important last couple years of your childhood just slide by.”

“I know, I know,” Jessie said, “we’ll thank you later.”

“Not necessarily,” the Sergeant replied.  “But my conscience will, if I’m able to answer well when God holds me accountable for the way I handled the lives in my trust.  Now I need to talk to your mom, so run along – but not across the property line.  Sentence starts now!”

They wandered outside.  When they were out of earshot, Chris remarked, “You know, he’s right.  We lied.  We deserve to be in trouble.”

“No, you deserve it,” Jessie corrected.  “But it’s almost worth it to me just to see you get it.”

“This is going to sound crazy,” Chris observed slowly, “but you know, somehow it’s almost worth it to me, too.”

6

New Friends

That week rolled by without any further intra-family confrontations.  Jessie watched with amazement – and a bit of disgust – as her little sister Katie, the girliest girl ever, thrilled to the feel of camo pants and learned from the Sergeant how to bait a fish hook.  She and Moe were so natural with him, anyone would have thought they were his own kids.  Somehow the twins didn’t seem to mind the new rules or the loss of freedom.  Maybe they just didn’t yet understand the full import of what had happened to the family.

Mom, for her part, was already coming out of the timorous shell into which she’d retreated after her first husband’s death.  In spite of Jessie’s distaste for the Sergeant, she had to feel some gladness for her mother finally getting her confidence back.  Mom even prayed aloud now during nightly devotions – loud enough that Jessie could hear the rise and fall of her voice from the confines of her last remaining refuge, her room.  She fearfully suspected that Chris was contemplating joining in the evening religion, but hadn’t seen him actually do so yet.  Right now he was on the lone outing allowed this week, a mission to thank and reimburse Ben.  Idly, Jessie wondered what Chris and the Sergeant could find to talk about for even ten minutes in traffic together.

As it turned out, there was plenty to talk about.  They discussed life and school, and Chris took the opportunity to ask his stepfather about something he’d been thinking on since the day at the museum.

“Sergeant,” he asked frankly, “Mr. Head says that science disproves the creation story in Genesis.  What do you say?”

The Sergeant thought a moment before replying.  “First of all,” he began, “it’s a fallacy to say that ‘science’ proves or disproves any account of history, because science can only address the present, not the past.  A scientific hypothesis must be testable and repeatable, which beliefs about history obviously are not.”

“I never heard that explained in school.”

“Most evolutionists would rather you didn’t.  To them, their conclusions are testable, indirectly, because they can perform what they consider ‘scientific’ tests that support their theories.  The problem with these tests is, they’re all based on assumptions about the distant past that are not testable.  So when Mr. Head says this or that theory about the past has been ‘proven,’ he’s misleading you by the very definition of the word he used.

“I’m giving you the ‘scientific’ perspective because I know you’ve been misinformed at school.  For myself, however, there is only one essential reason that I believe Mr. Head and his ilk are wrong, and that reason is simply that I believe the Bible.”

“I guess that gives me another question,” Chris replied after a short pause.

“Why do I believe the Bible?”

Chris nodded in the conversation mirror.

The Sergeant parked the car at their destination, turned it off, and looked his stepson in the eye for a moment.  “I believe the Bible,” he said slowly, “because following it, to get to God, has changed my life.”

Whether that statement was strictly true or not, Chris didn’t yet know.  But no one could have convinced him that the Sergeant himself didn’t believe what he was saying.

Ben’s house was not properly a house at all, but instead a mobile home in a poor neighborhood.  It was a decent double wide, though – almost cozy with its well-kept exterior and trim lawn.  An older lady answered the door and brought them into the front room.  It smelled clean, Chris noted.  Most poorer homes he’d visited smelled like dust, or old smoke.

“I’m Jessica Scroggins,” the lady introduced herself as they seated themselves on the old flowered furniture.  “I’m Ben’s great-aunt and guardian.  His parents died.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” said the Sergeant.  “I’m Glenn Sparrow, and this is my stepson, Chris Rivera.”

“It’s nice to meet both of you.  I’ve heard about you, Chris.  I want to thank you for sticking up for Ben.  He said it was the first time another student has openly supported him like that.”

Chris looked embarrassed.  “Ben was the real hero,” he asserted modestly in order to change the subject.  “Is he here?”

“He’ll be back soon,” answered Mrs. Scroggins.  “He’s cutting the lawn and bushes for our neighbors, the Maschinos, three doors down.  He’s a good kid,” she bragged modestly.  “He always wants to help those less fortunate.”

Chris realized that his eyes were wandering rudely to the woodgrain box TV and tired curtains.  Most people in Mrs. Scroggins’ shoes would be expecting help from the neighbors, not offering it.

Just then the front door banged open and Ben stepped in, looking like the Green Giant due to the afternoon’s activities.  “Nana, the mower’s out of gas,” he called before seeing their guests.  “Can I siphon some from the....  Oh my.”  He slapped his forehead in embarrassment.  “I totally forgot.  It’s Wednesday.”

“That’s okay,” said Chris and the Sergeant at once.  Chris then introduced his new friend to his stepfather.  Once all were suitably thanked and honored, he offered to go help Ben with his yard work.

“That would make me feel like a pretty bad hostess,” Mrs. Scroggins demurred in good humor.

“It’s okay,” Chris assured her. “I want to.”

“I’ll spread a tarp in the car,” the Sergeant called after them with a smile, “so it doesn’t turn into a mulching bag of grass clippings.”

After the boys were gone, the Sergeant handed Mrs. Scroggins an envelope.  “Would you give this to Ben for me?  This is what he gave the thugs at school for Chris, and a little bit extra for his trouble.”

“Thank you.  It was a miracle Ben had so much cash with him that day.  He was supposed to do our weekly shopping on the way home.  I normally do it, but I broke my ankle here a few weeks ago, and it’s hard to get around on a crutch.”  She grimaced as she motioned to the heavy brace on her foot.  “Two more weeks.  Forty years a farm wife, on and off the tractor, and I never spent a day sick nor broke so much as a finger.  It took a city shopping mall escalator to bring me down.”

Mrs. Scroggins bore a tough and weathered look that reminded Mr. Sparrow of his own mother.  “Growing up,” he mused, “I always wanted to live on a farm, but we never got closer than a house with a big yard.”

“Ours is a hundred acres, fifty miles from here.  I still own more of it than the bank does, but after Leo died I couldn’t keep it up anymore.  So I rent out the fields for hay, which takes care of the mortgage payments.  I’ll probably sell it sooner or later.  The farm wasn’t really a good place for a young man like Ben anyway, with no brothers and sisters – too far from what neighbors are still around.”

“How did you and Ben end up together, if I may ask?”

“Sadness,” she said simply.  “So much sadness.  Ben’s parents and his brother all died together two years ago in a terrible Interstate wreck.  Kevin was my favorite nephew, and he’d made arrangements – providentially – that if anything happened to him and Deanna, I’d be guardian of his children.  Not that the rest of the family didn’t at least pretend to want Ben, but Kevin knew that his kids belonged with me.  None of the others really understood him and his wife, or shared their values.”

“I heard something of Ben’s stand at the museum the other day,” Mr. Sparrow remarked.  “Good for him.  I wonder sometimes, though, how long kids like Ben can hold out in public school with people like Mr. Head.”

“I dearly wish I could homeschool Ben,” admitted the old lady, “but I just don’t feel qualified.  The kid wants to be an electrical engineer or a lawyer.  If all he needed was reading and writing and basic math, I could help – but that’s about all I ever got, myself.”

“Mrs. Scroggins,” said Mr. Sparrow, “I think your boy has already got the most important thing he needs in the form of his character.  I only hope that my new family will turn out as well.”

7

The Room With The
Red Door

The much-anticipated camping trip was rained out that weekend, to the dismay of Moe and Katie but the secret delight of Chris.  Now un-grounded, he could be added back to the roster – and was, just in time to mourn with everyone else when another spring storm system washed out the second weekend as well.  As the rain came down and the thunder rocked, the family stuck to the house with their various activities.

Mrs. Sparrow worked on an elaborate dinner most of the day, a practice she had only resumed since meeting the Sergeant.  Katie flitted around at her elbow, a surprisingly capable helper for nine years old.  Whenever the bright-eyed girl observed that someone else enjoyed doing something, she wanted to try it herself, to find out what they saw in it.  She had been helping cook for several days now, and seemed to enjoy it.  Katie and her mother even sang together as they worked, beautiful songs in Spanish that Dad had taught Mom long ago.

Reading a book in his office, Mr. Sparrow cocked the door so he could hear the duet better.  Gradually he became aware of another sound, this one emanating from the room across the hall.  That room, behind a bright red door, had once been a large utility closet.  For Chris’s birthday the year before his father died, Mr. Rivera had wired it and turned it into a “boy cave” for his oldest son.  Originally it had contained a TV, a desk, and an old Sega console with a few race car games.  Today it was dominated by a honking-tough computer that sported a stack of the latest total immersion combat offerings.  From the blasts, shrieks, and machinegun fire the Sergeant could hear through the door, Chris was obviously making use of his collection.

Mr. Sparrow crossed the hall and looked in on his eldest stepson, who plainly had no idea he was standing there.  Chris was enjoying the twentieth level of Kill Or Be Killed: The Epic, a first-person-shooter experience that carried a strong ESRB warning.  From what the Sergeant could see, the game mostly involved the slaughter of innumerable foes by the player, though how one could tell friend from foe he wasn’t sure, as nobody wore a uniform.  He advanced into the room till he was almost right beside Chris.  Though Chris still didn’t notice him, the Sergeant could see his face now, and what he saw disturbed him even more than the splattering blood on the screen.  The sixteen-year-old’s features were wrenched into an expression combining hatred and glee, his eyes shining with pleasure whenever the bullets from his simulated gun found their targets.  Mr. Sparrow had seen the same look in the eyes of men who had lost their minds in the military.

“Chris.”

The boy looked up suddenly with a red-faced gasp, then back to the screen as a simulated enemy blew him away in the momentary pause.  “Oh no,” he grumbled.  “Just sixty more points and I would have hit Level 21.”

“Sorry, I’m sure.”  The Sergeant flipped on the light and started looking through the video game titles, scratching his head.  “Indy,” he read finally.  “That’s a classic.  I used to play that myself.  You’ve got good games, here, son.  Why would you want to play all this hack-and-hew shoot-’em-up stuff?”

“I just like to,” Chris shrugged.  “They’re only games, you know.  None of it’s real.”

“I see.  Well.  Why don’t you come downstairs for awhile?  I want to show you how to play a game I used to enjoy with the guys on the base.”

“Okay.”

As they passed Moe’s bedroom the Sergeant called out, “We’re playing a game and we need three!”  Moe appeared at once.  Having just failed in his attempts to make a scale model plastic B-24 fly with an electric motor, his schedule was free.

They swept junk off the rec room table, and then the Sergeant produced his game in a colorful red box.  “It’s called The Settlers of Catan,” he told them.  “It’s a civilization game of trading and expansion.”

Moe scratched his head.  Chris rolled his eyes.  Civilization, trading, and expansion didn’t sound very exciting next to the mass mayhem of Kill Or Be Killed.

The Sergeant took no notice.  After putting the board together like a random puzzle, he showed them how to place little wooden “settlements” and “roads,” paying for each item from a stash of cards representing various commodities.  The settlements, and later cities, would then “produce” more cards, which could be saved or traded with other players.

“Like baseball cards!” Moe exclaimed.

“Not exactly,” said the Sergeant, clearing his throat.

“Catan” still didn’t look very interesting, but they were willing to give it a try.  Within a few turns, Moe was absorbed.  Chris stayed bored for a bit longer, just out of obligation to himself, but soon forgot to sigh and nap.  He was too busy trying to beat Moe to the good wheat by trading wood for the Sergeant’s bricks at two-to-one.

When the Sergeant finally ended the game with ten points (several turns after he could have done so, but they didn’t know that) two hours had passed like as many minutes.

“Dad, this game is the coolest,” Moe exclaimed.  “Let’s play again!”

Chris was a bit more reserved, but generously agreed to play one more game, “since Moe wants to.”

Just then sister Jessie walked by the door, did a double-take, and wheeled back into the room.  “What in the world is going on here?” she demanded.  “You boys haven’t played a board game since Moe sprained his wrist trying to do ‘acrobat’ in Cranium!”

“Maybe they just didn’t have the right board game,” suggested the Sergeant.  “We’re ‘settling Catan.’  Would you like to join us?  We’re about to play again, and there’s room for four.”

“I’m good, thanks anyway.”  With a look of contempt Jessie wandered upstairs, tapping away text messages to her sympathetic friend Izzie. This message is costing me 5 cents, she vented into the keypad.  Went through my 50 ‘free’ ones in just a week and a half.

That is so totally not fair, Izzie agreed.  What are you doing this afternoon?

The return message was short.  Nothing to do.

The second Catan game lasted almost until dinner, and Chris surprised himself by winning in a walk-off.  Moe wanted to play again, and it occurred to his older brother that a monster might have just been created.

“You know, Chris,” said the Sergeant as they packed up the game, “I think this is what a game should be.  Something fun and interesting we do together.  Tell me, how do you feel right now?”

“Um, kinda tired,” Chris laughed uncomfortably.  “But good.”

“How do you feel after a two-hour session of Kill Or Be Killed?”

“Really tired,” Chris admitted, though he saw where this was going.  “And good, at first – but then, I don’t know, not so good.”

“Do you ever have headaches or bad dreams you associate with the shooter games?”

“That’s a pretty good guess,” Chris conceded quietly.

“People say those games are harmless,” the Sergeant continued, “because they don’t hurt anyone for real.  Which is true, in the sense that the guys in the computer are just so many ones and zeroes from some programmer’s brain.  The person who gets hurt is on your side of the trigger, son.  It’s you.  I don’t want you to hurt yourself like that,” he said gently.  “Don’t you think you should get rid of the games?”

“I guess I should get rid of some of them.”  Chris looked away as he poured some pieces into a plastic bag.  “It’s just....”  He sighed.

“It’s just what?” his stepfather asked quietly.

“I don’t know, Sergeant, you wouldn’t understand how I feel.  You’re a human tank.  I mean, you look like you worked out every day from the age of two, and drank whey protein in your Froot Loops.  You probably played sports and did well and had lots of girls lining up to date you.  Me... well, look at me.  I weigh two ten and rising, and it ain’t muscle.  The only way they’d let me on a sports team would be as the ball.  I’m so far down on the totem pole at school, I get bullied by the geeks and wimps.  I feel like Jessie’s little brother.  Actually sometimes I feel like Moe and Katie’s little brother!  The only time I really feel powerful is when I’m blowing some guy up on one of those games.  Can you understand why I need that feeling?”

The Sergeant slipped the lid on the Catan box and thought for a moment.  “You’re right about one thing,” he said.  “I was a tank, I did play football, I did have lots of girlfriends.  And I was absolutely miserable.”

“I don’t understand that.”

“I didn’t either, but it was true.  By college, I felt that my life was meaningless, exhausted, drained like an empty bottle.  I was turning it upside down and shaking it, trying to get another drop of satisfaction, but I couldn’t.  I actually considered ‘breaking’ that bottle out of sheer boredom.”

“And then you started going to church, right?”

“I wish that were true, but no.  I simply decided to quit indulging myself and thinking so much.  To that end, I entered the military, and I found that the structure gave me some purpose.  The Army kept me going until the Lord got hold of me much later, and I found out where the real purpose is.

“But Chris, my point is this: Ultimately, you don’t feel miserable and unfulfilled and wanting to hurt somebody because you’re overweight, or weak, or unpopular.  You simply feel more keenly the non-fulfillment and misery and inadequacy we all know deep down.  And you know why we feel that way?  It’s because we are inadequate, and miserable, and without God completely unfulfilled.  So we chase things that we think will fill the holes, and when we can’t catch them, we take out our frustration in any way we can find.”

“Gotta do something with it.”

“Yes, you do – get rid of it, at the root.  Fix it.  Look, you could be six foot two and captain of the football team tomorrow, and you’d feel better, but deep down you still wouldn’t be happy, fulfilled, and peaceful.  You’d always be looking for the next validation, the next thrill, the next fulfillment, your whole life.  None of those things will fill the hole.”

“And I guess you’re going to tell me that Jesus will?”

“Chris, that hole is there specifically so you’ll find Him.  It’s there to show you that something is missing from your life without God – something much bigger than the hole itself, the lack of fulfillment, the inadequacy.  Like all people, you’re separated from God, and the frustrations in your life are just an obvious temporary symptom of a deep eternal problem.”

Chris was quiet for a moment.  “So,” he hesitated, “let’s say maybe I was interested and wanted to know more.  What would I do?”

“Well, for starters, you could join me and your mom and the twins at night.  It’s nothing scary; we read the Bible and pray together.”

“Would I have to pray out loud?”

“No one has to.”

“Okay, I guess I’ll try it.”

“Good.  Also, I want you to know, Chris, that your mother and I pray for each of you kids individually every night.  And that I love you all, as if you were my own.”

Chris turned in the doorway.  “Thanks, Dad,” he said.

8

Memorial Day

With summer so near and the camping jaunt already delayed twice, it was decided to move the trip to June, when it could be extended to four days instead of two.  This, Jessie noted sourly to herself, would be the most ridiculously overprepared camping expedition in history.  Outwardly she tried to seem excited for the others, or at least neutral.  All she could really think about, though, was what summer would be like once they got back – a dozen hot weeks under the ever-watchful eye and ever-tightening grip of the Sergeant, without the relief of school.

Outside she heard two sets of footsteps coming up the driveway, probably those of Chris and his new Siamese twin, Ben.  The two did everything together these days.  They’d even botched the same assignment in school a few weeks earlier, each receiving an F on a paper Mr. Head had assigned about history.  The F had something to do with the Bible, Jessie had heard.  Since the Sergeant seemed suspiciously pleased with that particular bad grade, she had decided it wasn’t something she needed to know about.

A look out the window revealed that Chris wasn’t with Ben today.  The boy wasn’t one of his regular friends at all, but a spike-haired member of the senior class whom Jessie knew only by sight.  It would be interesting to know what that guy was doing even breathing Chris’s air – more interesting still to see what the Sergeant would do if he saw his stepson with such a character.  No luck on the latter, as the Sparrows were out shopping right now – probably by design on Chris’s part.  Jessie wandered downstairs to snoop, passing Chris and his new friend as they hurried up to Chris’s cave.  Had Mr. Cool come over to play video games?  Not likely, she decided, choosing a convenient surveillance post on the couch, with a magazine for a prop.

Jessie was barely settled when the two came back down the stairs, talking too quietly for her to hear.  They parted with the strangely formal gesture of shaking hands.  Then Chris went back up to his cave, leaving his sister’s curiosity thoroughly aroused.  She followed him a few minutes later, and found him stuffing video games into a black garbage bag.

“Okay, I almost don’t want to ask what you’re doing.”

“I’m selling my video games.  What does it look like?”

“Chris, you love your video games.  When you’re playing them is the only time I ever see you happy.”

“Well, maybe that’s the wrong kind of happy.”

“I see.  You know, let me just take a wild guess: I’m going to say this was the Sergeant’s idea, not yours.”

Chris stood his full height – which hardly seemed to make him taller – and looked his sister squarely in the eye.  “Listen, I’m sick of you dissing the Sergeant,” he asserted darkly.  “So what if it was his idea?  What’s wrong with that?  I respect the man, even if you don’t.”

“Hey, they’re your video games!”  Jessie threw up her palm in a defensive gesture.  “You can do whatever you want with them.  So, how much did you get from old spike-hair down there?”

Chris resumed packing the games.  “Two hundred,” he said.  “Brandon’s going to bring the money over tonight.”

Jessie gave a low whistle.  “Two hundred bucks is a lot of money.  Gonna blow it on another try at Heather?”

“I’m over trying to play out of my league,” Chris said.  “I’m going to use fifty to finish paying back the Sergeant, and spend the rest on some things.”

“Things for camp, right?” Jessie rolled her eyes.

“Oh yeah!” Chris grinned.  “Totally.”

“Well, don’t have too much fun with that.  I just hope you aren’t sorry later that you sold your games.”

“I might be,” Chris admitted.  “But that’s okay, even if I am. ”

“Anybody home?”  It was the Sergeant’s voice, from downstairs.

“Yeah, we’re up here!” Jessie called back.

“Come on down a minute,” her mother asked.

Downstairs, the Sergeant was waiting to show them a large wreath.  “Your mom and the twins and I picked this out today,” he said.  “I thought we all might like to go out and put it in place.  You do know what day this is?”

“It’s... a day off from school?” Jessie shrugged.

“It’s Memorial Day,” Chris corrected, eager to show that he knew the answer.

“And that wreath is for...?”

“It’s for your dad’s grave marker,” Mom explained quietly.

“Let me get my jacket.”

The cemetery was only five minutes from the house, but they had seldom visited it since that first time, when the steel gray coffin bore Dad away from their sight.  Mom found it too painful, the twins barely remembered him anyway, and Chris and Jessie just didn’t think about it.

Even on the outskirts of the busy city in the middle of the day, the cemetery was almost eerily quiet.  Jessie found herself shivering as the wind moaned across the rows of cold granite.  They had to walk quite a long distance, picking their way around monuments, to find the grave.  Finally they came to it, and stood back as Mrs. Sparrow carefully dusted off the marker and placed a vase with some red flowers.  Then she stepped aside for the Sergeant to add the wreath, but he turned and handed it to Chris instead.  Standing taller, Chris accepted the wreath and put it very carefully on his father’s grave.  Then he rejoined the group and they all stood and looked for a few moments, re-reading the inscription.  Moses Enrico Rivera.  He was only twenty-nine when he died, Jessie noted with a start.  Not even twice as old as she was now.

The Sergeant finally broke the silence.  “Tell me something about your dad,” he said.  “Just anything you remember.”

Katie piped up first.  “I’m afraid I don’t remember him at all,” she admitted regretfully.  “I thought once I had a memory of him, but it turned out to be Uncle Ernesto.”

“He sang a lot,” Jessie offered.  “He would sit at the table and play the guitar and we’d dance in the kitchen till we dropped.  You don’t remember, Katie, but you danced too.  He was a happy man,” she went on, looking directly at the Sergeant, “always smiling.  He was a wonderful dad.”

“He was a man of character,” Chris said definitely, also looking straight at his stepfather.  “He always did the right thing, not the easy one.”

“Thanks for sharing those things with me,” the Sergeant smiled.  “I know he must have been a wonderful father, because he left a very special family behind.”

All the way back to the house, Chris’s own words rang in his head.  He was a man of character.  He did the right thing.  Why he’d said that, Chris had no idea.  He couldn’t specifically remember his dad ever making a particular choice to do the right thing (except for the times he had made his rowdy eldest go back and do it).  Somehow he just knew that about him, and suddenly Chris found that he wanted to be like his father in that way.  He was glad he was selling his video games.

Or was he?  What was wrong?  He knew he shouldn’t keep them, so why didn’t he feel altogether peaceable with selling them?  The reason occurred to Chris sometime after they arrived back at the house.  If these games were bad for him, they were just as bad for Brandon.  Never mind he might get them somewhere else; Chris wasn’t responsible for somewhere else.  He was only responsible for one thing – the very lucrative contents of a large garbage bag up in his cave.

Now Chris realized why he hadn’t wanted Mom and the Sergeant to see him making the deal with Brandon, and why he had been planning to slip the games outside in a garbage bag after dark.  It was because he knew, deep down, that he should be destroying them, not just passing them on to hurt somebody else.

But all that money!  It would buy a lot of very cool, totally wholesome things.  The multi-function camp knife he’d been eyeing.  The orienteering compass with a built-in LED light.  The insulated backpack hydration bottle.  Possibly a pair of night vision binoculars!  How could he just throw it all away?

Chris had been stretched out on his bed, thinking.  Now he rose and paced the room.  He could almost hear those games calling to him from the cave, reminding him of all the money and good things they could bring him.  This situation seemed to eerily echo something he’d read recently, and Chris opened his e-book reader to find it.  He hadn’t wanted to commit himself as far as getting a physical Bible everyone could see, but the KJV was free in the e-book store, so he had surreptitiously downloaded it.

After devotions, he would often look up the passage they’d discussed and read it again, trying to make sure he understood everything he could about it.  He was thinking now of a particular story they’d gone over a few nights ago.  He didn’t remember where the story was found, but a phrase from it had stuck in his head: “Curious arts.”  Undoubtedly envisioning finger paint, Moe had asked the Sergeant what that meant.  (Chris was glad Moe had voiced the question, as he wanted to know himself, but didn’t want to look foolish.)  “Curious arts,” the Sergeant had explained, was used in Old English to refer to the occult – charms, spells, witchcraft, and that kind of thing.

Using a text search to find the phrase, Chris quickly reached the 19th chapter of Acts, which told the story of a revival in a place called Ephesus.  The people who were saved wanted to get rid of everything to do with their “curious arts,” chiefly a huge pile of occult books that was worth, all together, the ancient equivalent of over six million dollars.  They didn’t even consider selling the books to somebody else, he noted.  They burned them.

Without thinking, for fear he’d change his mind, Chris picked up the phone, called Brandon, and told him that he had decided not to sell the games after all.  Brandon was annoyed, but he would get over it.  As soon as he hung up, Chris took his garbage bag down to the basement and set it in front of the Sergeant’s huge paper shredder.  This paper shredder was big enough to pulverize sixteen sheets of paper at once – or one DVD.  In went the first.  As the blades groaned to crush it, Chris imagined the sound of breaking chains.  On and on he went, as quickly as the shredder would work, until at last his once-prized collection was a bag of shiny confetti.

The shredder was so loud that Chris didn’t know when the Sergeant quietly entered the room, saw what he was doing, and left again.  No one could know if the angels rejoiced in heaven that night, but upstairs behind their bedroom door, Mr. and Mrs. Sparrow did.  And down the hall in his own bedroom, Chris Rivera slept better than he had in years.

9

“The Only Easy Day Was Yesterday”

Camp Day dawned with perfect weather and a beautiful sunrise.  Jessie, who wasn’t going, saw no reason to get up until the last minute.  As early as four o’clock, though, she could hear those crazy boys – and that sister she thought she knew – bustling around finishing preparations in great excitement.  She wouldn’t spoil it by not saying goodbye, so she finally crawled from her bed around seven.  This was just in time, as the rest of the family was already gathered at the door getting ready to see each other off.

Ben Naylor had arrived an hour ago, no less overprepared and excited than anyone else.  One would think they were going to Manitoba, and not just to the farm of Ben’s “Nana,” fifty miles outside the city.  Still, it was nice of Mrs. Scroggins to let them use it.  There were a hundred acres, the boys said, some wooded – and all privately owned, so they wouldn’t have to worry about other campers or hunters.  At the time Jessie had blown them off with a crack about Christopher Robin and the Hundred Acre Wood of Winnie the Pooh, but deep down she was glad they were going.  Glad for them to have the opportunity... and also glad for herself to have four whole days at home with no Sergeant.

Advancing into the kitchen in her pajamas, Jessie realized too late they were about to have a prayer.  Since she couldn’t retreat now, she allowed herself to be drawn into the circle and bowed her head with everyone else.

“Father,” said Mr. Sparrow, “I just want to thank You for bringing this family together, and letting me be a part of it.  Thank you for this beautiful day You’ve made, and for working it out for us to have this special time enjoying your creation.  Please make it safe and enjoyable for all of us, speak to our lives through all we see and do, and help us to know You better when we return than we did when we left.  In Jesus’ Name, amen.”

Jessie’s own amen was mouthed silently, but those of the others were entirely too enthusiastic for her liking.  Next thing you knew, they’d all be going to church with Mom and the Sergeant – and dragging her along with them.  The room suddenly exploded into a hugfest, and halfway between her mother – who wasn’t leaving – and Katie, Jessie found herself embracing the Sergeant.

“I love you,” he whispered in her ear.  For a moment he sounded exactly like Dad, and Jessie thought she was going to cry.  The feeling passed, but when the van finally rolled away around the corner and disappeared, she realized that she would actually miss them.  Maybe even the Sergeant himself.

For the group of happy campers, the miles between them and the Scroggins farm passed quickly.  They started out by singing Ninety-Nine Bottles On The Wall – though the Sergeant insisted that they sing “juice” and not “beer.”  This stipulation was much to the amusement of all, who by turns changed the beverage to more and more outrageous (but still non-alcoholic) liquids with each verse.  By the time thirty bottles of Windex, perfume, glue, and motor oil had been “passed around,” they’d all collapsed in a fit of merry exhaustion.  That and the four-o’clock starting hour soon sent more than one off to sleep, where they stayed until they reached their destination.

“I was just resting my eyes!” Chris insisted as the Sergeant nudged him awake.

“Line up!” the Sergeant ordered them in his most severe voice.  “On the double, men.  And you, too, girl.  I won’t have slackers in this platoon, no matter how pretty they are!”

Giggling and yawning, the sleep-disheveled troop tumbled from the van and stood in a ragged line.  The Sergeant walked up and down, surveying them with a deep scowl.

“Repeat after me!” he suddenly shouted.

“Repeat after me!” they all chorused.

“Not that, you pathetic nincompoops!”

“Not that, you pathetic nincompoops!”

“All right, so I see you are not only the puniest, the scrawniest, the sorriest excuse for a bunch of half-baked recruits I ever saw, but wise guys as well!”  His scowl deepened until it almost looked real.  “Maybe you young people think this camp is going to be some easy summer vacation!  Is that what you think?”

“Sure, Dad!”  Moe got out of character for a moment.

“What?”  The Sergeant whirled.

“I mean, yes sir, no sir, sir!”

The Sergeant stooped down and looked his young recruit straight in the eye.  “Well let me tell you the way it is in military training and selection,” he growled.  “Our friends the Navy SEALs put it like this....”

“We know, we know,” Chris interjected.  “We’ve heard it before.”

“Oh yeah?” the Sergeant stood up.  “Then let me hear you all say it as loud as you can!”

“The only easy day was yesterday!” they all roared out together.

“I can’t HEAR YOU!!”

“THE ONLY EASY DAY WAS YESTERDAY!”

Katie was beginning to get hoarse, and not a little vexed with all the nonsense.  “Daddy,” she piped up in exasperation, “we were home yesterday.”

“I know.”  Returning to himself with a broad grin, the Sergeant picked her up piggy-back style and pointed to a rise just ahead.  “Our campsite is half a mile over that hill,” he gestured.  “Last one to get there’s an aging Army Sergeant backpacking a really heavy nine-year-old.”

Grabbing totes and packs, they scrambled up the trail and topped the hill in fifteen breathless minutes.  “It’s perfect!” Ben exclaimed.  “You can see all the way to the Killingsworths’ silos from here!”

“Trees to break the wind, and the creek right here for fishing and washing,” Chris added.  “How did you find it?”

“By using my clever scouting skills,” the Sergeant bragged.  “Of course, Google Earth might have helped a little bit too.”

“Daddy?”  Down on her own feet again, Katie was suddenly tugging on his sleeve.  “This campsite is on a downslope near a creek.  If it rains in the night, won’t the ground get pretty wet?  We could all get pneumonia.”

“You’re something else,” the Sergeant observed with a fond but puzzled look.  “You’re also correct,” he admitted, “except for one thing.  We’re hammock camping, remember?  These trees aren’t just to break the wind; they’re also for us to sleep in.  Now it’s not supposed to rain these four days, but even if it does pour a bit during the night, the wind will just rock us to sleep in our nice dry hammocks.  Complete with nice waterproof tarps, of course.”

Most of the afternoon was spent putting up those “nice dry hammocks.”  This was more trouble than it might have been, because the Sergeant had them use tension cords – not spikes – in order to protect the trees from damage.  Once the first hammock was up, they each had to jump in and find out just how far it would swing in each direction without dumping the occupant on the ground.  Only Katie didn’t seem eager to mount up, and had to be coaxed by the Sergeant.  Once in, she sat very still for a moment, then quietly asked to get down.  While the others began to choose out trees for their own sleeping arrangements, Katie carefully unrolled hers on the ground and began to make it up like a bed.

“That’s not going to be very comfortable,” the Sergeant pointed out, “without a ground pad.  Katie, if you were nervous about sleeping in a hammock, you should have said something before we came out here.  We could have brought you a tent and everything you’d need.”

“I’m not scared,” she insisted with a blank lack of conviction.  “I just like sleeping on the ground better, that’s all.”

“Don’t you want to come back and try the hammock again?” the Sergeant offered kindly.  “You just need to get used to it.  It’s like being rocked in a cradle, really.  And it’s not bumpy like the ground.”

“I’m not scared,” Katie repeated.  She couldn’t meet his eyes.

10

Darkness

“Do you want to help me make raisin bread?”

Even a few hours ago, Jessie would have rolled her eyes at Mom’s offer.  However, entertaining herself alone was proving more difficult than expected, especially given the narrow set of amusements she felt free to pursue anymore.  So she shrugged and gave in.  At least they couldn’t possibly have another roast-chicken-style disaster with Mom directly calling the shots.

She might have known Mom wanted to talk to her about something serious, and would wait until she had flour all over her hands to bring it up.  Everyone around here seemed to have some pious ulterior motive to everything they did these days.

“Jessie dear,” her mother began, “I want to talk to you about something, and it’s not easy for me to do.  Will you try to listen and not react?”

“Sure, Mom.”  Jessie was already “reacting” on the inside, but hiding it sufficiently so far.

“It’s about the way we dress,” her mother went on, checking Jessie’s face for feedback.  Her voice seemed to be shaking just a bit.  How nervous could she be with her own daughter?  “Have you noticed that I’ve gotten some new outfits?”

“Yeah, I have.  They’re very pretty.”

“Thank you.  You may not have noticed that I’ve also thrown away some clothes.”

“I hadn’t, no.”

“I know the idea of dressing modestly is quite foreign to modern girls.  Actually it was foreign to me too, until I realized that the Bible says quite a bit about it.  And Jessie, I realized something else too, something for which I must ask your forgiveness.”

Any time they start apologizing, Jessie warned herself, it’s going to be a major blow.

“I realized that I have bought you inappropriate clothes, and encouraged you to wear them in ways that attracted the wrong kind of attention.  And I did this not just out of ignorance, but for a terrible, selfish motive.”

“It really doesn’t matter,” Jessie tried to intercept.  “I can work on my wardrobe if you want....”

“I want to tell you this so you’ll understand,” Mom insisted.  “You see, I vicariously enjoyed the attention you could attract.  I wasn’t very pretty at your age, and I couldn’t attract that kind of attention myself.  Do you understand?”

“There’s nothing wrong with that,” Jessie countered.  “All parents do a little living through their kids, don’t they?”

“Yes, most do.  But what I did was worse, because I set standards for you that could lead you wrong the rest of your life.  I want an opportunity to change those standards.  I want us to go shopping tomorrow.  I hope you’ll want to join me in trying to meet a higher standard of modesty.  We can buy you some new clothes, and then have dinner on the way home.”

“Thanks for trying to cushion the blow.”  Jessie’s tone was getting dangerously close to a bitter note she tried never to use with Mom.

“I realize that this is all my fault,” her mother admitted sadly.  “And I want to do what I can to fix it.”

“And you’re pretty much making this decision, right?” Jessie explored.  “That is, I’m being informed, not consulted.”

Mrs. Sparrow sighed.  “Please don’t put it on that level,” she said.  “Yes, if you get down to it, you are my daughter and you will need to dress according to the standards that your stepfather and I agree on.  But I don’t want to just change how you dress outwardly.  I want to help you change the way you think about clothes.  Will you work with me on this?”

“You know I can’t say no, Mom,” Jessie assented, but she was seething on the inside.  The Sergeant strikes again, she thought to herself.  Even when he’s not here, he’s controlling everything.  At least she would get some free clothes out of this deal.  If the Sergeant were running the wardrobe department personally, he’d probably make her wear a starched uniform – and pay for it herself.

The balance of the bread-making project passed in uncomfortable silence for Jessie, punctuated only by her mother’s occasional humming.  As soon as the dough was set to rise, Jessie made her excuses and took off for her favorite home-away-from-home, the mall.  There she found Izzie and some other friends hanging out.  The moment she appeared, Izzie immediately wrapped her in a sympathetic hug and began to tell the others what a terrible situation Jessie was in, with her beastly stepfather squeezing all fun from her life and even turning her own mother against her – “Just like Hubert Winslow on Grandshield!”

Up to this time, Jessie had exercised some restraint around her friends when talking about her parents.  Today, however, she felt the need – indeed the right – to let off a bit of steam, to take a vacation from being “good” and just tell somebody how she felt.  So she laid it on them.  The Sergeant was just that, a drill sergeant.  A controlling tyrant bent on bending everyone else to his will.  He had made her mother religious and uptight.  He had made her brother crazy.  He would never be happy until she herself was walking to church in an ankle-length black dress and singing Rock Of Ages with a pipe organ.  The more Jessie talked, the more they listened and sympathized.  The more they sympathized, the more she talked.

“The real problem,” Jessie finally concluded, “is that the guy is over forty and never had children, so we’re his only shot at validation.  He wants to be our ‘dad,’ and the only way he knows how to do that is make us his own private regiment, governed by his own private rules.  In a way I kind of feel sorry for him,” she added with contempt.

Having distributed her odious attitude among all her friends, Jessie was feeling a rebellious high.  “Let’s go do something fun,” she suggested.  “The cat’s away at my house.”

“Can’t have real fun while the sun’s up.”  The sinister observation had been made by Monica, who was a grade up from the rest of the girls and their acknowledged leader in worldliness and sophistication.  “But I do happen to have something in mind for tonight.”

“What?” they all chorused eagerly.

“You know Limelight 911 is premiering at the Cinema 12 at midnight,” she suggested slyly.  “Well, I have a friend who can totally get us in.”

The suggestion brought Jessie an exciting chill.  She had only a vague idea what the movie was about, but knew that even Izzie’s parents didn’t want her to see it.  As for the Sergeant and Mom, they would barely mention its name in polite conversation.  Which, in Jessie’s current frame of mind, was more than enough reason to go.

That night, Jessie waited until her mother was asleep, then sneaked out the back door.  Monica and the other girls picked her up, and they drove to the movie theater.  They watched the movie, or at least some of them did.  Jessie left so many different times on so many different excuses that she actually didn’t see much more than the credits.  Even that was more than she really wanted to see; the point was simply doing something forbidden.

She arrived back home after two, carefully locked the door behind her, tiptoed to bed, and then lay there a long time, sleepless in the quiet darkness.  She had completely gotten away with it.  She had trashed her parents to everyone, defied their rules, sneaked off, watched a bad movie, and sneaked back in without anyone seeing.  And she felt absolutely filthy about it.  Suddenly she found herself wishing wildly that she had gotten caught, wanting to see the Sergeant’s strong outline in the doorway growling, “Where have you been, young lady?”

But there was nothing.  Just Jessie, and her darkness.

11

Reach Up

It was a windy night at The Nest, as Sergeant Sparrow had “code-named” their campsite, and few things are more frightening for a sheltered city child than windy woods in rural darkness.  Katie had seldom cried in her young life, but tonight, lying on the ground with the forest closing in around her, she whimpered softly.  Up in their hammocks Daddy and the boys swayed, asleep, unaware.  How could they be so comfortable in those terrible things?  Soon she could take it no longer.

The Sergeant came awake to little hands pulling on the edge of his hammock.  He sleepily looked out at a teary-eyed Katie, who regarded him with anxious sobriety.  “I lied,” she confessed.  “I am scared.”

Silently, the Sergeant slid down off his hammock.  “It’s okay to be scared,” he assured her with an arm around her shoulders.  “I’m scared sometimes myself.”

“Really?  What do you do when you’re scared?”

“I talk to Jesus,” he told her.

“That won’t work for me,” she mourned.

“Why not?”

“’Cause Jesus only listens to Christians,” she sighed.

“Would you like to be a Christian?”

“I don’t think I understand it well enough.”

“Tell me what you do understand.”

“Okay....”  She thought for a moment.  “Jesus died on a cross,” she began carefully, “so we could go to heaven.  People who are going to heaven are Christians.  But I really don’t know why they needed Jesus to die.  Couldn’t he just take them there?”

“Only if they never did anything bad, their whole life long.”

“Oh.”

“You do know that you’ve done bad things, don’t you?”

She nodded.

“God can’t just forget about those, even if He wanted to.  It wouldn’t be right.  But Jesus can cover your sins with his Blood.  Then you’ll look perfect to God, even with all the sins you’ve done, and He’ll let you into heaven.  And, Jesus will be with you right now, and He’ll help you not be scared.”

She sighed again and bit her lip, thinking hard.

“Katie, Katie,” he said fondly.  “You want to figure everything out in that little brain of yours, even though you’re just nine.  But you don’t have to.  Think of it like this: A few minutes ago, you were lying on your own bed that you’d made on the ground, and you were scared and miserable.”

She nodded emphatically.

“That’s where we all are, lying on our own bed that we made of sins and fears.  But Jesus is there, up above all that, and if we’ll reach up, like you did with me, He’ll come down and pick us up, and we’ll be safe.  We don’t have to understand everything.  We just have to be sorry for our sins, and love Him, and want to follow Him.  Can you reach up to Jesus?”

Katie thought for a long time.  Then, undirected, she closed her eyes and stretched a hand out toward the starry sky.  “Please Jesus,” she said, “I’m sorry for the bad things I’ve done.  Please pick me up and help me not be scared and let me into heaven.  I want to follow You.”

Mr. Sparrow hugged her firmly.  “You’re the newest little sister in God’s family now,” he told her.  “Let me be the first to welcome you.”

She hugged him back and laughed in delighted wonder.  “Jesus did pick me up, didn’t He?”

“Yes, He did.”

They talked in quiet excitement for a long time, until finally Katie said with resolution, “I think I’d like to try the hammock again now.”

“You can have mine,” the Sergeant smiled, “and I’ll put yours up for me.”

Katie woke the next morning wondering how she could ever have thought this safe, comfortable hammock was a scary, swaying monstrosity.  Seeing that the sun was high, she tumbled eagerly from her bed and ran to the campfire pit, where creek-water oatmeal was boiling under the Sergeant’s watchful eye.  Nothing had ever looked and smelled so good.  She hung close to him all morning.

Shortly after ten o’clock, the Sergeant singled out Chris and Ben.  “Guys,” he asked, “are you up for a challenge?”  The way he said it made their eyes shine with excitement, and they nodded eagerly.

“I’m going to send you on a ‘mission,’” he told them.  “When I looked this place over last month, I hid two items in an ammunition box, somewhere in this area.  That ammunition box is your objective.  This pouch contains a set of directions which, if followed properly, will ultimately lead you there. Along the way, you’ll need to pick up the items on this list – ordinary things like certain plants and rocks – which you will present to me in order to complete the mission successfully.

“Over the past few weeks, you two have both been studying botany and orienteering.  You’ll need your botanic knowledge to locate and identify the items on the list, and your orienteering skills to follow the directions.  Now, this isn’t standard orienteering.  There’s no topo map, and you’ll find your control points using more than just a compass.  You’ll also be using logic and observational skills.  One stage will require a type of starlight navigation, so you will be gone overnight.”

He handed Chris a yellow GPS unit wrapped in packaging tape.  “This is in case you get lost.  Once you break the seal, however, the mission is aborted and you must return to camp.  Any questions?

“Okay then, I suggest you get your gear together and take off.  You have to complete the mission by tomorrow morning, and you’re going to need all the time between now and then.”

Real soldiers were never more pumped about a real assignment than were Ben and Chris about their unexpected quest.  They recklessly tore down and rolled up their hammocks, threw together a bag of food, laced on their hiking boots, and scrambled off into the woods with backpacks dangling.  Keeping one eye on the compass, they were carefully following the fifteen-degree course delineated in the first step of their instructions.

The Sergeant smiled as they vanished into the trees.

“Are you going to follow them?” asked a wide-eyed Moe.  “What if they fall in a hole, or get eaten by bears, or wander around in circles till they die?”

“I’ll tell you two a little secret,” the Sergeant replied with a mischievous grin.  “That GPS unit also has a transponder.  So while Chris and Ben can’t use it without breaking the seal and blowing the mission, I can use it to find them at any moment.  Do you think your mom would have agreed to this caper otherwise?”

“Probably not,” Moe admitted, chuckling with pleasure at being in on the secret.  “So what do we do now?”

“There’s a nice quiet swimming hole two hundred yards down the creek,” said the Sergeant.  “You did bring your swimsuits, didn’t you?”

“We did,” Moe replied, “but Katie gets really scared in deep water.”

“We can just stay in the shallows if you want.”

“That’s okay,” said Katie resolutely.  “I want to learn to swim in the deep water now.  Jesus will help me be more courageous.”

“You know something?” the Sergeant bent down and whispered in her ear, “That word is bigger than you are, but you’re right – He will help you be more courageous.”

12

The Epic Quest Of Chris And Ben

The sun was high, shortening the shade of the scrubby woods, which finally petered out altogether into fully exposed grassland.  Chris began to wish he had dressed in layers less cumbersome than his heavy long-sleeved shirt, which had seemed very cozy this morning.  The boys had been following their compass for the better part of an hour as they looked for the first landmark, “An Osage orange tree about 35 feet tall.”  Along the way, they had already found one of the required pick-up items, “any edible mushroom.”  Ben, who had spent much time studying foraging on the Internet, said it was a Half Free Morel – which made terribly good cooking.  Even though the list noted, in all caps, “DON’T TASTE IT, JUST BRING IT,” Chris had secretly filled his pockets in case they decided to bend the rules later.

“There’s the hedgeapple tree.”  Ben stopped and pointed to a tree just ahead, standing all by itself like a natural landmark.

Grateful for any reason to rest even for a moment, Chris sank to a nearby stump and surveyed the tree.  “I thought we were looking for an Osage orange tree.”

“It’s also called a hedgeapple, or a bodark” said Ben, impressing himself with his knowledge.  “You can spot it in any season by the gnarly wood and thorns on the branches.  People used to grow them like natural fences.”

“So, where are the oranges?” asked Chris.  “Or apples, or whatever.”

“The tree doesn’t produce fruit till later in the summer,” Ben told him.  “See the little blossoms, though?  About August, each of those will start developing into a wrinkly green orb.  By the time fall arrives, the fruit will be anywhere from the size of a golf ball to a tennis ball.  You don’t want to be standing under this tree in a strong October wind.”

Chris walked over and examined a blossom.   “Can you eat the fruit?”

“It wouldn’t necessarily make you sick to eat one, but you wouldn’t want to.  They smell nice, but they taste terrible.  Some people actually use hedgeapples for insect repellent.”

Poking himself on a thorny twig, Chris quickly lost interest and turned back to his compass.  “Forty degrees is that way,” he pointed.  “Let’s go.  Maybe we can find some better shade and have lunch.”

They walked along for about fifteen minutes, then suddenly stopped as a young whitetail buck burst noisily from the underbrush and bounded right across their path.  Gasping at their good fortune to see such a thing, the two friends congratulated each other with a high-five.  Then Chris abruptly paused.

“Ben,” he said urgently, “how tall did that hedgeapple tree look to you?”

“I guess I didn’t notice,” Ben shrugged.  “Why are you still thinking about that?”

“It’s been hanging in the back of my mind ever since we left the tree, and I think the shock of seeing that buck knocked it loose.  The directions said that the tree was thirty-five feet tall.  I didn’t really look that closely, but I wouldn’t have guessed that tree was an inch over twenty feet.”

Looking worried and a bit embarrassed, Ben scratched his head.  “Are you sure?”

“No,” Chris admitted.  “Anyway, it could be that the Sergeant is just lousy at estimating – or we are.  Why would he deliberately lead us across the wrong... oh.  He wants us to learn to follow directions, doesn’t he.  Oh my.”  Chris’s heart was pounding.  If they’d turned wrong at the tree, they’d lost fifteen minutes.  No, thirty!  He suddenly remember one of the Sergeant’s favorite sayings: A mistake costs you three times: First the time you waste making it, then the time you waste fixing it, then finally the time and trouble to do it over again right.

“Don’t panic,” Ben said.  “I know how we can figure it out without going back.  The directions also say that the tree is just over a mile from camp.”

“How does that help?”

“Because,” Ben told him slyly.  “I’ve got a handy-dandy pedometer strapped to my leg.  We can know exactly how far we’ve gone.”

“And we didn’t check that earlier because...?”

“Because I stupidly presumed we had the right tree,” Ben admitted.

Chris had to agree that he presumed it too.  “Well, check it already and let’s find out.”

“Chris, I don’t know to tell you this... it’s not working.”  As Chris stood in open-mouthed horror, Ben slipped the pedometer from his ankle and opened the back.  “I thought it felt lighter this morning!” he exclaimed as he stuck a finger into the empty battery compartment.  “Why that sly Army Ranger...  Look, he left a note: ‘Ben – Equipment failures are part of every mission.  Improvise. – The Sergeant.’  Oh man, we can’t improvise!  We can’t even find the right hedgeapple tree!”

“Well, we’re not going to find it standing here,” Chris observed doggedly.  “Let’s get back there as fast as we can and then continue along the same bearing.  From the length of time it took us to get there, I’d say we probably stopped just short of the real thing.  I just hope the Sergeant put some flat-tire time into this mission.”

“I’m sure he did,” Ben said, “since he kinda put the nails in the road, if you know what I mean.  I guess the pedometer wasn’t exactly fair, anyway.”

Feeling like Christian scouring the Hill Difficulty for his salvation scroll (the abridged Pilgrim’s Progress was free as an e-book too) Chris followed Ben as they loped and jogged back up the way they’d just come.  It seemed to take a frightfully long time, but they finally found the Osage orange tree again.  It certainly didn’t look thirty-five feet tall, but having just learned a lesson about assuming things, they decided to avoid repeating their mistake.  Ben stood next to the tree, and Chris backed off from him about fifty feet.  Then Chris opened his fingers at arm’s length to encompass Ben’s apparent height – which they knew to be a bit under six feet – and used the opening between his fingers as a sort of distance ruler to approximate the height of the tree, step by step.  The Sergeant had shown them this technique, he remembered now, with a utility pole (which was probably paying more attention than they were, Chris reproached himself).

The fingers told the story.  The tree was twenty-five feet tall at the most, and so couldn’t possibly be the right one.  They set off fifteen degrees north at a near run, and did indeed find the correct tree just a short distance beyond, another lone Osage orange measuring exactly thirty-five feet to its top.  By this time Chris was completely winded, so they stopped for lunch under its shade.

The next landmark, a mile further on, was more of a “mudmark.”  It was a dry – or rather very wet – creek bed.  All its water seemed to have been absorbed into goopy muck, which was now deep enough to lose the six-inch stick Chris tentatively inserted.  The mud they might have braved, but the directions forbade even that: “Find a way to cross,” the Sergeant had written, “without getting muddy.  There will be an inspection at the objective.”

“We’ve gone from the Hill Difficulty to the Swamp Of Despond,” Chris wailed.  “Does he want us to cut down trees and build a bridge?  I knew I should have brought my hatchet.”

“I did bring mine,” Ben said, “but we can’t possibly cut down a tree big enough to bridge this moat.  It’s twenty feet across.  Even if we found one already down, we’d never be able to move it.  And this mess extends who-knows-how-far in each direction.”

“Maybe he just wants us to take off our shoes and socks and roll up our pants, walk through, then put them back on on the other side.”

“I don’t think so – and I’m definitely not putting my socks back on over a layer of naturally-occurring rubber cement.  Wait.  I’ve got it!”  Ben suddenly snapped his fingers.  “Snowshoes!”

“In June?  Are you crazy?”

“No, it makes perfect sense.  We just need to find a few flat surfaces, and we’ll lay them across like stepping stones.”  He quickly glanced around.  “Look – there’s a dead log with the bark flaking off in sheets.  We can separate enough to use with my hatchet.  Come on!”

Chris wasn’t sure about the idea, but allowed Ben to lead the way as they formed five “snowshoes” from the decaying bark sheets.  To test the principle, Ben set one carefully on the muck nearest their shore, and tentatively placed a foot on it.  It held for a moment, then began to sink – but slowly.  He quickly withdrew his foot.  “It’s going to work,” he predicted excitedly, “but we have to go across really quickly on each step.  Just bounce like a tennis ball.”

“More like a medicine ball, in my case,” Chris observed glumly.  “Do I look like a ballerina to you?”  He weighed the risks mentally.  Chris had never been athletic, and he could just see himself fumbling a step as he tried to cross.  Ben, standing dry on the other side, would politely suppress a chuckle as his pudgy friend landed face-down in the muck with a giant SPLAT, then thoroughly coated himself with mud as he tried to scramble up.  At the “inspection,” Ben would get a medal and Chris would get put on K.P.  Yet what was the alternative?  Stand here looking dumb?  Go back to camp?  He made up his mind.

“I’ll do it, but only if you’ll cross first and carry the heavier pack.”

Ben agreed, even though he knew that the point man would carry a double risk: he would have to pause to place each new step.  “Might as well get on with it.”  Grinning gamely, Ben hoisted the pack and plopped the first step into the creek bed.  Not daring to look down, he jumped lightly on it, tossed the next stepping board out, and hopped to that one.  Chris couldn’t believe it, but the plan was working perfectly.  In twenty heart-pounding seconds, Ben was across.

“If I get through this with my natural skin color,” Chris told himself, “I promise to lose fifty pounds.”  Out on the first rapidly-sinking step, Chris remembered that Ben was only two-thirds his own weight, and that these flimsy bark fragments might already have been weakened from being walked over once.  He couldn’t turn back.  It was one heroic leap to the third step, then the fourth, then the fifth, and into the cheering arms of Ben, who suddenly found himself elevated to hero and genius.  They’d made it, and made it dry.

13

Aldebaran And False Morels

By the time the sun began to sink toward the west, Chris and Ben figured that they had walked about ten miles.  At least a third of that distance had been painfully unnecessary due to a lack of thoroughness and an abundance of tricky clues.  The walking itself had taken about half the day; the other half they’d spent on increasingly-frequent rest breaks.  “My legs hurt,” Chris announced, “from my ankle to about, um, my neck.”

“Me too,” Ben agreed.  “But the good news is, we’ve made it to the last daylight control point.”

“We have?”

“That’s a redbud tree,” Ben gestured, “even though it isn’t in bloom.  There’s a robin’s nest in it, and a patch of elderberries growing at its base.”

Chris collapsed on the ground in relief.  “I’m so tired, I would have walked right past it.  I can’t believe we actually managed to stay on the course and beat the sunset.  After that rough start, I didn’t think we could do it.”

“I really didn’t either,” Ben confided.  “But remember, we haven’t done it yet.  There’s still this star clue.”

“Read it to me again.”  Chris was back on his feet and starting to unpack his hammock, eager to get the task done while there was still light.

“At five-hundred hours, the constellation Taurus will rise in the east.  Look for Aldebaran in the constellation....”

“Al who?”

“Aldebaran.  It’s the brightest star in Taurus, the bull – one of the brightest in the whole night sky.  The Sergeant showed it to me the other day on a star chart.  Fortunately, I was listening on that occasion.  Anyway, he says, ‘Note its position on the horizon, which will be marked by a large tree.  The objective is on a straight line between your current position and that tree.  Starting out at sunrise, you should reach it with thirty minutes to spare.  You’ll know you’re there when you see a large hole in the hillside.’”

“Well, that sounds easy enough,” Chris said, “as long as you’re sure you know how to find Al whatever-it-is.  Let’s both set our watch alarms for five, in case one doesn’t work.”

“You mean four-thirty, don’t you?”

“Uh, yeah, of course.  But I’m afraid I’ll sleep right through, as tired as I am tonight.”

“I’m tying my watch around my forehead,” Ben said. “We cannot fail now.”

The boys were so bone-weary that making camp seemed like a monumental undertaking.  When they finally had a fire and two hammocks, they called it a camp and sat down to eat dinner.  At this point they began to regret the haste with which they had packed their food this morning.  There was very little of a substantial nature in the sack, just junk snacks like candy and granola bars.  Then Chris remembered his jacket pockets full of delicious morels, which he hastened to fetch.  “How do you cook these?” he asked Ben.

The other boy looked at the mushrooms for a long time, then slowly shook his head.  “You don’t,” he said with resolution, “unless they’ve been checked by an experienced mushroom hunter.  Remember the Sergeant’s note?  He didn’t write that just to practice his all-caps penmanship skills.  There are nasty little beasties out there called ‘false Morels.’   They look a lot like the real thing, but they can make you very sick – or worse.  Have another granola bar.”

“But I’m hungry, and I love fried mushrooms,” Chris grumbled.  “And we’ve got a fire and a pan and nothing to cook.  Aren’t you an experienced mushroom hunter?”

“I’m not.”  Ben shook his head as he munched on a handful of trail mix.  “In fact, this is the first time I’ve ever been camping.  All my know-how is of the Google variety, which is a world away from experience.”

“Your dad never took you camping out here?”

“Mom and Dad brought us out here occasionally to visit Nana – we didn’t call her Nana then; we called her Great Aunt Jessica.  What a mouthful.  Anyway, we mostly stuck to the little guest house or visited Nana and Uncle Leo, or helped in the garden.  Dad was a lawyer, not an outdoorsman.”

“Your dad was a lawyer?  Then why...?”

“Why are we so poor?” Ben finished for him.  “Yeah, good question.  When Mom and Dad died in the accident, his will made Great Aunt Jessica my guardian.  Unfortunately, it also made Uncle Alex his executor, and gave him way too much discretion over distributing the assets.  Dad wrote the will many years before, when he and Uncle Alex were close.  After that, Uncle Alex married Aunt Tess, and he really changed, almost like he was another person.

“By the time Dad died, Uncle Alex was barely speaking to him.  I guess he never thought to change the will; he never really thought anything would happen to both him and Mom.  Of course, no one does.  But if something ever did, their primary concern was for what would happen to us.”

“You keep saying us and we. Who’s us?”

“I had a brother,” Ben said quietly.  “He died in the wreck too.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah.  Anyway, between Uncle Alex, his wife, and the other relatives, there was a sort of feeding frenzy, and all the money and stocks and interest in the law firm somehow disappeared.”

“What about the house?”

“Dad was upside-down in the house since the market tanked.”

“That means he owed way more money than the house was worth, right?”

“Right.  He was still making payments faithfully just out of integrity, but Uncle Alex decided it made more business sense to seize the opportunity of walking away.  So he talked the others into intentionally defaulting.  Everything else, they split up.  I was doing good to keep my bed, bike, and childhood mementos.  Apart from that, the only thing they couldn’t wriggle out of was my college trust and a monthly support allowance of two hundred and fifty dollars.”

“That’s a ripoff,” Chris exclaimed irately.  “It stinks.  Did you fight it in court?”

“Believe me, I would have liked to, but Nana wouldn’t do it.  She said that there are things more important than money.”

“Maybe, but I’d sure like to have had the money too, if I were you.  What good did it do to let a bunch of greedy relatives make off with it?”

“Actually quite a bit,” Ben told him, “if you count bringing the family together in the good column.”

“What, together to divvy up the loot?”

“No,” Ben laughed.  “They all feel kind of bad – rightly so – about the way they ripped us off.  So they come around pretty regularly to visit, and take us to dinner, and generally act like they care about us.”

“I wouldn’t let them in the house, the creeps.  What’s a few dinners against the money they stole from you?”

“Nothing,” Ben agreed.  “But as Nana says, it’s not what they can do for us.  She’s glad to have them around because it gives us a chance to show them Jesus.”

“Show them Jesus?  What, a picture?”

“Yeah, exactly – a picture.  And we’re it.  You know, Chris, people don’t care what you say; they care how you live, and particularly how you treat them.  And Nana says that the most crucial situations for our witness are the ones that involve money.  The estate case in our favor was really strong, and a high-priced lawyer actually contacted Nana and offered to litigate the whole thing for twenty percent, with no up-front cost.  The relatives know this, and they also know that she turned him down.  I think some of them are still wondering why, and others are beginning to understand the answer.  The Bible says that it’s better to let yourself get ripped off than to get dragged into a dispute fighting for your rights.  It took me a long time to accept that, and I still struggle with it, but deep down, I’m glad Nana handled it the way she did.  She’s right; money is not the most important thing – obeying God is.”

“Ben, since we’re talking about this, I’ve got something I want to ask you.”

Ben brushed off the crumbs and sat up on his hammock, suddenly looking older in the dancing campfire shadows.  “Shoot.”

“Does there have to be a particular time,” Chris asked carefully, “when you become a Christian, or can you just sort of slide into it?”

Ben cocked his head curiously.  “Why do you ask?”

“Because,” Chris continued, “I’ve been reading the Bible for a lot of weeks now, and doing devotions with Mom and the Sergeant, and even praying by myself sometimes.  And I’ve bought it.  I believe the story of Jesus, that He rose from the dead and all, and I’ve been trying to do what the Book says.  I’m just wondering, though, does that make me a Christian?  Or do I need to pray some particular words?”

“This is really a better question for the Sergeant or Nana,” Ben replied, licking his lips, “but I’ll answer you best I can.  The Bible says that you ‘believe unto righteousness’ with your heart.  You’ve done that, I think.  You believe the story of Jesus, and you’re trying to follow Him and walk in righteousness.”

Chris nodded.

“But the last part of that verse says, ‘with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.’  In this case it’s talking about confessing that you believe in Jesus, not confessing your sins, but you need to do that too.”

Chris went wide-eyed.  “Like, everything I’ve ever done wrong?”

“Just the key points, and the overall fact that you realize you’re a sinner who can’t possibly save yourself.  The Holy Spirit will point out your specific sins later.”

“What, the Holy Spirit?  Like at Pentecost, with the healings and gifts and stuff?”

“The same.  But He doesn’t just give us healings and gifts.  In fact, those are side benefits.  The Holy Spirit’s main job is to make us holy like Jesus is.  And He does this by pointing out our sins in what’s called ‘conviction.’  Then, if we confess that He’s right and we’re guilty, the Blood of Jesus washes the sins away.  And the Holy Spirit helps us get victory over that sin so we don’t keep doing it over and over again.”

“I see.”  Chris gulped at the unforeseen ramifications of the Christian life.  “So, back to whether or not I need to pray a particular prayer?”

“The Bible doesn’t say you have to pray a particular prayer, but it does say that you need to ‘call on the name of the Lord’ in addition to confessing your sins and affirming your belief in Jesus.”

“And I can do this anytime, like by myself in the woods?”

“Sure.  But it’s better to do it with somebody else, so you’ll have a witness.”

Chris thought for a moment.  “I don’t have to understand everything, right?”

“Right.”

“Okay.”  He stood up, suddenly no longer feeling tired.  “I want to do it now.”

Ben gulped in slightly-veiled shock.  “Okay,” he stammered.  “Right now.  Good.  Okay, let’s kneel down, and you go ahead and pray.”

I won’t know what to say, Chris thought to himself as they knelt.  I’ll look like an idiot.  Oh well, God knows I’m an idiot, so Ben might as well too.  Here we go.  Chris opened his mouth without even an idea of which word he should say first.  “Dear God,” he began, “I want to be saved, please.  I’ve done a lot of bad things.  I wasn’t a good son to Dad.”  Chris stopped suddenly, wondering why he had said that.  Yet it was true, he realized.  He had been quite a handful to his father in the few years they’d had together.

“I’ve been rebellious against Mom too,” he admitted, “and teachers, and other people in charge.  I’ve told lies, and enjoyed violent games, and just pretty much failed to take any responsibility for my own life.  And more than any of that, I’ve spent my life feeling sorry for myself because I’m short and fat and unpopular, instead of being grateful to You for all the good things I have.”  Chris had no idea where all these thoughts were coming from, and wondered if perhaps the Holy Spirit already had that “conviction” thing going on.  “Please forgive me,” he finished, “and wash away my sins with the Blood of Jesus, and send the Holy Spirit to make me different.  Thank You.  In Jesus’ Name, amen.”

“Amen,” Ben repeated.  “Thank You, Lord, for drawing Chris to Yourself, and please let him feel your Presence in his life now that he has chosen to follow You.”

After a few moments, they looked up at one another, each unsure if the other had something else to add.  “How do you feel?” Ben asked.

“About the same,” Chris said thoughtfully.  “But somehow, not the same.”

14

The Objective

“Time to get up.”  The Sergeant’s voice called softly to the twins in their hammocks.  Without the older boys around, he didn’t feel like putting on the tough drill sergeant act.

“It’s early,” observed a bright-eyed Moe as he popped up and into his socks.

“It’s actually just dawn,” the Sergeant said.  “After a quick breakfast, we’re going to go meet your brother and Ben, who should be arriving at the objective in about an hour and a half.”

“How are we going to beat them there?” asked Katie.

The Sergeant grinned mischievously.  “Easily,” he said.  “You see, the objective is about a hundred yards away, over that hill.”

Katie’s mouth dropped open.  “You led them in circles?”

“What did you expect?” the Sergeant shrugged.  “I had to keep them on this property or that of friendly neighbors.  You couldn’t get a good hike out of that area if you walked one end to the other.  Besides, this way we don’t have to do a bunch of walking ourselves!”

The sun was just up as they topped the hill and descended downward once more.  There, in the base of the hill, was the objective – a yawning hole.  “A cave!”  Moe clapped his hands.  “Are there bats?”

Katie drew back at that, but relaxed once her stepfather assured them there were no bats.  She’d had a great time swimming in the deep water yesterday, but this “courageous” thing could be taken too far.

“You want to go in and look?” the Sergeant asked.  They followed him eagerly as he switched on a bright LED flashlight.  “Now, Moe,” he said as they explored, “I hope I can count on you to be a really good sport today.  The objective involves a sort of prize for your brother and Ben, but keep in mind that they’ve worked hard to earn it.  Can you just be happy for them?”

“I guess so,” Moe nodded, “as long as the prize isn’t a flying model rocket.  I know that ammunition box is too short for a .22 rifle.  It would take something like that to make me jealous, I guess.”

“Well, none of you is getting a rifle, regardless,” the Sergeant said.  “As for the rocket, maybe we’ll see about that sometime.”

From out in the trees, they heard approaching footsteps.  “Let’s step aside and let them find it before we get together,” the Sergeant suggested, and they hid behind a large rock formation near the mouth of the cave.  It seemed to take a long time for the circling footsteps to zero in on their target, but finally shadows appeared at the door, then the boys themselves, checking their watches as they rushed to claim the prize with whoops of unbridled glee.

After rejoicing – and looking around to see if the Sergeant had arrived – they decided to go ahead and open the box.  Ben lifted the lid with high anticipation.  There, carefully wrapped in tissue paper, were two Army-issue black berets.

“Congratulations, troops.”

Hearing the Sergeant’s voice, the two almost stood to attention.

“I’ve been tracking you on GPS,” he informed them.  “Frankly, when you took the bait so quick on that first hedgeapple tree, I thought we’d end up having to call search and rescue to pull you out of a bog somewhere.  But you recovered – you made it – and I’m really proud of you.”

“Are these real Army hats?” Chris asked.

“Yes, they are,” the Sergeant told him.  “Those are the berets that, up until ten years ago, only Army Rangers could wear.  Now what you’ve just gone through is not really like the Army Rangers training and selection, but for a couple of city boys, it ain’t exactly a picnic either.  I want these berets to be a reminder for you that you can do more than you think you can.  I also want them to be a reminder that in order to reach your destination, you always need to follow directions exactly.”

“I’m afraid I almost didn’t,” Chris confessed bravely.  “I wanted to eat the mushrooms, but Ben stopped me.”

“The mushrooms,” the Sergeant repeated.  “Oh yes, that reminds me.  I’ll need to see the specimens you gathered before we formally present the award.”

Ben put down the box and carefully counted out the plants and rocks on the Sergeant’s list.  Mr. Sparrow was smiling until they came to the Morel mushroom, which he examined and smelled closely.  “It’s a good thing you talked him out of eating this,” he told Ben.  “That’s a Wrinkled Thimble, not a Half Free Morel.  It takes an experienced eye to tell the difference, but if you’d eaten several of these, you probably wouldn’t have been getting out of your hammock this morning.  Unless you fell out.”

“Oh.”  Chris and Ben hung their heads.  “So we failed?”

“We’re going to call this mission a go,” the Sergeant assured him.  “The mushroom mistake anyone could make, and Chris owned up about his near-violation of orders.  And, you’re both relatively clean, so I guess you figured out how to get through the mudbank.  So, hand me those berets and stand to attention.”

Chris Rivera and Ben Naylor couldn’t have been more awed and honored if they had been receiving a medal.  Sore muscles and sunburn were nothing compared to the thrill of a challenging mission accomplished.  They both knew that, whatever they might try to do in their lives, they wanted to end it this way – looking back, pass or fail, and knowing that they did their best to follow the directions.

The remaining two days of the camping trip were spent in total relaxation, with the Sergeant taking care of everything and guiding them from one fun activity to another.  By Day Four, Ben and Chris had agreed that they wanted to stay forever, and they should send back to the city for Mom.  And Jessie, Chris added reluctantly, should she want to join them.

The last night out, Mr. Sparrow was reading in his hammock at twilight when he overheard the twins talking behind a nearby tree.

“I’ve asked Jesus into my heart,” Katie told Moe in a matter-of-fact tone, “so you need to do it too.  Otherwise, you won’t go to heaven, and I’d miss you a lot.”

Together they prayed a prayer that only nine-year-olds could have thought up.  The Sergeant followed with a quiet “amen.”  To have all three of the kids make such spiritual progress on this trip was more than he could ever have hoped.  Lying there in his hammock under the Milky Way, Sergeant Sparrow prayed a little prayer of his own, a prayer of thanks to the Maker of everything beautiful and wonderful.

The next day, they drove back to the city.

15

The Summer Of
Fence-Sitting

Summer in Reliance was hot, too hot to do anything outside except look for some place with air conditioning.  Even the Sergeant moved his daily run to the relatively cool darkness of 5 AM – and Chris actually got out of bed on his own initiative to join him, every single day.  Jessie could barely recognize her brother anymore.  He’d come home from camp not only a hot-stamped Bible-thumper in mind, but also five pounds lighter in body.  He was obviously determined to maintain both changes.  The daily run – which must be torture, she thought, for a recovering butterball pursuing an Army Ranger – was followed by a shower and then a quiet period “in the Word” for each of them.  Jessie knew about this morning routine only because she had been up with a sore throat around that time one night, and had encountered them while looking for the aspirin gum.  She couldn’t see what was the good of summer if you didn’t sleep till at least nine most of the time.  Like there was anything to do once you got up, anyway.

In desperation to pass the time, Jessie signed up for summer school, but even that was over all too soon.  She spent part of each day hanging out with her girlfriends at the mall or a restaurant, and the balance of it at the house, mostly surfing the Internet in her room.  Even this option vanished soon enough, as the Sergeant turned off the family WiFi and announced that all the kids’ Internet access would go through one shared computer, which he set up in a little nook next to the main living area.  Having all her online activities in full view of the whole family left Jessie with almost nothing she wanted to do on the Internet (which in itself might have told her something about the things she was doing before).  She wasted a little time on Facebook each day just out of habit, but there was only so much a bunch of friends could do on the Internet when they saw each other daily anyway.

Finally, Jessie got bored enough to learn the rules of Catan, and discovered that the boys weren’t actually crazy for liking it after all.  The Sergeant got them the six-person expansion pack, and the whole family would play together, with Ben frequently standing in for whatever player had another commitment.  Sometimes Mrs. Scroggins would even come over with him, and she and Mom would have a fine time cooking in the Sparrow kitchen, aided by an always-willing Katie.  Occasionally Jessie herself would pitch in as well, though ever watchful for more bombshell lectures.

On the subject of the last bombshell lecture, Jessie had to admit that the new outfits she and Mom had bought were more than okay.  She had assumed, wrongly, that when Mom said “modest,” she was thinking “dresses,” probably in dull colors.  While Mom herself often wore a skirt these days, she apparently realized that such attire might be too much for her teenage daughter.  She did hopefully toss a skirt or two into the bags, but mostly those bags were filled with normal-looking outfits, clean-cut and properly fitting.

Rather than becoming an object of ridicule for her new “Puritan” standards, Jessie got compliments every day on how good she looked.  Other girls were even starting to imitate her style, buying some of the same outfits and thus unintentionally becoming more modest themselves.  No one ever guessed the story behind Jessie’s new wardrobe, and naturally, Jessie never told them.  Actually, she didn’t tell them much of anything these days about her family, good or bad, for fear she’d remind them of last spring’s tirade.  She heartily wished that whole day had never happened.

Mom and the Sergeant established two new weekly occasions, “Boys’ Night” on Tuesday, and “Girls’ Night” on Thursday.  The activities were pretty much what one would expect from the names.  First the Sergeant took Moe, Chris, and usually Ben to do something manly like archery, laser tag, or Frisbee golf.  Then on Thursday, Mom took Jessie and Katie out for more feminine activities, such as a fancy restaurant dinner, shopping, or a movie.  When the girls’ group stayed home, they would randomly select a project that the guys would normally handle and try to do it themselves.  The guys, likewise, would cook for themselves on Girls’ Night and then try to clean up the kitchen.  The results were sometimes ghastly but always unpredictable – which is what made it fun.

Katie enjoyed Girls’ Night, but she was never really happy getting left out of Boys’ Night either, and half the time managed to charm her way into their group as well.  Finally the Sergeant gave up and added “Family Night” on Saturday, which seemed the most fun to everyone no matter what they ended up doing.  Even Jessie had to admit to having a certain degree of fun.

The family took one more major trip that summer, to Cincinnati, Ohio.  What was in Cincinnati?  Why the Creation Museum, of course – a Mecca for Bible nuts like the Sergeant and his platoon.  Mom wanted to go this time, which saved Jessie from making what would have been a hard choice: Stay home and enjoy her “freedom,” or admit that she really wanted to go with them.  The trip was a lot of fun, even though Jessie had no interest in science and couldn’t have cared less whether Evolution really happened.  The exhibits were cute and the people friendly, and an artist in the lobby drew hilarious caricatures of everyone in the group.  Just getting out of the city was in itself a welcome relief.

When they returned from Ohio, Jessie was surprised to find that only two weeks of summer remained.  It had been quick and even enjoyable, once she got over being afraid of the Sergeant’s domination and started participating.  She had even shown up for devotions once or twice, and actually found the discussion interesting.

Yet, in a way, this fun and togetherness made Jessie feel even worse than the boredom had.  She felt that she was standing with one foot in the old “free” life, and one tentatively in the new one the others had found.  Clearly they were happy with it, and she could be too – for awhile, to pass the time.  But fall was coming; school would resume.  Life would resume.  In three short years, she would be heading to college.  She knew she would not be taking a Bible with her, or seeking the family’s approval then.  It felt wrong to be soaking up their loving fellowship now.

Every time they laughed together, she could hear herself snidely dissing the Sergeant to her friends, see herself slipping out the back door like some juvenile delinquent.  In short, Jessie had a bad case of darkness, hypocrisy, and a guilty conscience.  The more she dwelt on it, the more miserable she felt.

One night the Sergeant announced a “family meeting” – not Jessie’s favorite occasion, as it generally meant a new rule.  But she should be used to it by now, she reminded herself.  Meetings like this had taken away her nightlife, her cell phone, her allowance, her wardrobe, and finally her Internet access.  These bitter thoughts brought the old attitudes back to the surface, making her feel hard and distant.  The Sergeant needn’t think she was now a doormat, just because she’d played a few games with them and listened to him read the Bible.  Soon school would start, and his radical summer program would be over.

“Kids,” the Sergeant began as if picking the thoughts from her mind, “we need to talk about school.”

Jessie sat up straight.  She knew what he was going to say, just as certainly as if the words had already left his mouth.  And she also knew that the time had come to fall on one side of the fence or the other.

“This week,” he continued, “your Mom and I picked up copies of some textbooks and required reading material on your lists from school.  After reading this... this garbage, all we can say is, we’re sorry for what you’ve been exposed to in public school all your lives.  We’ve talked about it, and we’ve decided to start a little homeschool.”

“Yee-es!”  Moe almost jumped from his chair.  He absolutely dreaded school, and everyone knew it.  “Yes!  Yes!  Yes!”

“Now keep your shoelaces together,” the Sergeant cautioned.  “This isn’t going to be a cupcake school.  We’re going to have a similar day schedule to what you’re used to, and if anything, you’ll have to work harder than before to keep up.”

“We know,” Chris grinned.  “The only easy day was yesterday.”

“It’s no joke,” the Sergeant insisted.  “Your Mom was trained as a teacher, though marrying your dad kept her out of an actual classroom.  I will be acting as principal, and you know what that means!”  He gave his signature glare.  “Oh, but did I mention?  Ben’s coming to have school with us, and Mrs. Scroggins has agreed to come and help out with the house while your mom’s busy teaching!”

At this the whole room erupted with glee – except for Jessie.  She waited until they were quiet, and then she threw down the gauntlet.  “Do I have a choice about this?”  Her arms were folded and her eyes burning.  In the back of her mind, Jessie was already going over desperate options.  It couldn’t be legal for parents to just pull their kids out of school against their will.  Even if it was, she could surely make vast trouble for the Sergeant just by telling some social worker the exact truth.  Jessie was almost shocked by the way such a wicked plan suggested itself to her, but she accepted it as her own immediately.  It was all she had to fight with.

“Sure you have a choice.”

For a moment Jessie thought she hadn’t heard him right.  Then she felt stupid and ashamed, like when you maul an intruder in a dream and he suddenly turns into your best friend.

“Jessie dear,” her mother took up sadly, “we could make you sit at a desk in this house, but it wouldn’t be fair to your siblings.  They want to be sheltered and safe here at home, away from a system that excludes God and attacks Christian values.  If you want that too, you’re welcome to it – but you have to want it.”

“If you don’t,” the Sergeant said, “you can board that school bus and get the best education you can find.  It’s your decision.”

“Wonderful.”  Jessie smiled through glassy eyes, almost dizzy from what appeared to be the sudden return of her freedom.  “I guess everybody wins, then, huh?”

“Yeah, especially us.”  Chris’s voice was barely audible, but Jessie heard him clearly.

16

Dear Grandma

Grandma Stortz normally visited the Riveras twice during the summer – once at the beginning, and once at the end.  This was the only convenient time of year for her, as she was a full-time teacher, and busy with other grandchildren during the major holidays.  In her June visit, the first thing she wanted to do was analyze the children’s report cards from the previous year.  In August, her first stop was the school, to look over their upcoming classes and work.  Because of this near-obsession with academic achievement, it was obvious to everyone that Grandma’s next visit would not be nearly as pleasant as her last.  To avoid an explosion in person, Mom had already informed her by phone that the family, except for Jessie, had decided to start homeschooling.  Her reaction was predictable.

There was a family meeting the night before.  Jessie didn’t come.  For the first time, no one invited her.  She knew what they were saying, anyway, plotting their strategy to present a lovely picture to Grandma.  Jessie knew she could screw that up nicely if she wanted, but decided instead to be on her best irreproachable behavior.  After all, she already had what she wanted – she was starting back to public school in less than a week, and next summer was a blessed eternity away.

When Grandma arrived the next day, they all turned out to greet her in the living room.  Pointedly, she headed straight to the one “sane” member of the family – Jessie – and hugged her fiercely.  The little ones got a hug too, as they were too young to help themselves.  To Chris she gave a curious look, and to Mom, her youngest daughter, a glare that could stun an elephant.  She didn’t look at the Sergeant at all, and only spoke the vaguest reply when he greeted her.  This was definitely not going to be good.

The children were dismissed as the three grownups squared off in the living room.  Sitting upstairs, Jessie decided to do something she had never done before.  She sneaked out in the hall to eavesdrop.

“The children seem quiet enough,” she heard Grandma observe.  Jessie recognized that condescending tone; she had used it herself.  “What do you do?” continued Grandma, unable to hide the biting edge.  “Beat them?”

The room went silent for a moment.  Jessie had never heard another adult confront her stepfather before, and wondered how he would react.

“By the way....”  His voice was pleasant, almost casual, as he bypassed the challenge.  “That black eye Chris had last spring?  I don’t recall you ever asked about it.”

“Boys get black eyes.”  Jessie could almost hear her shrugging.  “Unless, of course, you did it to him?”

“He got that black eye,” the Sergeant told her, “from two fellow students, on his way home from school.”

Another pause.  “I trust something happened to those students as a result?”

“Yes it did,” the Sergeant answered.  “They were expelled.  Chris’s eye was still black, though.  And if another student hadn’t intervened to save him, I expect his arm and a few other things would still be broken too.  So no, I haven’t touched any of your grandchildren.  On the contrary, I’m trying to take them out of a system that puts them in real danger.”

“I’ve given my life to the public school system,” Grandma sniffed irately.  “I don’t appreciate you speaking of it as if it were something evil.”

“Schools and teachers are one thing,” the Sergeant allowed.  “The system is another.  Many teachers are very dedicated, wonderful people, and some public schools are still reasonable places.  Ultimately, though, the whole system emanates from the Government, and its core philosophy is dominated by a God-denying humanist worldview.  It confiscates our kids from our homes, and teaches them things we wouldn’t mention in polite conversation – let alone lay down as life principles.  We don’t want our kids exposed to that kind of influence anymore, or to the physical dangers inherent to a situation like that of public school.”

“You’re a little new at this to be calling them yours....”

“I’m not, Mother,” put in Mrs. Sparrow.  “And I agree with everything Glenn just said.”

“Now you would, wouldn’t you?  There’s a name for that kind of agreement, I think you know....”

Back and forth they went, with Grandma’s tone rising at every exchange.  On the other side, the Sergeant’s steady voice was occasionally supplemented by an entreaty from his wife to her mother.  But soon, words like “legal rights” and “truancy” were echoing through the house.  Deciding she’d heard enough, Jessie went back to her room.  It was amazing how much uglier those threats sounded coming from someone else’s mouth, than they had going around in Jessie’s head the other night.  Just hearing them spoken aloud made her feel insecure.

Suddenly the bedroom door opened, and in swept her grandmother, cheeks still pulsing red with fury.  “I’m leaving now,” she said with a visible effort to shift back into nice-mode, “but I didn’t want to go without saying goodbye to you, dear.  Hold it steady.”  Again that rather possessive hug.  “Whatever you need, I’m there for you.  Now listen, my cell phone number is 721-1941.”

Jessie automatically reached for a pencil.

“No need to write it down.”  Grandma glanced back furtively at the closed bedroom door.  “You’re a smart girl, and you can remember it – 721-1941.  If you turn the first three numbers around, that’s the date of Pearl Harbor.  Say it to yourself a couple of times and you’ll have it.  Goodbye, dear – I’ll stop by your school sometime.”

Then she was gone, leaving Jessie wondering why Grandma wouldn’t let her write down the number, and how far she would go to carry out those threats.  She also wondered what “Pearl Harbor” was.

That night, the Sergeant called yet another family meeting, and this time Jessie was asked to be there.  “You kids need to know what the situation is,” said Mr. Sparrow with a sober look.  “When your grandmother was here today, she threatened to do some things, and those things could potentially have some effect on us.  In particular, I think she’s going to send someone from the county to pay us a visit, probably after the school year starts.”

“You mean Child Protective Services?” Chris asked with a mixture of contempt and dread.

“Something like that.  Now, I want you all to remember that we have done nothing wrong and we have nothing to be ashamed of.  This person from the county will probably show up unannounced, but I don’t want you to be scared or act guarded.  Just speak when spoken to and answer questions honestly.  Do not, however, do anything that they ask you to do, unless Mom or I say that it’s okay.  In this house, we are in charge, not them.

“Also, Chris and Jessie, if you answer the door for this person, do not let them in the house.  Regardless of what they say, they have no right to enter our home without our permission.”

The Sergeant fell silent, as he realized that Katie was crying.  Mom drew her into her lap and asked her what was wrong.  “I’m not being very courageous,” she confessed, upset with herself.  “But I’m just scared they’ll take us away or something.”

“I’m scared too,” Moe admitted.  “I’ve heard stories.”

“No one’s going to take you away,” Mom assured them.  “Jesus won’t let them.”

“That’s right,” the Sergeant agreed.  “Let’s learn a Bible verse tonight.”  He thumbed through to Hebrews 13 and read, “The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me.”  He had the twins say it together with him to learn it, and then he said he wanted to tell them a story about the war.  Fright momentarily forgotten, they scooched up next to him on the couch expectantly.

“It was in Iraq,” he began, “during the invasion.  Part of my unit, just three guys and me, got separated and cut off by a large number of Saddam’s Republican Guards.  They had two tanks.  We had nothing but a shallow hole in the ground and a half day’s supply of ammunition.  To all appearances, we were in a desperate, desperate fix.  But we really weren’t all that scared.  Do you know why?”

“Because you’re brave,” Katie admired.

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” the Sergeant chuckled, “but I don’t think anybody’s that brave.  We weren’t scared, because we knew something the Guards didn’t.  There was somebody backing us up, and they had no idea he was there.”

“Was it an angel?” asked Moe, wide-eyed.

“It sure seemed like one at the time,” the Sergeant said.  “It was the biggest, blackest, most beautiful Apache helicopter you ever saw in your life.”

Moe looked even more impressed than he had been with the thought of an angel.  “And it flew you away to safety,” he prompted.

“No,” said the Sergeant, “the Apache is a gunship – made to attack, not rescue.  In this case, it was made to defend.  The pilot hovered behind some trees where he’d be safe from ground-based Stinger missiles.  When the enemy tried to attack and overrun our position, we radioed him and up he popped.  The chopper blasted the enemy infantry with machinegun fire, and destroyed both tanks with missiles.  The Guards all ran away in confusion, and we just stayed in our hole and never had to fire a shot.”

“That’s like Jesus being our helper and protecting us,” Katie observed, proud of herself for discerning the moral.

“You’re right,” the Sergeant agreed.  “But instead of calling Him in with a radio, we pray to Him.  And don’t get me wrong; He doesn’t always blast our enemies or fly us away to safety – but He is always with us, hovering right there above the trees, watching and listening for our call.  Even when bad things happen, we know that they only happen by his permission.  So, He must be allowing those bad things in order to do something really good for us in the long term, because He loves us so much.  Shall we commit this situation to Him right now?”

As they bowed their heads, Jessie slipped quietly from the room.  She wasn’t a part of this.

17

Turnaround

Preparation for homeschool had already been going on for two weeks, and not even the threat of what Grandma might do could spoil the excitement.  One large room downstairs, formerly a TV den, had been converted into a classroom.  There were two long tables, one for Moe and Katie and one for the boys, plus a large desk for the teacher.  Along one wall was a deep shelf with slide-out totes for the new books and school supplies the Sparrows had been stockpiling.  All of these totes were conspicuously taped shut until the first morning.  The wall decorations, assembled and painted by the two ladies during some very late nights at their respective houses, were similarly covered with newspapers until the big day.  Moe and Katie were as excited as if it had been Christmas and not just the first day of school.  They were up at six that morning, even though classes didn’t officially open till eight.

Jessie had to leave at seven-thirty in order to make her own starting bell.  This meant she wouldn’t get to see their faces, she noted regretfully, when they finally got a look at their new school in all its glory.  Actually she was a bit curious herself, and would have to invent an excuse to stop by that room later in the day.

After a quick breakfast, Jessie slipped from the house without fanfare.  She wanted this day to seem as normal as possible, even though it was coldly weird to be getting out her bike and rolling down the driveway all alone.  Get used to it, she coached herself.  You chose it.

The world seemed bigger this morning, more frightening.  Reliance High School, as she pedaled up to the bike rack, was suddenly larger and further away from home.  Her friends, beckoning to her from across the commons, were so shallow and empty.  They spent all their time trying to impress each other over things that weren’t really important to any of them.  They were only in school at all because they wanted to get into college later.  Once at college, they’d only be interested in parties and good times, and they’d hope to land either a rich husband or a cushy high-paying job when they got out.  Vividly she could see herself right in there with them, chasing the wind till middle age deflated their sails.  There had to be something more.  Indeed there was, and Jessie knew it, but it wasn’t here at the fountain of knowledge her grandmother esteemed so highly.

She couldn’t do it.

At first, Jessie’s friends thought she must have forgotten something at home.  But then, when she missed the tardy bell, they began to wonder what had happened when she suddenly pulled her bike from the rack and pedaled away.  By the end of the day, some of them had the strange feeling she wouldn’t be back.  They were right.

There was something Jessie Rivera had to do, that she’d needed to do for months, and it couldn’t wait any longer.  It could barely wait the five minutes it took her to ride home.  It had to happen now, before she thought about it and changed her mind.  Years ago, Jessie had learned to swim using the most basic method possible.  She’d simply forced herself to walk to the edge and step off.  There were some things you just had to do, without thinking any further.

Jessie spun down the driveway and ditched her bike with a reckless crash, then stopped.  There was an unusual car on the street, and its owner, a nicely-suited lady, was walking up to the Sparrows’ front door.  She turned and saw Jessie.  “Hi, I’m Alyssa.  What’s your name?”

“I’m Jessie.”  Boldly, she walked up to the stranger.  “You’re from the county, aren’t you?”

“Why, yes.  I’m here to make sure everything is okay.”

“Everything is absolutely fine,” Jessie smiled with conviction.  “I believe you’re here because my grandma called you.  You should know that she has a personal problem with my stepfather.  If you’ve been told there is anything wrong or improper here, you have been misinformed.”

“Why aren’t you at school today?” Alyssa asked.

“We homeschool.”  That word, coming out of her mouth with a “we,” felt strangely and marvelously comforting.

With a bemused smile, the social worker proceeded to ring the doorbell.  Jessie could imagine the scene of restrained panic inside as someone was chosen to answer the door.  Without thinking, she found herself actually praying that everything would be okay, and wondering with a pang if her aggressive approach had been wrong.

The front door opened slowly and Mom’s face appeared.  She first regarded Jessie with wide-eyed surprise, then moved to the social worker.  As she did so, her expression turned to pure shock.  “Alyssa?”

“Crystal?” said the other woman.  “Oh my.  I had no idea you were remarried.  I am so sorry... but I have my job here.  Would it be okay if I came in for a minute?”

“Of course!”  Jessie’s mother scrambled to open the screen door.  “I want you to come in and meet my husband and my good friend Jessica Scroggins.  I see you’ve already met the other Jessica, my little Jessie.”

“I actually met Jessie ten years ago,” said Alyssa.  “In the bookstore, remember?”

“That’s right,” Mom recalled as she led the intruder-turned-guest downstairs to the classroom.  “Family,” she introduced her triumphantly, “this is Alyssa, my friend from college.  We did our student teaching together.  She has now changed careers and is, um, employed by the county.”

Mrs. Sparrow introduced her friend to the Sergeant and all the family.  Then they showed her the school curriculum and let her talk to each of the kids one-on-one.  All the time everyone was half-distracted by the miracle, and half wondering what Jessie was doing there.

“I just apologize so much for breaking in on you folks,” Alyssa repeated several times as she finally retreated from the house.  “We had a report that looks absolutely nothing like what I’m seeing here.

“And it was so good to see you,” she added as she gave Mrs. Sparrow a warm hug.  “We need to get together sometime on a more... personal basis.  And let me know,” she called over her shoulder in parting, “if you ever need a biology teacher!”

The door clicked shut behind her, and the Sergeant turned around to face his expectant troops.  “Kids,” he said, “that was Jesus in his helicopter at work.”

“He’s been busy all over town today,” Jessie suddenly cut in before the cheering broke loose.  “I know you all feel like having a party, but there are some things I need to say before I talk myself out of it.”

“Let’s go sit down,” the Sergeant suggested.

With her heart pounding in her throat as she faced them in the living room, Jessie was sorry he had made it so formal.  But this might as well be thorough, she decided.  It was time to quit dithering and step off the edge.

“This is an apology.”  Defaulting to the lowest common denominator, Jessie presented her subject like an oral report at school.  “I want to walk back the past six months.  I’m going to go in chronological order as best I can.  Starting with you.  Dad.”  There.  She’d said the word, and the sky hadn’t fallen.  All the audience stirred in their chairs, knowing now for sure that she was serious.

“I tried to shut you out of our family from day one,” Jessie stated.  “I didn’t want you to get to first base.  I was afraid if I gave you an inch, you’d take a mile.  But it was a mile you had every right to take, and you did us all a favor by taking it.

“Chris, about the fifty dollars last spring.  The fact is, I held off giving you the money that morning so I could let you ‘twist in the wind,’ to get even because I was mad at you.  You could have gotten killed because of me, and I don’t blame you if you hate me for it.

“Moe and Katie, I’ve done what I could to undermine Dad and even Mom with you.  I put you in danger in my efforts to prove we didn’t need him.

“Mom, I resented you terribly for remarrying someone I didn’t really want.  I also resented you for trying to make me dress according to your standards, even though I myself really like what we wear now better than before.

“And Mom and Dad both, I’ve seethed over every rule you’ve made this summer, even though I’ve tried my best to act like the sweet daughter I’m not.  Worst of all, I told all my friends that you’re terrible, and when you were away at camp, I sneaked out with them to watch a movie you didn’t want me to see, in the middle of the night.

“I’m awfully, desperately sorry to all of you.”

Having never apologized sincerely for anything before, Jessie wasn’t sure what to say when she finished the sordid inventory of wrongdoing.

Finally the Sergeant spoke.  “Jessie, I’m very happy that you’ve come to the point of telling us all this.  Of course, we already knew much of it.  But the real question is, why have you been acting this way?”

She cast about in her mind for an answer, but what came out wasn’t what she was consciously thinking.  “Because I’m... bad.”  It sounded so flat and dumb, yet somehow it spoke the deepest cry from her heart – indeed, from the heart of any honest human, calling out from the trap of sin.  I’m bad.  It had taken her entire life to come down to that realization.

“What do you want to do about that?” the Sergeant asked quietly.

“I want to be saved like you guys are.”  Suddenly Jessie’s throat filled up with her remorse, and it began to spill from her eyes in long-overdue tears.  The family piled around her like a football huddle, and in simple terms she told God what she’d just told the Sergeant.  Then each of them – even Katie and Moe – prayed their own little prayer for her, and gave her a hug to welcome her back to the family.

And finally, it was one family.

18

The Penalty Box

Since the Sparrow School had only one classroom for everyone, the teaching staff quickly found that they had to get creative when it came to non-silent work.  On this particular day, while the ninth and tenth grades worked on their self-study math books, the fourth grade had a spelling test.  This test was administered through headphones over two tape recorders so that everyone could work at his or her own pace, without disturbing others.

Katie’s pace was just as fast as the tape player would allow.  The girl was only tested on spelling because she seemed to enjoy it so much.  She was not just a good speller; she was a walking dictionary, a spelling juggernaut.  How this fact came to be was a well-known family tale.

When Katie was about six years old – and already reading books written for the fifth grade – she saw one day that Chris and Jessie were playing a game of Scrabble.  Immediately she insisted that they let her play too.  She lost spectacularly, but losing only ever had one effect on Katie Rivera – it made her more determined than ever to win the next time.  So quietly, she sat down with the necessary accessory, the official Scrabble players’ dictionary.  Using what was already developing into a phenomenal memory, Katie absorbed the dictionary like a sponge in water.  Within three weeks, she had beaten every member of the family to smithereens at Scrabble, and no one wanted a rematch.  Soon, even her friends wouldn’t play with her; the only Scrabble opponents she could find were on the Internet, which she was allowed to terrorize for thirty minutes a day.

Moe was a different story.  He had never played Scrabble, and despite much patient coaching by many teachers, could barely spell his name.  Katie found this shortcoming of his quite amusing.  Once her own paper was done, she would entertain herself by watching Moe incessantly pause and rewind the tape as he revisited his misspelled words to mangle them further.  Today the show got so funny that she snickered out loud.

“Katie,” Mom reproved quietly, “don’t laugh at Moe.  If you’re done with your test, you may get a book and read until he is finished.”

Katie fetched a book and began to read, but the plot hardly seemed entertaining compared to Moe’s five hilarious attempts to spell “diorama.”  Before she knew it, she snickered again, and realized instantly that she was in trouble.  The Sparrow School, like the Sparrow home, had a one-strike policy – listening the first time was required in order to stay out of the soup.

Mom motioned her outside into the hall, and shut the door behind them.  Then she came down on one knee and regarded her daughter earnestly.  “Katie, how do you think Moe feels when you laugh at him for his poor spelling?”

Katie looked at the floor.  “Not very good.”

“How do you think Jesus feels when you laugh at Moe?”

“Not very good, either.”  Katie was close to tears now.

“Your memory is a wonderful gift from God,” Mom continued.  “You didn’t earn it, so you have nothing to be proud of.  God simply made you with one kind of brain and Moe with another, because that’s the way He decided to do it.  That fact doesn’t give you any advantage over Moe from God’s perspective.  In fact, God says that really clever people have a harder time hearing from Him.  Remember that next time you’re tempted to feel superior and laugh at your brother.

“And another thing, Katie, that may help you get the right perspective: when you treat Moe badly, you’re treating yourself badly.  The Bible says that we’re all ‘members’ of one another, different parts of one body.  Would you drop a rock on your toe because you were mad at your foot?”

“No, ma’am.”

“That’s just what you’re doing when you make Moe feel bad.  Sometime down the road, that bad feeling is bound to come back around to where it started, and hurt you.”

“I’m sorry,” Katie said contritely.

“You can go be sorry in the Penalty Box,” Mom told her, “until the test is over.  And you should apologize to Moe later, after class.”

The Penalty Box, named for its counterpart in hockey, was an actual cardboard box, recently vacated by the Sparrows’ new refrigerator.  The side had been cut open to make a door, and the top cut out for light and air.  The box sat in the corner of the classroom, and contained nothing but a metal folding chair and a wind-up timer, hung inside for misbehavers to track their sentences.  Katie slipped into the Penalty Box very quietly and sat there, wondering how she could have been so heartless toward her brother.

A few minutes later, Mom got up from her desk.  “The Sergeant and I are taking Mrs. Scroggins to lunch,” she announced.  “Carry on with the assignments in your planners.  Chris, you’re in charge until we get back.”

Chris glowed visibly as he tested out the teacher’s chair.  Jessie rolled her eyes, but was glad for him anyway.  Ever since her “homecoming” two weeks ago, Jessie consciously loved her brother like never before.  She found herself wanting to spend more time with him, and feeling genuinely glad when good things came his way.

Now that the weather was cooler, Jessie had even decided to join Chris and the Sergeant on their daily run, which started at seven and continued for three exhausting miles.  It was worth every painful step just to cheer on Chris, whose enthusiasm for the athletic scene had been flagging.  He couldn’t quit now, Jessie had told him.  He’d lost thirty pounds already, and had gone from a pale couch potato to a tanned, fit runner.  The pep talk – and the new partner – had really seemed to bolster Chris.  Jessie had always been somewhat scolding and impatient with her siblings.  It was a wonderful new experience to be the encourager, and to see that encouragement affect someone else’s life positively.

This newfound love for the family was just one of many changes Jessie had experienced, and all were in the one place she couldn’t possibly mistake or ignore: her own life.  Her personality, her opinions, her way of looking at things – her entire world – had been turned crazily, wonderfully upside down.  Or rather, she decided, right side up.  It was all so amazing that she often got distracted from humdrum realities, like the half-blank math worksheet in front of her.

At first, Jessie didn’t hear the noise from the kitchen.  Ben heard it and looked up, but since no one else showed any reaction, he decided it was his imagination.  After all, they had no pets and they were alone in the house.  Weren’t they?

The next noise, moments later, got everyone’s attention.  It was the unmistakeable sound of breaking glass, just a few yards away up the hall.

“Oh my,” Jessie said softly.  “Did you guys hear that?”

Chris, suddenly shaky – and no longer so happy with being in charge – stood up and motioned Ben to the door, where they listened intently.  “Jessie,” he whispered, “take Moe and get in the box with Katie.  Be very quiet, but text Mom and the Sergeant and tell them what’s going on.  There’s someone out in the kitchen.”

By now Jessie’s heart was pounding harder than it did after a three-mile run.  “Should we call the police?” she whispered.

Chris hesitated a moment.  “Not yet,” he decided.  “Just start praying.  I’m going to turn the lights out as soon as you’re in.”

There was barely room in the refrigerator box for Jessie and the twins, but they managed to jam in standing and get the door shut.  Appearing to be an ordinary storage box made it the perfect hiding place – though why they would need one with the boys outside in the room was a question she preferred not to contemplate.  Three messages went out quickly – one to the Sergeant, one to Mom, and one to God.  That last one kept going out, from all of them, as the seconds ticked by.  Jessie jumped when her phone made a loud incoming-text ring.  She jabbed the volume, but it was too late.  You could hear that ringtone all over the house, she knew.  The message was a reply from the Sergeant, who said they’d be there in three minutes.  Just now, three minutes seemed like forever.  Jessie entered 9-1-1 into the display and waited to hit Call.  Apart from praying, it was the only thing she could think of to do.

Now there was another sound in the hall – stealthy footsteps, possibly of more than one person.  Almost crying from the tension, Jessie wished they could just throw the lights on, rush out of the room, and confront whoever it was in the open.  Apparently Ben and Chris were thinking the same thing, because a moment later Jessie heard the door swing open, followed by voices shouting and what sounded like a scuffle.  Apparently thinking this signaled their last moments, Katie began frantically apologizing to Moe for every time she’d laughed at him in their entire lives.  Jessie quickly clamped a none-too-gentle hand over her sister’s mouth and hissed “quiet!”

And it was quiet, for what seemed like a long time.  Jessie was at the point of actually calling 911 when more footsteps came down the hall and into the room.  Then suddenly, the door of the Penalty Box swung open.

19

Salem

Jessie almost cried with relief when she saw the Sergeant’s face peering into the Penalty Box.  “Your sentence is up,” he said.  “Come on out, if you can do it without stepping on somebody.”  The joviality in his voice seemed strained as he helped them back into the room.  What had happened obviously wasn’t a joke.

“It was three kids from the neighborhood,” the Sergeant said in answer to their avalanche of questions.  “I think they saw the car leave, and figured the house was empty.  They broke the window on the kitchen door to get in.  When Chris and Ben confronted them in the hall, two ran and one took a swing at Chris.”

“Is he okay?” they asked at once.

“He’s in the kitchen, getting fussed over,” the Sergeant told them with a pointed roll of his eyes.  And indeed he was, watching in the wall mirror with modest pride as Mom and Mrs. Scroggins patched a tiny cut on his cheek.

“Was the bad guy wearing brass knuckles?” asked a wide-eyed Moe.

“Just a ring,” Chris allowed.  “But he packed a punch behind it.”

“Did you turn the other cheek?” inquired Katie piously.

“I didn’t have time,” Chris said non-committally.  “As soon as he swung on me, Ben went for him with a football tackle.”

Moe turned incredulously to Ben.  “You play football?”

“Um, no,” the older boy replied sheepishly.  “I kinda missed him, sort of,” he admitted, adjusting the ice pack on his head.  “My tackle got about half of him, and half of the hall table.  You know, the one that used to have the porcelain sculpture of Moses crossing the Red Sea?”

“That would be the one in pieces on the floor,” added the Sergeant, “but don’t worry about it, Ben.  I’m proud of you boys for defending the others.  Which, by the way, is the only situation in which I’ll tolerate fisticuffs or rough-housing, so nobody get any ideas.”  He shook his finger at them with mock severity.

Just then the police officer arrived, and Chris and Ben made their report to him.  “I know two of the guys,” Chris said, and gave their names to the officer.  “The one who hit me I don’t know, but he was big and mean.  At least six feet and one-eighty, arms like tree limbs.”

“That’s right,” Ben agreed.  “He was like a gorilla.”

“I saw him running away,” Mrs. Sparrow put in.  “He was about five-and-a-half and one-fifty.  Sorry, Chris.”

“Well, he looked big,” Chris sulked.  “But I guess anybody does when they’re about to cream you.”

After the policeman left, the Sergeant looked over at Mrs. Sparrow and Mrs. Scroggins, and suggested they all sit down in the living room to talk.  “I can’t think of a more appropriate time,” he began, “to share with you all what we’ve been discussing with Mrs. Scroggins.  In fact, this break-in was like an answer to the questions we’ve been considering.  Let me explain.

“I’ve never felt that the city is a good place in which to raise a family, particularly not a large city like this one.  There’s not enough room to get out into nature and away from the negative influences of urban culture.  Also,” he grimaced, “there’s the safety issue, with bored young men like those three nogoodniks walking around the streets looking for trouble.

“We’ve been thinking about moving the family to a bigger place in the country.  Particularly, we’ve been talking to Mrs. Scroggins about making some arrangement regarding the farm that she owns – the one where we went camping.”

“There are two houses on the farm,” Mrs. Scroggins took up, “the main house, which is a split level big enough for your whole family, and the guest house.  Ben and I would live in the smaller house, and you folks would occupy the big one.  That way we’d all have our privacy, but be able to walk back and forth and see each other freely.  Mr. Sparrow would own and manage the farm.”

“And Mrs. Scroggins,” the Sergeant continued, “would be on hand to show us how farming is done, as our total knowledge right now would fill a milk pail roughly halfway.

“Now,” said the Sergeant carefully, “this is not an announcement of what we’re going to do.  It is a request for comment.  I want to know not only what each of you thinks of the idea, but what you think God is saying to your heart about it.  Chris?”

“You know my vote,” Chris burst out with excitement.  “Yes, yes, yes.  It’s too good to be true.”

“Amen!” Moe shouted fervently, to the surprise of no one.

“Ben has already talked to his Nana,” the Sergeant said, “and of course he is in favor as well.  Katie?”

Katie thought very carefully for a moment.  “I say,” she finally announced with a dramatic pause, “yea.”

All eyes now turned to Jessie, who up until now had been the fly in every batch of buttermilk.  If she readily agreed to leaving her comfortable urbanite lifestyle, then the change in her was even more real and radical than anyone knew.  Her response was a simple question, but the fact that she was asking it took them all by surprise.

“What about your job, Dad?  You like it so much.”

“My job.”  The Sergeant blinked, nonplussed.  “Well, thanks for thinking of me.  I may be able to stay on by telecommuting, but even if not, my job is only a secondary concern.  We have savings, plus a certain amount of income from bonds and those two commercial properties in town.  Anyway, whatever happens, God will take care of us.  You guys are my number one priority”

“I know you love working at Allred,” Jessie reasoned.  “If you can give that up for what’s good for the family, then I can give up the mall and the stuff that goes with it.  Let’s do this.”

“Thank you for that,” the Sergeant said.  “But let’s not make any final decisions hastily, especially when we’re all wound up from the excitement earlier.  We should pray about this and then sleep on it.  No, Moe, you don’t need to bow your head yet – we’ll pray tonight in devotions.  Right now it’s back to school.”

A collective groan went up.  “Kidding!” the Sergeant laughed mischievously.  “You all have the rest of the day off to recuperate from this morning.  But try to be listening for the Lord’s voice as you go about your day, not just entertaining your own thoughts and desires one way or the other.”

The vote that night was predictably the same – only more so, Jessie and Katie having caught the contagious excitement of the boys.  As for the boys themselves, no amount of prayer, Bible reading, or meditation could have convinced them that the move to the farm was anything but the highest plan of divinely-inspired perfection.

“Let’s call our new farm, ‘The Promised Land,’” Moe suggested with enthusiasm.  “Our first Dad was Moses, and our new dad can be Joshua, leading us in to take it away from the Canaanites!”

“That reminds me,” Mom inserted, “I’ve noticed that some of you have chosen to call the Sergeant ‘Dad.’”

“I kind of like ‘the Sergeant,’” interrupted Mr. Sparrow.  “Makes me sound more intimidating.”

“Oh, stop,” Mrs. Sparrow protested with exasperation at the general mood of silliness.  “You can call him whatever you like,” she continued, “but I think we should call your first dad something else to avoid confusion.  How about ‘Daddy Moses’?  I think he would like that.”

They all tasted the name and pronounced it suitable, but Moe was still thinking about what to call the farm.  “How about the Lazy Rocking J?” he suddenly suggested.

“Where in the world did you come up with that?” Katie wanted to know.  Moe shrugged.  Apparently he was just trying to stimulate discussion.

“Maybe the farm already has a name,” the Sergeant suggested.  “Mrs. Scroggins?”

“We used to call it ‘Hardscrabble,’” she responded with a laugh.

“Ooh, Scrabble!” Katie squealed in delight, not quite comprehending the implication of the term.

“What about ‘Salem’?” Mom suggested.  “I was born in the city of Salem, and I’ve always loved the name.”

“I like it,” the Sergeant remarked.  “That’s the English version of the Hebrew ‘shalom,’” he told them, “which means ‘peace.’”

The name was confirmed by unanimous acclamation.  That night, instead of going to bed with nightmares about burglars, the family slept with excited dreams about a farm named Salem – Peace.

20

Finding Izzie

Izzie Hubbert was in hiding.  This realization had gradually dawned on Jessie Rivera, her neighbor and once-best friend, over the past few weeks since Jessie pulled out of school.  Whenever Jessie came to the mall – which happened more rarely these days – the most she saw of Izzie was her blond ponytail, trying to outrun the escalator in her eagerness to get away.  If Izzie ever ventured outside her house, she vanished quickly whenever Jessie or any of the Riveras appeared.  She never answered her phone anymore, and Jessie’s many voicemails went un-returned.

The way Izzie was acting reminded Jessie weirdly of the Amish “shunning,” which she’d seen depicted in a movie recently.  Was Izzie trying to get her to “repent” of homeschooling?  How could that be such a crime, anyway?  Jessie was determined to find out, even if she had to hide behind a trash can and ambush her friend on the way home.  Which is exactly what she proceeded to do one Monday afternoon – but three-thirty, then four-o’clock, came and went with no sign of Izzie.

Finally Jessie got suspicious.  She walked up to the Hubberts’ door and knocked.  “Is Izzie home?” she inquired innocently when Mrs. Hubbert answered the door.

“Izzie!” called Mrs. Hubbert back into the house.  “Jessie’s here to see you!”

“I’m not feeling well,” a faint voice returned from deep in her lair.  “Tell Jessie to go away.”

“She’s not feeling well,” echoed Mrs. Hubbert without conviction.

“I see,” Jessie said with determination.  She wondered how long Izzie had been in the habit of sneaking into her own house the back way.  A less stubborn friend might have gotten mad and left at this point – especially since she would soon be leaving the neighborhood for good – but “less stubborn” had never described Jessie.  “Please tell Izzie,” she said sweetly but with iron determination in her heart, “that I will stand on the sidewalk in front of her window until she feels better.  Singing hymns,” she added in a voice loud enough for Izzie to hear.  A faint smile played across Mrs. Hubbert’s face as she closed the door.

True to her word, Jessie stood on the sidewalk directly across from her friend’s window and began to sing all the verses of Amazing Grace as loudly as she could.  About the time Jessie reached ten thousand years, the bedroom window slid open.  “Oh good grief,” moaned an invisible Izzie in great annoyance, “if you must come in, just come in already and quit singing.”

Izzie’s room was almost completely dark, but Jessie boldly turned on the light as she walked in.  There, sitting in her beanbag chair and looking suspiciously healthy, was Izzie Hubbert.

“Izzie,” Jessie began directly, “why have you been running from me?  Do I have leprosy or something?”

“Haven’t been running from you,” sniffed her friend as she flipped open a magazine.

“Oh yes you have,” Jessie contradicted factually, “and I want to know why.”

“You’ve just been different,” Izzie muttered.

“How would you know that?” demanded Jessie, exasperated.  “We’ve barely talked.”  Suddenly her eye was drawn to the heading of a computer printout, half-concealed on her friend’s desk.  She jerked it out with an “Ah-ha!”  Izzie grabbed for it but missed.

In an astonished voice, Jessie read the heading.  “How to tell if your friend is in a cult.  Izzie, I’m surprised at you!  We’ve known each other since first grade.  How could you think I’m in a cult?”

“It can happen to anybody,” Izzie opined uncomfortably, inching back in her beanbag chair as if to get further from a source of deadly radiation.

Jessie turned back to the paper.  “Let’s see: ‘Your friend dresses in a peculiar way, wearing strange clothes that someone else picked out.’  Okay, I’ll admit that Mom helped pick some of my clothes.  She also paid for them.  Are you saying your mom never buys anything for you?”

“She never buys me skirts,” Izzie sighed.  “And Mom and I would never wear matching outfits like you and your mother do.  That is just so wrong.  Haven’t you ever heard of the ‘generation gap’?  You even get your hair done the same way she does, and hardly ever wear normal-looking makeup anymore, or paint your nails, or do anything normal teenagers do!”

“I see hairstyles are covered on this list too,” Jessie observed.  “And homeschooling gets a specific mention as well.  Well, that’s got to be the biggest ‘cult’ in America, what with over a million people doing it.”

“One clue is like a grain of sand,” Izzie pronounced knowingly.  “When you get enough grains of sand, it starts to look like a beach.”

“Oh, don’t quote Lieutenant Braddock to me, Izzie Hubbert – I’ve watched every season of that show as many times as you have.”

“But you never do anymore,” Izzie accused.  “Why just the other day, I heard from a friend, who heard from a friend, that you didn’t even know what this other friend was talking about when she said ‘Gliebermania!’  That’s when I knew, Jessie.  I totally knew.”

“Oh my, let me add that to the list.”  Jessie scratched away with an imaginary pen, “Your friend cannot define Gliebermania.  Let’s see, what’s next?  Ah, here’s a good one: ‘Your friend exhibits a sudden and disproportionate interest in (gasp) religion.’”

“You’ve started going to church,” Izzie pointed out.  “Even at night, and attending devotions, and even praying without anyone saying you have to.  That is not normal.  Not for you.”

“Izzie,” Jessie almost exploded, “can’t you see what this list is?  This was written specifically to describe a Christian family, and then they make that the definition of a ‘cult’!”

“I downloaded it from the Internet.”  Izzie made the claim as if it served to reinforce, rather than diminish, the credibility of her information.

Jessie turned back to the list again.  “Oh, I like this last item,” she snickered.  “This sounds like someone I know.  ‘Your friend avoids you, exhibits an unreasonable fear of being alone with you, begins to distrust you, and discourages you from visiting him or her.’”

Izzie shifted uncomfortably.

“So.”  Jessie tapped her foot and stared.  “Out with it now – what cult have you joined, Izzie Hubbert?”

After staring each other down till they both finally blinked, the two girls began to giggle, then finally collapsed in a heap of hilarity that ended with both of them in a tangle on the floor.

“I’m sorry,” Izzie apologized when they finally got their breath.  “I never should have listened to Monica and the girls.  You’re totally the same as you were before, underneath.”

Jessie sat up.  “Well, I hope not,” she said seriously.  “Izzie, I wanted to see you so I could straighten a few things out.  My attitude about the Sergeant when he first came wasn’t okay.  That day I blasted him to you girls, I was just mouthing off because I was mad at him and Mom.  I gave you a pretty bad picture, but it wasn’t a true one.  I want you to know that I have changed, and I don’t feel resentful toward him anymore.”

Izzie chewed on a painted fingernail.  “I guess that’s good,” she decided.  “You need to get along with your stepfather.  After all, you have to live with him.”

“It’s more than that,” Jessie told her.  “The Sergeant has helped us all see that our lives weren’t complete before, not because we didn’t have a dad, but because we didn’t have Jesus.”

“Jesus.”  Izzie repeated the name slowly, as if her friend had just mentioned an alternative universe.  “There’s a program that comes on just after Desperation, with this preacher guy who always wears a big blue flower....”

“You know,” Jessie interrupted, “something else I’ve learned is that TV is not the place where we should be getting ideas about life.  Even people who like it admit that it’s pretty much a wasteland of anything meaningful.”

“It’s entertainment,” Izzie shrugged.  “Gotta pass the time.”

“Maybe we can find something better to pass the time,” Jessie suggested, “at least a day or two.  Once we get moved into our new house in the country, Dad said it would be okay if I invite you to come out and spend a couple of days with us.”

“I don’t know,” Izzie hedged.  “Cows and coyotes and that set aren’t exactly my thing, you know.”

“Hey,” Jessie reminded her with a chuckle, “I’m going to live there.  As my best friend, the least you can do is go through a couple days of it with me.  Besides, you might enjoy it.  And, I promise we won’t make you get up early or work or anything like that.”

“I don’t know,” Izzie repeated, still looking uncertain.

Jessie reached over for the printout again and flipped to the second page.  “Look, Iz, it says right here in your cult article: ‘If your friend is in a cult, the best thing you can do is keep up your friendship.  Call regularly and visit often.’  So?”

“All right,” Izzie finally relented with an embarrassed grin.  “I’ll just pretend it’s a two-day filming session of Grits.”

“Whatever motivates you.”

“Say, do you guys have cable out at the farm?”

21

Buying The Farm

At the beginning of November, the family drove out to see their new home for the first time.  The passengers in the van buzzed with excitement for a few miles, but gradually fell to thoughtful silence as the enormity of what they were doing set in.  They, a gaggle of lifelong city dwellers – except for Mrs. Scroggins, who had stayed home with Ben today – were suddenly selling their comfortable home to become quasi-agrarians, living in an old and remote farmhouse that most of them had never even seen.  Jessie, in particular, was feeling great apprehension, and the steel-gray overcast weather did nothing to lift her spirits.  Bravely volunteering for this move was one thing; actually carrying it through, and living with the results, would be another entirely.

They turned from the highway onto a narrow county road that needed some serious attention from the highway department.  The potholes they avoided were big enough to swallow a motorcycle.  One of the ones they hit sent a drink cup from the dashboard into orbit.  Upon re-entry, it managed to spray all the passengers efficiently with Dr. Pepper.  Jessie laughed as she helped clean up the mess, but kept a nervous eye on the passing scenery.  The landscape was hillocky, lined with leafless trees, sad cows, and rusty creep feeders in the fields.  There were almost no houses visible, only an occasional mailbox marking the start of a long gravel driveway.

After Pothole Avenue (as they immediately nicknamed the county route) the rough dirt road leading to their house was almost a relief – though Jessie had to wonder what it would look like in a heavy rain.  Then she realized that the house itself was just ahead.

Stepping quietly from the van, the family huddled in a little group while the Sergeant unlocked the house.  The woods all around were quiet to the creepy point, enlivened only by the occasional complaining crow or faraway dog bark.  The house was just as gray and quiet as the woods.  By the time they actually got in the front door, Jessie was half-expecting to find an inch of dust on a splintery floor, ghastly Victorian furniture under white sheets, and the sound of rats and bats scurrying away as the Sergeant lit an oil lamp.

She was pleasantly surprised.  The house was quite clean, for a place that had been unoccupied so long.  The carpet and furnishings were old, but only as old as the seventies with its harvest orange and overdone woodgrain.  Even the shaggy fringes and textured yellow surfaces were at least clean.  Making this place a beautiful home would be a challenge, said the Sergeant.  A fun challenge, added Mom.  Jessie wasn’t so sure about the fun part.

The house was larger than what they were used to, with an open floor plan and vaulted ceilings in the main area.  Apparently this large living space had been the primary concern when Mr. Scroggins built the house.  The rest of the rooms were quite small, particularly the extra bedrooms upstairs.  One of them hadn’t originally been a bedroom at all, but a low-ceilinged storage area nestled under the roof.  They could only hope that Katie wouldn’t undergo a sudden growth spurt and get too tall for her new room.

The more the family walked around the house and discussed where different things and people would go, the more they talked each other into the idea that it could really work.  There was a big fireplace in the living room, so the Sergeant was cajoled into building a fire while Mom set out the picnic they’d brought.  The living room quickly became so warm that they moved in there.  Perched on the orange furniture or the red tile floor, they ate turkey salad sandwiches and watched the fire flicker.

“Now that you’ve seen it,” the Sergeant said, “this is the time to say something if you feel differently about moving here.”

“I have to confess some misgivings,” Jessie offered after a silent moment or two.  “But at the same time, this house just feels right.  Like we’re supposed to be here.  Is that God?”

“I think so,” Mom said.  “I feel the same way.”

“Me too,” agreed the Sergeant softly.

“I always wondered,” Jessie mused, “what it feels like when God leads you.”

“I’m glad He led you,” Moe exclaimed with a sigh of relief, “because I think I’d die if we backed out now!”

“You guys can explore a little this afternoon if you want,” said the Sergeant, “but we need to leave for the city by two o’clock.  Chris, if you like, you can drive on the way back.”

Chris lit up like a light bulb.  He had been getting driving lessons from the Sergeant for several weeks now, and was already handling the car like a veteran driver.  The Sergeant said that he would be ready for his license exam once he mastered parallel parking.  Today would be the first time his siblings saw him drive, and Chris couldn’t help thinking how impressed they would be.

On the way out that afternoon, with the keys dangling importantly from his finger, Chris paused by the hall mirror and admired himself.  No more fat, weak “Tubby.”  He was now at his medically optimal body weight, muscle ratio increasing daily as he worked out with the Sergeant.  He was tanned; he was confident; his mop of aimless curls had been replaced with a macho crew cut.  Yes indeed, Chris told himself, he was getting to be quite a hunk.  Even Heather Beauchamp might turn her prim chin if she saw him now.  What an advertisement he was for the Christian way!  How proud his parents must be of him!

Mulling these thoughts, Chris got in the driver’s seat.  “Everybody buckled up?” he called out, in a daring imitation of his stepfather (after all, passenger safety was the driver’s responsibility).

“Watch the woodpile, son!”  The Sergeant’s urgent warning pulled Chris down from the heights of self-pleasure, as he quickly stomped the brake pedal to avoid backing into the obstacle.  Was that a giggle from the back seat?  Two seconds into this trip, and he was already feeling deflated.  Well, he would just have to make up for that little near-mistake.  Down the gravel road they sped, and sped was the word, as Chris drove so fast that they swayed around the first curve and the drinks almost spilled again.  He slowed down quickly to preempt another correction from the Sergeant.  He’d get his chance to drive fast soon enough, once they got out on the highway.

At the stop sign where the dirt road met the county route, Chris found himself waiting for an old, slow farm truck to chug past.  The truck was running a right turn signal, he noted, indicating that it would be turning into the same road they were exiting.  Concluding that he could safely go ahead and turn left, Chris took his foot off the brake and began to roll out into the lane of traffic.  Too late Chris heard the Sergeant’s voice yell “No!”  Too late he jabbed for the brake, as his mother gave a little shriek.

Out of curiosity, Chris had always harbored a secret wish to witness a real traffic accident, or to at least hear what one sounded like.  He imagined that there must be some great crashing or booming or something really impressive.  Today he found out.  As the farm truck plowed ponderously into the Honda’s fender, the sound was a loud, flat WHAM.  It was not impressive at all.  It was the sound of incompetence, presumption, failure.  It was the sound of disgrace, and of silence after both vehicles came to an awkward stop.

Chris had not even a moment to contemplate what had just happened, because the other driver immediately sallied forth from his truck, making some sounds of his own.  A wiry and hairy man in redneck coveralls, he cut loose with the most outrageous stream of profanity any of them had ever heard.  The Sergeant quickly took charge, jumping from his car to interpose, and closing the door behind him.  His first priority was to lead the man out of earshot, and then to calm him down.

Chris couldn’t lift his eyes from the steering wheel.  Katie was in the back crying.  Mom was praying under her breath.  How could he be responsible for such a disaster?  What if someone had gotten hurt?  He began to shake all over, then to feel very sick.  Muttering something vague, Chris slipped out of the car and headed for a nearby clump of trees.  By the time he returned, the other driver had quit swearing, but still looked like he wanted to kill somebody.

“Chris,” prompted the Sergeant seriously, “this is Mr. Dimes, whose truck you hit.  He’s going to be our new neighbor.”

Chris realized he was expected to say or do something.  “I’m sorry about your truck, Mr. Dimes,” he offered lamely.  “I thought you were going to turn right, because of your turn signal.”

Dimes was almost shaking with rage.  “My signal was running because I just turned right, you little....”

Out came the blue flamethrower again, and the Sergeant quickly sent Chris back to the car.  “I’ll get the necessary information for the insurance,” he told him.

It seemed to take a long time for the Sergeant to finish with Mr. Dimes, who finally got back into his truck.  The rickety vehicle seemed to limp away on the sheer power of its owner’s rage.  The Sergeant gave his own car a thorough walkaround inspection, then backed it up away from traffic, stopped, and turned off the engine.  “Chris,” he asked in a voice that was calm but sad, “what did I teach you about turn signals?”

Chris remembered now.  “That you can’t trust a turn signal,” he responded miserably, “until you actually see the front wheels turn in that direction.”

“Then why,” continued the Sergeant, “did you trust that turn signal?”

“I wasn’t thinking straight,” Chris admitted.  Then, after a short pause, he added, “I guess pride goes before destruction.  I’m sorry, gang.  I was so busy trying to impress you all with how good a driver I am, I could have gotten you killed.”

“You’re right,” agreed the Sergeant.  “That’s exactly what happened, and I’m glad you see it so you won’t repeat it.

“Now,” he continued, “if you’ve calmed down enough, we need to change seats.  You’re still driving home.”

Chris looked up in total shock.  “After I just wrecked the car?”

“It’s called ‘getting back up on the horse,’” said the Sergeant.  “Besides, I just paid a front fender for your education.  If you learned your lesson, it was more than worth it.  Now let’s roll out of here.  We’ve got a long drive.”

There never was a safer or more careful driver than Chris Rivera on the way home that day.  When they finally arrived at the house in Reliance, he looked at himself in the mirror without the slightest hint of admiration.  The next week, Chris got his driver’s license on the first try.

22

An Unusual Christmas

The Sparrows’ moving day was planned for January so that they could get through Christmas first – though the only decorations for their celebration were a bunch of very stuffed moving boxes lining the walls.  Presents were kept to a minimum on the Sergeant’s advice - “Go with meaningful instead of expensive.”  Handmade was very big in their home this year, even for the decidedly un-crafty Jessie.

The family exchanged gifts on Christmas Eve so that they could celebrate “Jesus’ Birthday” without distraction in the morning.  But distraction is just what they had, when the phone rang at eight o’clock.  After a brief conversation upstairs, the Sergeant called them all together.

“Kids, that was your mom’s friend Alyssa.  She finally decided to call us, even though she wasn’t supposed to.  She has left Social Services, and someone else has taken over her job.  Alyssa says that this ‘someone else’ has been contacted again regarding our family.  This lady is planning to come down here as early as tomorrow morning.  She is, shall we say, not such an amenable type as your mom’s friend.”

“Oh my,” Jessie panicked quietly.  “What are we going to do?”

“I think we’ll do what Jesus’ disciples did when people started persecuting them in their hometown,” the Sergeant told her.  “Do you kids think you can be ready to move by tonight?”

With anxious glances at the still-incomplete packing, they tried to absorb the thought.

“But Dad,” Chris said, “won’t Grandma just call Social Services in the other county?”

“I didn’t mention this before,” said his stepfather, “but we did some checking, and we happen to know that the new jurisdiction is run with a very different mindset from the one here.  I don’t think they will be inclined to cause us any problems, regardless of what Grandma says.  Since we have not been contacted by the authorities, we officially don’t yet know we’re under any sort of investigation.  So there’s no legal problem with us leaving town suddenly – only a practical problem.”

“You mean getting all our stuff packed?” Chris asked.

“That’s one,” the Sergeant agreed, “but what I’m really thinking of is the fact that there’s no place open to rent a moving truck on Christmas day.”

Everyone jumped as the doorbell rang, but it was only Ben and Mrs. Scroggins, taking them up on their invitation to Christmas breakfast.  Quickly they were filled in on the issue with Social Services, the possible solution of moving early, and the problem of a truck.

“The truck I can help with,” offered Mrs. Scroggins.  “One of our neighbors out at the farm has a big truck he uses in the summer for shipping peaches.  Leo and I used to borrow it on occasion.  I’m sure he’d let us use it today.  Of course, someone will have to go out there and get it.”

“I guess that would be me,” the Sergeant volunteered.  “Chris can come with me and drive our van back.”

“You’re busy packing,” Mrs. Scroggins objected.  “Why don’t you let me go with Chris?  I drove big trucks all the time with Leo.  Also, Ben and I will be staying on here for another few weeks, so if there’s anything you can’t fit or get ready today, just leave it here and we’ll store it until we can bring it with us later.”

“I don’t know what we’d do without you,” Mrs. Sparrow put in gratefully.

“It’s more the other way around,” Mrs. Scroggins laughed.  “You’ve given Ben and me something we haven’t had in years – a family.”

After a faster-than-planned breakfast and prayer, everything began to move very quickly.  The twins, still in pajamas, went upstairs to finish packing their rooms.  Jessie helped her mother load up the kitchen, while the Sergeant and Ben went out to hunt for more empty boxes at local loading docks.  Chris and Mrs. Scroggins lost no time in setting out for Salem, their van already loaded to its ceiling with such boxes as were ready.  Every one they moved now was one they wouldn’t have to stuff in the truck later.

The drive to Salem Farm went quickly for Chris, absorbed as he was in thoughts of all that had happened, and all that was now happening with such speed.  When they drew near the farm, Chris felt a twinge as he passed the place where he had wrecked the van last month with Mr. Dimes’ truck.  And there was the old coot himself, coming the other way in a still-unrepaired vehicle.  Chris was downright scared of the man, and unconsciously swung wide as he avoided the other driver’s eyes.

“What do you do about people like Dimes?” Chris asked aloud.

“Come again?” asked Mrs. Scroggins.

“The man I hit, who cussed us out.  What do you do about him?”

“What does the Bible say to do about people who curse you?”

“Bless them,” Chris answered readily.  “Which we did, on the way home.  The Sergeant said we needed to, so we prayed for him.  But that still didn’t make him any less scary to me.  I can’t believe he’s going to be our neighbor!”

“Dimes has lived here for a long time,” said Mrs. Scroggins.  “Leo and I had our own run-ins with him as a neighbor.  He was always a problem, and he never changed, but eventually we found out a few things that helped us understand him better.”

“What’s there to understand?” Chris wanted to know.  “He’s a mean old man, right?”

“Tell me,” said Mrs. Scroggins gently, “how do you think you would fare, without Jesus, if your wife died of cancer, then you remarried and your second wife left you and took your daughter and most of your money?  If one of your sons wasn’t speaking to you, another was in jail, and the third was mentally challenged?”

Chris thought for a moment.  “I’d probably be a mean old man,” he admitted.  “Maybe even meaner than Dimes.”

“Doesn’t knowing that change the way you look at Mr. Dimes?”

“Well, it makes me feel a little sorry for him.  But he’s still scary.”

“Yes he is, I know.  But he’s scary because underneath he’s hurt and bitter.  We don’t have to let Mr. Dimes push us around or harm our family, but we do have to show him the love of Jesus whenever and however we can.  Even if we ourselves never see any fruit from it.”

“Mrs. Scroggins,” Chris asked suddenly, “would it be okay if I called you ‘Nana’ like Ben does?”

“Of course, Chris – whatever you like.”  Chris’s new adopted grandmother looked intensely pleased.  Her pleasure continued as they reached the neighbors’ place and arranged to borrow the peach truck with no trouble.  After quick-fixing a flat, they set off once more for Reliance, with “Nana” leading the way.

Arriving home about lunchtime, they found the packing in an amazing state of near-completion.  Mrs. Scroggins managed to back the truck right up to the garage door, and the guys started loading it at once.  On Christmas Day this was a very conspicuous activity, and Chris feared – somewhat unreasonably – that Social Services would somehow get wind of what they were doing and show up early to stop them.  The others must have been thinking the same thing, because they were all working with a quiet urgency to get out of there and across the county line.

Earlier in the month, boxes had been packed with unhurried care and thoroughness, each labeled with an approximate weight and a complete list of the things inside.  Today the boxes weren’t labeled at all.  The packer simply grabbed an empty one, stuffed it with anything that would fit without breaking, slapped a run of tape across the flaps, and handed it down the line.  Chris, Ben, and the Sergeant loaded the furniture in record time, racing each piece out to the truck and literally running back to get another.  There was room for the sofa, beds, table, chairs, washer, dryer, and a few miscellaneous pieces.  The items left would have to wait for a future second load, once they figured out what all they would need in the new house.

Shortly after eight o’clock, it dawned on the family that they were all standing around with nothing left to do.  Except for Mom, that is, who couldn’t bring herself to leave without vacuuming the whole floor first.  When she finally finished, the vacuum was placed as the last item in the truck, the tailgate was shut, and they all joined hands for prayer.  The Sergeant led them, praying for safety, and that the Lord would look after their friends until they were able to come and join them.  He also prayed a special blessing on Alyssa, who had stuck her neck out pretty far to call and warn them of the impending “visitor.”  Then they rolled out of Reliance and quietly crossed the line into a very new way of life.

That first night at Salem was a memorable one.  Arriving after dark, they spent several hours setting up beds and unpacking the essentials – which seemed the hardest things to find, as they tended to be in those last, unlabeled boxes.  The biggest problem was light, as the electricity hadn’t been turned on yet and they had to work with gas lanterns and flashlights.  By the time the house was reasonably in order, the night was half gone.  Just before midnight, the family gathered together by the warm fire, and the Sergeant read them the Christmas story from Luke.  Tonight they felt a new kinship with Joseph and Mary, two strangers in town under an unfriendly government, spending the first Christmas in a barn.

Though they were all physically exhausted, they were all too pumped up for bedtime just yet, and sat up talking until the twins fell asleep on the couch.  Mrs. Sparrow covered them with a quilt and left them there by the smoldering fire.  Everyone else felt their way to their rooms, and went to bed wearing stocking caps and all the layers they could think of.

23

Hello Goodbye

When Jessie awoke late the next morning, it took her a few moments to remember where she was, and why she was wearing all these clothes in bed.  Especially when the room was so warm.  Warm?  Jessie jumped out of bed and dashed for the light switch.  Sure enough, there it was – glorious electricity!  She opened the curtains to reveal a beautiful sunlit morning.  It was like a different world from the gray farm in the boonies she had visited just a few weeks ago.  Humming with the happiness and security of it all, she changed clothes and then ran downstairs, resisting the sudden temptation to slide down the bannister.

Jessie found the family in an equally festive mood, after an early-morning phone call from Mrs. Scroggins.  “Alyssa was right on,” the Sergeant told them as he helped Mom make pancakes.  “The lady from Social Services showed up this morning.  She was pretty mad when she found only Ben and Mrs. Scroggins there, but there wasn’t anything she could do.”  They all had a good laugh as they imagined the social worker leaving their empty house in a futile huff.

“How did you get the electricity turned on so quick?” Jessie asked.

“There are advantages to the rural way of doing things,” the Sergeant told her.  “In the city, you wait till the utility office opens for business, then you go down and sign a bunch of papers and hope to get something done in the next week.”

“But in the country,” Mom took over, “you call your good friend Mrs. Scroggins, who calls her good friend Jeanice at the electrical co-op, who dispatches her husband Alvin to hook up the power.”

“‘Alvin’ would be high on my favorite people list right now,” Jessie decided.

“Don’t worry,” Mom said, “he was rewarded with a hot breakfast at seven this morning.”

“We’ll all have our work cut out for us the next few days,” the Sergeant announced, “in getting this house shipshape.  But before we get started on that, we need to talk about something else: Katie’s Scrabble tournament.”

Katie’s eyes went wide as she sat straight up.  For months she had been looking forward to the WhizKidz Scrabblethon, an annual tournament held after New Year’s in Columbia, open only to the best junior players.  This was the first year she had qualified, but with homeschooling and the move going on, she had concluded that the trip just wouldn’t work out.

“Your good attitude about the tournament has not gone unnoticed,” said Mom.  “You not only haven’t nagged or whined, you haven’t even mentioned it.”

Katie shrugged.  The idea of nagging and whining had never occurred to her.  What good would that do?

“So,” Mom continued slowly, “we’re really glad to be able to tell you... that it’s going to work out after all.”

Katie’s eyes went even wider than before.

“Now,” Mom cautioned, “I can’t be away from here long enough to take you, but Nana Scroggins has offered to make the trip instead.  You would be staying with her one or two nights in a hotel.  What do you say?”

Katie’s response was to burst into tears of sheer happiness.  She had never wanted to do something so much in all her life.  She stayed completely giddy all that week, and was so distracted that her help in the move was of dubious value.  No one really minded, though, because just watching Katie float on clouds of excitement was fun for all of them, and in itself made the job seem lighter.

Thursday morning finally dawned, and found a sleepless Katie waiting with her suitcase on the front porch.  It was an unusually warm and beautiful day for January, and she had come out right after breakfast to watch the curve for Nana’s car.  She only wished that watching would make it arrive faster.

Soon Mom came out and sat beside her.  “Katie,” she said as she put an arm around her shoulders, “there are some things you need to remember in Columbia.”

“I’ve got my toothbrush,” Katie assured her.  “And I’ll be sure to listen to the tournament directors and shake hands with my opponent even when I lose.”

“I’m sure you will.”  Mom stroked her hair fondly.  “But that’s not what I mean.  Do you remember the conversation we had a few weeks ago, the day of the burglary?”

Katie nodded quietly.  “About being clever and laughing at other people.”

“Katie, the Lord has given you phenomenal power in your head, but I want you to watch carefully that it doesn’t go to your head.  Do you understand what I mean?”

Another thoughtful nod.

“You may do very well at the tournament,” Mom continued.  “As good as you are, I wouldn’t be surprised if you win your age division.  If that happens, people will be taking pictures of you, and paying attention to you, and remarking on how clever you are.  Do you know what God wants us to do when people give us credit and glory?”

Katie thought for a moment.  “We’re not supposed to keep it, are we?”

“No, we aren’t, because it wouldn’t be good for us.  Instead, we give all the glory to God.  That’s why we live, and do all we do – not to gratify ourselves, but to glorify God.  After all, He made us and gave us the gifts that people see and admire.  Everything we have, we received from Him.”

“So I should tell them all that it’s really Jesus who’s clever.”

“Not necessarily with words.  But if you keep that truth in front of your heart, your actions and attitude – as well as what you say – will point people to ‘glorify your Father,’ as Jesus told us.  And when you point them to Him, you will get more real pleasure and satisfaction than you could ever find by promoting yourself.”

“That’s what I’ll do then,” Katie resolved.

Mom kissed the top of her head.  “These are deep topics for a girl your age, but you’re not just any girl.  You’re my little thinker, and I know you understand what we’re talking about.  Now here comes Nana.  Give us all a big hug to last the weekend, and then go have some fun.  We’ll pray for you every night, and if you get to the final round we’ll watch the Internet stream.”

Still thinking deeply, Katie hugged them all, then hopped in the car with Nana Scroggins and rode away to her adventure.  Mrs. Sparrow could only hope that her words had been taken to heart.

24

The Great Raw Potato Battle

Katie and Nana had just barely disappeared around the corner when another car came up the other way.  This one had “Hubbert Insurance” marked on the side, and Jessie knew that Izzie had arrived for her visit.  They hadn’t known exactly what day she would come, because she was waiting to hitch a ride with her mom.  Mrs. Hubbert might pick Izzie up again when it was time to go, or the Sparrows might give her a ride.  The Reliance public schools were on an extended winter break, so there was some flexibility.

Izzie looked nervous as she was greeted with warm hugs and handshakes.  Helping her unpack in the room, Jessie noticed that her friend had come prepared for the worst-case scenario.  Her bulging suitcases contained, among other things, a portable DVD player and ten boxed season sets of her favorite shows.  Coming to the country to watch television reruns seemed a bit incongruous, but Jessie said nothing about it.

“So you might as well, like, show me the place while it’s warm,” Izzie suggested.  “I think there’s some snow in the forecast.”

“You’re right about the snow,” Jessie said, “so we thought we would do something fun outside today.  How does a potato shootout sound?”

Izzie blinked and glanced almost imperceptibly out the window, to see if her mom had left.  “A potato shootout,” she repeated flatly.  “Has this got something to do with cooking, or are you guys like, actually throwing potatoes at each other?”

“No, no,” Jessie laughed.  Pulling a small plastic pistol-looking thing from her pocket, she tossed it to Izzie.  “That’s a low-power compressed air potato gun,” she said.  “It doesn’t shoot the whole potato, just a little piece of it.  So each player carries a raw potato as an ammunition source.”  Out of her other pocket came a hole-filled potato.  “To reload, you stick the gun barrel into the potato and twist.  Then you’re ready to shoot.”

“Oh, like paintball.”  Izzie grimaced.  “I got pounded pretty good in paintball the one time my brother took me.  Does that potato thingy hurt when it hits you?”

“Only a little, if you’re right up next to it.  That’s why we’ve got a rule that you have to stay ten feet away from other players.  Realistically, of course, you don’t want to get that close anyway, because five hits takes you out of the game.  Oh, and you have to wear these.”  She handed Izzie a pair of safety glasses.  “Like the Sergeant says, you only get one pair of eyes.”

“Okay.”  Izzie took a deep breath.  “I’ll try anything once.”

“Battle starts after lunch,” Jessie told her gleefully.

That afternoon, the adversaries carefully selected their ammunition for size and texture, and then squared off on opposite sides of a clearing in the nearby woods.  The teams were Moe and the girls against Chris and Ben, with the Sergeant serving as referee.  Before blowing the whistle to start the battle, he reminded them of the rules.  “No shots to the face, five hits eliminates.  You’re on your honor to keep track of hits on yourself.  Last team standing wins.  Players out of ammunition are eliminated.  If this whistle blows twice, the game is over and everybody comes in to the sound of the whistle.  Don’t get too enthusiastic and lose yourselves in the woods.  If you realize that you don’t know where you are, call me on your cell phone and I’ll find you.  Now start shooting!”

The Sergeant gave a loud, long whistle, and the two sides sent forth a volley apiece.  Finding their armaments wholly ineffectual at the current range, they paused to strategize.  On the Red Team, Moe was for a frontal assault.  “We’ve got them outnumbered,” he observed.  “Our best chance is to go after them right now, while we know where they are.”

“He’s just saying that,” Jessie told Izzie, “because he thinks the boys are smarter than we are.”

“Well, we’ll totally see about that,” Izzie replied in an offended tone.  “Anyway, I’m not charging across open ground like the Light Brigade at Gettysburg.”

“I think the Light Brigade was a different war,” Jessie remarked uncertainly.

“Whatever.  Anyway, I say we send the little berserker here out as a diversion, while we sneak around both sides in a clever flanking maneuver.”

“Izzie, I’ve got to ask this: how do you know all these military terms?”

“What do you think I watch Blood-Soaked Flags for, to pass the time of day?”

“I might have known.  Okay, that sounds all right to me.  Moe?”

“I think I’m being sacrificed, but I guess I’ll do it for the team.”

“Okay, give us two minutes, and then start your diversionary charge.”  They began to crawl away.

“Hey!” Moe called after them in a voice entirely too loud for the front lines.  “How do I know when it’s been two minutes?  I don’t have a watch.”

“Count!” Jessie hissed.

“One, two....”

“Not aloud, you silly – to yourself!”

On and on they crawled, until Jessie was fairly sure that they should have reached the boys’ position by now.  Quite a distance back, she could hear Moe giving his idea of the rebel yell as he charged across the clearing.  What she didn’t hear was any noise of the Blue Team firing on him.  Just a few feet away, she could see Izzie’s brown coat circling back around toward her.  “Surely we must be behind them by now, Iz.  Iz?”

Suddenly she looked up face to face with Chris.  They both screamed and raised their weapons, but then remembered the ten-foot safety rule and scrambled back to reach shooting range.  Chris let fly first.

“That’s not fair!” Jessie protested loudly.  “That wasn’t ten feet.”

“Sure it was!”  Chris paused momentarily in reloading.

“It was not,” Jessie insisted as she took a step back.  “But it is now!”  She let him have it, then turned and dove for cover and Chris indignantly shot another round after her.

Finding her reloader suddenly stuck on a potato sprout, Jessie panicked and ran in the opposite direction, with Chris following hard after her, trying to reload, shoot, and yell allegations of cheating at the same time – with the result that his shots didn’t even come close.  Jessie finally freed her gun barrel on the run, twisted a good round out of the potato, then turned and scored a bullseye.  Chris, nonplussed and between reloads, saw her quickly grabbing another round.  He dashed behind a tree and they had at it, until finally Chris called out that he was dead.

“You’re not dead,” Jessie yelled back.  “I only hit you four times.”

“Well somebody got me the fifth,” Chris insisted.

“That would be me, sucker.”  Izzie was grinning broadly as she walked up.  “We win, Jess.  Moe and Ben finished each other off, so I came to help you.”

The girls gave each other a high-five as Chris muttered good-naturedly about unfair odds and back-shooting.  Just then they realized that they weren’t alone.  They had been silently joined by a curious golden retriever.  “Well hello,” said Chris, who loved dogs and was planning to get one of his own.  The girls joined him in petting the beautiful animal, until the dog suddenly pulled away and ran off.  Their eyes followed his course right to the feet of his master... Mr. Dimes.

He glared at them with suspicion.  “Did you kids lead my dog off?” he demanded in a menacing tone.

Acting braver than he felt, Chris stepped between Dimes and the girls.  “No, sir, we didn’t,” he said.  “Your dog just got here on his own.”

“My dog don’t run off without somebody calls him,” Mr. Dimes added with fury.  “You just stay away from my dog, you....”

“Girls,” Chris said as the old man began to swear loudly, “walk away.  I’m behind you.”

“Don’t you go anywhere while I’m talkin’ to you,” Dimes menaced with more profanity as Chris began to back off.

Dimes walked toward him.  Chris’s heart was thumping against his ribs.  What would he do if the man actually attacked him?  Bombard him with potato pellets?  If Dimes went for him, Chris decided, he would turn and run.  He and Jessie could certainly outdistance the old redneck with ease.  His main concern was Izzie, whose only regular exercise consisted of mall-walking.  They couldn’t leave her behind, even if they had to carry her.

“Mr. Dimes,” Chris said more bravely than he felt, “you are on my father’s property, and he is just over that rise.”

Dimes paused his step, but not the stream of abuse coming from his foul mouth.  Chris turned and walked away, praying under his breath to drown out the ugly words and the hate behind them.  From the top of the rise, he finally dared to look back.  Dimes was gone.  Chris suddenly found that his knees had turned to water, and almost cried when he saw the Sergeant coming up the hill with the girls.

“I’m sorry you had to go through that,” Jessie told her friend as they walked back to the house.  “This is the first time Mr. Dimes has come on our side of the fence.”

“And it will be the last,” the Sergeant added, “if the law can stop him.”

That night, three phone calls were made.  The Sergeant called the County Sheriff and made a complaint.  The Sheriff called Mr. Dimes to issue a warning.  And finally, Dimes completed the triangle by calling the Sparrows.

The kids listened from the other room as the Sergeant answered the call.  He waited until the initial tirade had subsided to make any response.  “Mr. Dimes,” he finally replied, “whether or not my kids encouraged your dog to follow them is beside the point.  You were on my property, and you threatened my children.  Intentional trespassing is a Class B misdemeanor, which is quite serious, but I’m not pressing charges against you this time.  If you have an issue you want to discuss, you’re welcome to call or come visit me at this house.  But I cannot and I will not tolerate your terrorizing my children.”

There was a pause, and then the Sergeant hung up without another word.

“What did he say?” Chris asked.  “That you can repeat, I mean.”

“He said that he wouldn’t come on our land again,” the Sergeant told them, “but that we’d better be sure not to come on his either.  And we will, guys.  Do not ever cross that fence into Dimes’ property, no matter what.  There’s no telling what he might be capable of doing.”

25

Scrabble, For The Glory Of God

Though Columbia, Missouri was smaller than the city in which Katie Rivera had lived all her life, it seemed far bigger because her parents were not there.  Staying in this fancy hotel with all these fancy people, it was hard not to get intimidated.  Several times Katie stopped to pray for courage.

The night before the tournament, Katie lay awake for a long time.  She wished she’d brought her own pillow from home.  She wished she could have brought Moe too, and most of all, Mom.  Nana was wonderful, but she wasn’t Mom.  Katie needed someone to tell her to stop thinking and go to sleep, that everything would be all right because God was in control.  That she should just go out there and have fun, and not worry about winning.  But she did worry.  She wanted to win.  She wanted it a lot.  In fact, way too much.

Katie slipped from her bed and prayed one final prayer.  “Dear Father,” she said, “I’m sorry that I care so much about winning.  I only feel that way because I want to keep the glory for myself.  But the glory all goes to You.  Even if I lose every game, help me to bring You glory in my thoughts and attitudes this whole time.  And thank You for letting me be here.”

Finally feeling settled, Katie crawled back into bed and went to sleep.

The next morning, Katie found her first pairing and sat down opposite Travis, a round-faced boy with glasses.  Like her, he was at the tournament for the first time.  Unlike her, he didn’t seem to take the outcome very seriously.  Playing quickly and carelessly, Travis lost by almost a hundred points – and seemed pleased with himself for doing as well as he did.  “That’s my new high score,” he told her brightly as he signed the sheet.  Katie returned a blank smile.  His new high score.  How nice.  But what did it really matter?  He lost.

Katie’s next opponent, a private-school freak object with a mohawk, struck early with HALAKIC, lining his K up on the triple letter space.  Katie faltered and fell quite far behind before recovering with PERONEAL across two doubles.  He seemed to freeze up after that, and didn’t make much out of the rest of the game.

Katie decided that her third adversary must be a bluffer.  In Scrabble, you can put any combination of letters you want and get away with it, provided the other player doesn’t know enough to challenge you.  A correct challenge forfeits your turn; a wrong challenge forfeits his.  Sitting there with a dead expression that would have done any Poker player proud, Winnie Ruth put a few ordinary words, then plunked down NORGILEH.  Katie looked at that word for a long time, comparing it against her mental record of the dictionary.  There was a word like NORGILEH, she knew... but that wasn’t it.  The other girl looked surprised as she said “Challenge.”  An official quickly checked the dictionary and found the word incorrect.

Undeterred – or trying reverse psychology; Katie couldn’t be sure – Winnie Ruth was at it again a few turns later.  This time her “word” was PELORYA.  Once again, it was similar to a real word, but just different enough to win Katie an extra turn.  She won the game as well, handily.  After shaking hands with her opponent, Katie said with a smile, “I know what you were doing.  That first word was supposed to look like NARGILEH, the alternate spelling of NARGHILE.  On the second one, I was supposed to get confused with PELORIA.  Nice try.”

“I was sure I had them right.”  Winnie Ruth looked on the point of tears as she turned quickly and walked away.

Shocked at the other girl’s sincerity, Katie was immediately sorry she’d gloated.  By now she had several “followers” among the spectators, and they clucked their approval at her cleverness.  But Winnie Ruth had been hurt, and all because Katie just had to presume and show off.  Almost crying herself, Katie went to a private area and called Mom.  “I want to come home,” she said.  “I can’t help trying to get glory.”

“You can,” Mom told her, “because Jesus will help you.  Katie, coming home would be the easy way out.  The right way is to go and apologize to Winnie Ruth for wrongly assuming something about her and then gloating.  Then if you slip and do something like that again, apologize again.  As many times as you have to.  Keep asking Jesus to help you, and keep doing your best.  If you want Daddy and me to be proud of you, that’s all you need to do.”

After apologizing to the other girl, Katie spent the next game in complete silence lest she say something prideful.  The crowd gathering around reminded her that this was the semifinal.  If she won now, she would go to the championship game of her division.  This time her opponent was Sydney, one of the oldest and highest-rated girls in the elementary section.  The path to victory was long and narrow.  By pure chance Katie wound up with TELEMARK, a word which Sydney confidently challenged.  She knew then the game was won, and everyone else knew it too when the official announced “TELEMARK – a type of skiing turn.”  Sydney soldiered on, but Katie won by a hundred and fifty points, earning outright applause from the spectators.

Katie reached across the table and shook the other girl’s hand.  “Thanks for the game,” she said.

“Yeah, sure.”  Sydney looked bemused.  “How old did you say you were?”

“I’m nine,” Katie admitted.

“I’m eleven,” Sydney continued in puzzlement, “and I’ve been playing since kindergarten.  You’re something else.”

“God gave me a good memory,” Katie offered as humbly as she could.

Before the final round, Katie had another talk on the phone with her parents.  She was once again cross with herself.  “I tried to act humble with Sydney,” she said, “but it was just acting.  I felt as proud as ever.”

“Keep saying the right things,” her mother advised, “and looking to Jesus to help you mean them.”

The final championship round was that night, after the dinner break.  Katie was tired; she never knew something as easy as Scrabble could be so exhausting.  Her rival for the division trophy was Angel, an emotionless sixth-grader from a Catholic school in Memphis.  She looked tired as well, Katie noted, and their skills were evenly matched.  The outcome might turn on a single tile.

After a few inconsequential plays on both sides, Katie pulled ahead with LEADWORK.  Angel immediately came back with QUIRT, put in such a way that the Q scored major points two ways.  Stuck with a tray full of nearly-worthless vowels, Katie threw back.  Angel then played ZERO to good advantage.  By the time half the tiles had been expended, her lead was beginning to look insurmountable.  Some spectators started leaving after the older girl put down the valuable X in another high-scoring spot.  But then Katie roared back to life with SABAYON, and followed it two turns later with the ordinary but still high-point BEAMING.

Angel used her last tiles to put CHOICE.  The word could not have been more appropriate for her opponent, who now faced a five-minute clock and a terribly difficult decision.  Katie trailed by twenty-nine points.  In her hand were the letters to make a word that could score her thirty points and the elementary division championship.  The problem was the word itself.  It was a bad word, one that would land you in the Sparrows’ Penalty Box just for vocalizing it.  And yet, try as she might, she could not find another way to make the needed total and win it all.  Jesus, she prayed in her mind as the time began to run low, I was hoping to learn to glorify You by winning.  I hope now I can glorify You by losing.  With that, Katie put down the letters in the second-best position, making an innocent word but only netting twenty-two points.

Katie didn’t feel good as she shook Angel’s hand and congratulated her.  She didn’t feel good as they presented her with the second-place divisional trophy.  But she did feel clean, and she knew God was smiling.  No one else would ever know what she had done.

Or would they?

It took the tournament watchers about ten seconds to figure out that the Rivera girl had missed a winning play on the last turn.  It took them another five seconds to start asking why.  Katie wasn’t even off the awards stage before a local newshound was calling out: “Hey Katie, why didn’t you put ‘_____’ in the last round?  Didn’t you see it?”

She turned to him in surprise, but responded readily.  “Jesus wouldn’t want me to put a word like that.”  As she walked away, Katie was glad she hadn’t specifically admitted that she saw the word and declined to put it.  If that became known, she knew it would make Angel feel bad.

At this point Nana guided her back to the hotel room, as the whole tournament area was now buzzing with the very word Katie had declined to play.  The word got plenty of airplay in the next day’s news as well – but so did the Name of Jesus, as Katie’s off-the-cuff remark was quoted again and again.  National media outlets had picked up the story within hours, and the little girl was something of a fifteen-minute celebrity.

While losing had brought her far more fame and recognition than winning would have, Katie found herself unimpressed.  These people didn’t really care about her, she knew – she was just the latest curiosity.  Mom said on the phone that she shouldn’t do any interviews, and Katie heartily agreed.  If Jesus had been glorified, she was happy and amazed, but she couldn’t get away from all the glitzy shallowness and back to Salem fast enough.  To hear “Well done” from Mom and Dad was worth more than all that cheap renown, any day of the week.

26

Whatever Befall

“WHO??”  The whole room chorused the question in complete disbelief.  Mom had just gotten off the phone with someone who was “in the area” and “wanted to come stay a day or two.”  It was Grandma Stortz.

“I felt I had to tell her she was welcome,” Mrs. Sparrow said regretfully.

“You did the right thing,” the Sergeant told her.  “It’s possible she’s coming here to get information she can use against us.  But then again, it’s also possible that she’s decided harassment won’t work, and she genuinely wants to make up.  Either way, though, she’ll be here, and that will give us a chance to show her that we haven’t all lost our minds.  Now kids, I don’t have to tell you that the way you behave toward Grandma is very important.  Particularly, I don’t want to hear that any one of you has been anything but completely polite, and respectful at all times.  It’s bad enough that she thinks we’re something terrible, without us doing some fool thing to make it true.”

They all nodded solemnly – even Izzie, who had been sitting there learning how to play Catan, and felt like a member of the family after only two days in the house.  “You guys are so cool and so much fun,” she remarked.  “I can’t understand why your grandma doesn’t like you, or whatever.”

“She doesn’t understand why we choose to live the way we do,” Mrs. Sparrow explained.

“She may even think we’re a cult,” Jessie added pointedly, with a sideways glance at her friend.

“Well I don’t,” Izzie affirmed.  “I like the way you live.  For a couple of days a year, anyway.  You have those adorable kittens in the barn, and you cook breakfast on the stove instead of pouring it out of a box, and you do interesting things like potato fights and Catan.  I’m going to be kind of sorry when my mom gets here tomorrow, actually.”

“You may not have to worry about that just yet,” said Mr. Sparrow.  “The snow forecast is up to eight inches in our area, starting in the morning.  Even Grandma might not make it in.”

“Or, she might get snowed in with us,” Jessie postulated with dread.  “That would be a really ‘fun’ experience for you, Iz.”

Izzie’s laugh suddenly melted into a grimace.  “Oh man, I feel weird all over,” she shuddered sourly.  “Don’t you folks think it’s hot in here?  Let’s open a window.”

Mrs. Sparrow reached over and felt the girl’s forehead.  “Oh dear, you’re burning up.”

Suddenly they noticed that Izzie’s eyes and cheeks were bright with fever.  “I’m so tired,” she yawned, “I could go to sleep right here.”  She plunked her head down on the table for emphasis.

“We need to call your mother.”  The Sergeant dialed his phone even as he spoke.  “Mrs. Hubbert?  Izzie seems to be sick.  She’s... oh.  I see.  I hope you get to feeling better.  No, don’t worry about it.  We’ll take good care of her.  We’ll call you if there are any further developments.  Bye now.”  He clicked the phone shut and licked his lips.  “Crystal, you’d better call your mom back and tell her not to come.  Izzie’s mother knew what I was talking about immediately, because she came down with the same thing yesterday, and is now recuperating in bed.  She’s got some kind of flu bug.  Izzie must have caught it from her in the car.”

Izzie raised her head slowly.  “The flu,” she repeated in a flat voice.  “Joy.  Did Mom go to the doctor?”

“She didn’t have the energy to go anywhere.  On the phone, he told her to stay in bed and keep taking aspirin.  If it got worse he was going to give her a prescription, but she said she’s starting to feel better.”

“I just totally hate being sick,” Izzie groaned.  “And – oh no!  I’ve probably given it to all you guys too!”

They assured her to not worry about it, though all of them were thinking the same thing.

“I think I’ll just go to bed now,” Izzie planned, “and try to sleep it off before it gets worse.  That sometimes works.”  She stood up, did a sort of woozy pirouette, and sat back down.  “I can do this,” she muttered to herself.  Between her own efforts and those of some family members, Izzie got up to her bed – but they all knew that she wouldn’t be going anywhere from there.  Soon the only sound from upstairs was the patient alternately snoring and groaning.

When they returned to the living room, Mom had more bad news.  “Grandma is determined to come anyway.  Her exact words were ‘I’ve had my flu shot; I’ll be fine.’”

“This is sounding less and less like a friendly social call,” worried the Sergeant, “but we can’t back out now.”

“On the subject of the world falling apart,” Jessie put in hesitantly, “I don’t feel too good myself.”

“That’s what I was afraid of.”  The Sergeant shook his head ruefully.  “I’m going to call Mrs. Scroggins and tell her to keep Katie over in the guest house when they get here, so they at least can stay clear of this germ.  Everybody still healthy may want to sleep in the guest house tonight as well.”

Jessie had been planning to spend the night on the couch and keep quarantined from Izzie, but by bedtime there was obviously no point to it.  She already had the full nasty, achy package, and was so sapped of energy that she could barely get into bed on her own steam.  Once there, she immediately went catatonic – not quite asleep, but half-awake in an unsettled state of fevered dozing.  If only she could go to sleep!  But she couldn’t.  Not until this building was built.  One more brick.  Two more.  Oh no, the wall’s coming down!

Jessie rolled over with great effort, realizing that none of her fever-scrambled thoughts made any sense.  Yet even knowing that with one part of her brain, she was still “solving problems” with another part.  The inheritance has to be divided without going to court.  If we go to court, the lawyers will take it all.  That always happens.  And the war, the war – what are we going to do about the war, if the Egyptians come in on the other side?

Izzie was moaning from across the room, probably lost in her own ridiculous dreams.  Suddenly she spoke out very distinctly.  “Wum,” she announced in a matter-of-fact tone.  “Everything’s wum.  Makes you dunt.”

In spite of her misery, Jessie had to wheeze out a laugh.  Izzie was a riot, even passed out with the flu.

Waking after two hours of hot, fitful sleep, Jessie saw her mother in the room changing sheets.  Immediately she felt better, and began to drift off again as her mother sang Be Thou My Vision in her soft and sweet alto voice.

“Waking or sleeping, thy Presence my light,” the words said.  Jessie echoed the thought in a prayer as her mind slipped into the dark again.  Be my light, Jesus.  Jessie fell asleep as Mom finished the song, “Heart of my own heart, whatever befall, still be my vision, O Ruler of all.”

27

The March Of Dimes

Two miles away in his mobile home across the fence, Mr. Dimes was angry and plotting revenge.  “I’ve lived on this land nigh thirty years,” he fumed.  “If some city boy thinks he can move in here and start tellin’ me where to get off, he’s got another thing comin’.  And callin’ the sheriff to try and scare me – that’s a hoot.  He’s still gotta learn how it works in the county.  We straighten out our own problems, man to man.  You can’t hide behind somebody else’s badge.  No sirree.”

Dimes’ only audience for this tirade was his son Dalton – the sole member of his family still within speaking range, and that only because the boy was born with mental limitations that kept him at home.  He both loved and emulated his father, and might prove useful for what Dimes had planned for tonight.

“Before the snow gets in,” he announced, “we’re gonna put a little scare into that ‘Sergeant’ and his wimpy kids.  We’ll teach them to mess with Dimes!”

“Okay,” Dalton grinned in excitement.  “What we gonna do?”

“We’re gonna do a little July Fourth on their front porch,” replied Dimes with a filthy toothless grin of his own.

“Burn ‘em out?” Dalton looked doubtful.

“No, ya nitwit – do I look like I want to go back to jail with your brother?  We’ll hit ‘em with about a half dozen double-load cherry bombs.  Won’t burn anything down, but they’ll think there’s a howitzer shootin’ at ‘em!”

“And we can put a couple bricks through their windows, too!” Dalton enthused, then paused.  “Uh, do we still have any cherry bombs left from last summer?”

“No,” the elder Dimes admitted, “but I still got plenty of flash powder and fuses to make more.”

Just then their conference was interrupted by the sound of a car pulling up outside.  Dimes warily turned off the light and pulled back the window covering.  Satisfied that the visitors were expected, he flipped back on a small table lamp.  “I got business to do,” he said.  “Keep your mouth shut while they’re here, like you always do.”

Before answering the sharp knock at the door, Dimes checked the antique Browning Hi-Power stuck prominently in his belt.  Then he opened the door cautiously and admitted two men to the half-lit room.  Knowing the drill, they stood patiently while Dimes wanded them with a handheld metal detector.  It was a seller’s market right now, and only the seller was allowed to pack heat.

Dalton watched as his father and the two men made a deal.  After a good bit of dickering, his dad gave them a plastic bag, and they gave him an envelope full of cash.  With one eye on his customers, Dimes carefully counted the money.  Then everyone seemed eager to get away from one another’s presence, and the men were gone more quickly than they arrived.  To Dalton, it looked like a great deal.  He didn’t understand exactly what was in the plastic bag, but he sure understood what was in the envelope.  That was enough money to fix the truck, stock up all the food they needed for two weeks, and give them both several glorious nights in a bottle.

After making sure his visitors were off the property, Dimes carefully tucked the proceeds away in a lockbox under the kitchen counter.  Then he got out the supplies he used in his secondary business – flash powder, sawdust, epoxy, and fuses.  In their annual season, illegal fireworks brought Dimes almost as much money as drugs did.  His specialty was the double-load cherry bomb, an oversized version of an enduring favorite that packed a whopping two grams of flash powder.  This was the most forbidden of illegal fireworks, as its payload was roughly forty times the legal limit.

Dalton watched quietly for awhile, then suddenly asked a question that had never occurred to him before.  “Dad, what business are you in?  I mean besides the fireworks.  Like tonight.”

“I sell ‘happy,’” Dimes responded.  “And let me tell you, there ain’t near enough of it to go round.”

“Why can’t we tell anybody about it?”

“’Cause we can’t, that’s why.”

“Dad, is it bad?  Is it ‘gainst the law?”

“Son, bad and ‘gainst the law is two different things.  You like it when we shoot off these fireworks in the summer, don’t you?”

Dalton nodded enthusiastically.

“So do I, and we make good money at it.  But the gov’ment say we can’t have ‘em.  You gotta take what you can get outta life, Dalton, and don’t let nobody stand in your way or talk you bad.  Remember that.”

Having imparted this profound life lesson, Dimes finished his bombs – six of them – and loaded them into a box in the Kawasaki Mule.  They would take this rough-terrain vehicle to within a quarter mile of the target, then silently walk the rest of the way, creeping upon the enemy unawares.  Dalton made sure to bring a couple of bricks, as he wanted nothing to do with lighting and launching the dangerous fireworks (even if his father would have let him touch them).

Going was harder than expected once they left the Mule.  The snow was falling heavily, and the wind was against them.  Both father and son were freezing, but this fact had opposite effects on each of them.  Dalton wanted to turn back; Dimes was more determined than ever to press on.  By the time they reached throwing distance from the Sparrow house, the two redneck commandos were slogging through four inches of very wet snow.  They would leave tracks, Dimes knew – but hopefully those tracks would be covered by morning with more snow.  There was no way he would give up now, even though he could see that there was a light on downstairs.  Dimes fumbled in his pocket for matches.

On the other side of that brightly-lit window, Mrs. Sparrow was fixing tea for Moe, who had come awake a short while before complaining of chills and a sore throat.

Mr. Sparrow was up and around as well, after waking up with a strange feeling of uneasiness.  Suddenly he walked into the kitchen.  “I think we need to pray right now,” he said.  “Something’s not right.”  Mrs. Sparrow took his hand, and they prayed that the One whose eyes could see through the dark would watch over them, their children, and their house.

Outside, Dimes saw the second shadow against the window, but was undeterred.  He lit the fuses of the first two cherry bombs and signaled Dalton to let loose with a well-aimed brick.  As the three projectiles sailed through the air, the two throwers waited for the sound of splintering glass and exploding fireworks.

Silence.

Dimes swore at his son.  “Can’t you even throw a brick straight?”  But the old man’s tirade died away as he realized that the bombs weren’t exploding either.  Something was definitely weird here.  Maybe he threw too soon and the snow put out the fuses.  Maybe they were duds.  “Maybe we’d better get out of here,” Dimes decided.

As they hurried back toward the property line, the man who had come to scare others somehow felt strangely scared himself.  But he would be back, he resolved.  On a better night, with a better plan.

Back in the trailer, and far toward dawn by now, Dimes dismantled his bombs to make sure they would work next time.  Dalton – tired, bored, and scared – had gone into the next room to get ready for a late bedtime.

“I found the problem,” he heard his father say.  That statement was followed by a sudden popping noise from the workbench.

“Oh no.”

28

Exam Time

Secretly, the family had hoped that Nana and Katie would beat the snow home, but Grandma wouldn’t.  Unfortunately for them, the opposite occurred.  Knowing the roads well – and correctly gauging the storm as much more severe than forecast – Mrs. Scroggins simply would not risk Katie’s safety by trying to push through to the farm that night.  Instead, after calling the Sparrows, she and Katie settled in for another night at the hotel.

Mrs. Stortz was another story.  Not knowing the roads and not caring about the weather or safety, Grandma started early in her four-wheel-drive SUV and made it into Salem Farm just as the highway became impassable.  The Sparrows’ suspicions regarding her motivation had been quite right.  Faced with a few days off from school, Mrs. Stortz could think of nothing better to do than pop a surprise visit on her erring youngest daughter and that evil husband of hers.  The snow and flu only made it better, as the partners in crime would be too tired and preoccupied to organize the children against her.  There might be six of them and only one of me, she thought to herself, but I’ve faced thirty-to-one odds in high school classrooms all my life!

Grandma had not been terribly discouraged after her first two attempts to intervene with Social Services failed.  What did discourage her was the attitude of the local office out in this county, whom she’d lost no time in calling after the second “raid” fell flat.  The supervisor told her, essentially, that the department was busy enough with real problems like drug tribes, domestic violence, and alcoholic single parents.  Unless Mrs. Stortz could be a bit more specific about what was wrong in the Sparrow home, they would not be able to find a place for that “problem” on the list.

Mrs. Stortz could not be more specific.  She had too much self-respect to blatantly make things up, but didn’t possess enough real firsthand information to hang anything in particular on Sergeant Sparrow or his wife.  She had been counting on the Social Services people themselves to uncover the dirt that must be there, when they paid their visit.  “If I have to do your job,” she had told the lady irately, “I will.”

And so here she was, clumping through the snow toward the Sparrows’ newly-occupied farmhouse.  What a dump in the snowbound wilderness!  What madness to move here!  What further proof could be needed that her son-in-law was dangerously insane?

The bell wasn’t answered for what seemed like a long time.  Finally the door cracked open, and a very tired Crystal Sparrow appeared behind it.  “I see you made it, Mother,” she said with a polite smile.  “I’m glad you’re safe.  Please come in.  I’ll be right with you as soon as I finish washing these sheets.”

Mrs. Stortz walked into a cold and darkened house.  “Don’t you even have electricity?”

“We did until four o’clock this morning,” her daughter replied with a helpless shrug.  In the middle of the kitchen floor was a metal washtub, in which she was hand-scrubbing a set of sheets.

“Well, I never....”  Mrs. Stortz was truly horrified.  “I hope you see now where your husband has gotten you,” she lectured.  “You’ve gone from a comfortable, normal life in the city, to being a washer-woman in a great drafty farmhouse in the middle of nowhere!  Don’t you see how he’s using you to fulfill his fantasies of being Douglas MacArthur and Daniel Boone rolled into one?  I don’t see him down here helping you scrub those sheets – no indeed.”

“Glenn is upstairs cleaning up the bathroom.”  Mrs. Sparrow’s tone was the same as if her mother had politely inquired on the family’s whereabouts.  “Chris and Ben are cutting wood for the stove – we didn’t have time to lay in a supply before the storm.  Jessie and Izzie are still a bit out of their heads from the fever, and Moe is throwing up pretty much on the hour.”

“Well, it’s all The Sergeant’s doing,” reiterated Mrs. Stortz hatefully, “and I hope he’s proud of himself.”  Unanswered, all the accusations wobbled awkwardly in the air.  Arguing was so difficult when the other person was too tired to resist.  Suddenly Mrs. Stortz caught sight of herself in the hall mirror, waving an angry finger at her youngest daughter as Crystal hunched wearily over a washtub.  In some ridiculous way it looked like an illustration from Cinderella.  Mrs. Stortz suddenly felt quite foolish, and not at all like the mother she was supposed to be.

“You’re tired, dear.”

The gearshift was so abrupt that Mrs. Sparrow blinked in confusion, but didn’t resist as her mother suggested that she go take a rest “and let me finish this.”

When the Sergeant returned from cleanup detail a few minutes later, he was shocked to find his belligerent mother-in-law scrubbing sheets in the middle of the kitchen, with the former laundress gratefully napping on the living room couch.

“Maybe next year you’ll get your flu shots,” was her only remark.

“Thank you for your help, Mrs. Stortz,” he said sincerely.  “We can really use it.”

“I imagine,” she retorted primly.  “Just don’t take it the wrong way, that’s all.”

“If you’ll let me finish the sheets,” suggested the Sergeant, “someone needs to see about the girls.  They should have some breakfast, if they can eat it.”

Mrs. Stortz dried her hands, wondering if there was any way the Sergeant could have overheard her remark about his non-sheet-washing indolence.  She paused in the doorway and looked back as he took her place at the washtub.  The man was tired.  This was not the exercise of someone proving a point.

Making toast on a wood stove is not an undertaking for the novice – but then, Mrs. Stortz wasn’t a novice at much of anything (except perhaps kindness and understanding).  To several pieces of dry toast she added two cups of sugar-free Jell-o, then took the tray upstairs to the sick ward.

Izzie was still knocked out and not inclined to rouse when Grandma walked in, but Jessie was sitting up in bed already.  “Hello, Grandma,” she said sweetly.  “I had a dream about you.”

“Did you, dear.”  Mrs. Stortz tried with her tone – and a piece of toast – to discourage further elaboration, but Jessie was intent.

“It was just before I woke up,” she continued after nibbling a bit of breakfast.  “I dreamed that you and Mom and Daddy Moses and all of us were on a picnic, and you hugged Mom, and Daddy played the guitar, and we all danced in a circle.  Then it was the Sergeant playing the guitar, and you didn’t want to dance.  But Daddy Moses walked over to you and said, ‘Please dance with us, Suegrita.’  I remember he called you that in real life.  It’s Spanish for mother-in-law, isn’t it?”

“It’s a term of endearment.”  Grandma’s eyes almost misted over for a moment.  “What happened then?”

“I don’t know,” Jessie said, spooning into the Jell-o.  “I woke up.”

“Jessie,” asked her grandmother abruptly, “tell me why you changed your mind about school.  Did your parents make you feel pressured?”

“Not at all,” Jessie answered.  “I just knew that I wanted what they had.  And it was here, at home, not at school.  Oh, and I’m learning a lot in homeschool too, Grandma – more than I ever did in public school.”

“Like what?”

“Oh, lots of things.  Like history.  Do you know, last time we talked I didn’t even know what Pearl Harbor was – but I know now.  We studied the story of a serviceman who died at Pearl Harbor, and read the goodbye letter he wrote to his family from the hospital.”

“Oh.”  The information did not seem to give Grandma much pleasure – or maybe it was the memory of their last conversation.  “Jessie, about last time, I may have said or implied a few things I didn’t mean.  You must understand; I was upset.”

“I understand,” Jessie smiled.  “Thank you for breakfast.  If you’ll leave the Jell-o here, I’ll give it to Izzie when she wakes up.”

Grandma left, questioning with herself if she would ever find something on which to nail the pestilential Sergeant Sparrow.  Certainly it couldn’t be the character of his stepchildren.

The storm – which the weather service had belatedly dubbed a “major snow event” – had dumped fifteen inches of wet stuff on the county by that night, and it was clear that both Grandma and Izzie would be staying on at least another day or two.  Fortunately the flu bug was of the fast and furious variety, and spent itself within the first day.  By dinnertime that night, Izzie was hungry and Moe wanted to get out of bed – both very good signs.

The more Grandma stayed with them, the more she found her animosity fading.  After sharing a pleasant firelit dinner, she and the Sparrows sat up late that night.  Jessie, feeling much better, resisted the temptation to eavesdrop again, but there was nothing very interesting or important to hear anyway.  They just talked about their own lives and about the children, until they were all too tired to talk anymore.

The next afternoon, Grandma heard Moe loudly asking for something to do – “Even schoolwork!”  Since his mother was busy taking a snack to the boys at Camp Paranoid Quarantine (as the guest house had been temporarily named) Grandma herself decided to entertain him.  She rummaged through the school totes and found a little spelling game of Moe’s, which she took to him in his room.

Moe looked surprised to see Grandma coming when he’d called for Mom, but submitted to a quiz on some simple words.  “Nothing,” Grandma called out.  Moe spelled it, and she moved his token.  “Realistic.”  Again, correct.  “Enemy.”  On that last word she paused and looked at Moe, who was peering back at her nervously.  Suddenly she realized what he was thinking.  “Moe,” she asked slowly, “do you think I am your enemy?”

He looked down and didn’t answer.

She lifted his chin in an unfamiliar affectionate gesture.  “Are you scared of me, dear?”

“No, ma’am,” he finally said.  “Daddy says we shouldn’t be scared of you.  He says we should pray for you.  Even though you tried to have us arrested and stuff.”

Grandma wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry at that assessment.

“And I do,” added Moe in hurried embarrassment.  “Every night.”

“Why?” she asked gently.  “Just because the Sergeant tells you too?”

“That...,” Moe admitted.  “And ‘cause I love you.”  With childlike perception, he noted her surprise.  “I couldn’t not,” he explained awkwardly.  “You’re Mom’s mom.”  To him, that settled it.

Grandma sniffed back what was dangerously close to a tear and cleared her throat.  “Spell ‘relief,’” she read from the list.  And again, Moe spelled it right.

29

The Extra Mile

The following morning, the family was awakened to the welcome sight of a county snowplow clearing their road.  Not far behind was the car carrying a long-overdue party from Columbia.  Nana had barely stopped when Katie came out the side like a shot, and almost knocked her mother over with a week’s worth of hugs.  The Sergeant got a playful salute, followed by another round of hugs, which spilled over indiscriminately to the rest of the family – including a very surprised Grandma.

“Did you hear what happened to Dimes?” Mrs. Scroggins asked as she got out of the car.  “He blew himself up in his trailer the night of the snowstorm – making cherry bombs.”

“Oh dear!” exclaimed Mrs. Sparrow.  “I hope he’s all right?”

“He’s a little banged up, but too tough to sustain any real damage.  And that poor boy of his is fine, thank the Lord.  He was in the other room.  He ran four miles through the snow to get help.”

“Where’s Mr. Dimes now?”

“In the hospital in Kansas City.  But that’s not the worst of it, for him.  When the fire department came out to save him, they found what was left of his meth lab in the trailer.  Mr. Dimes will be doing some time, I think.”

“We need to go to the city today anyway,” the Sergeant suggested, “to take Izzie home and do our shopping.  What do you guys say we stop by and see Mr. Dimes?”

“Yeah!” Chris exclaimed.  “We’ll see who’s so scary now that... oh.  Not like that, huh?”

The Sergeant shook his head.  “Who can tell me what the Bible says about what to do when something bad happens to someone you don’t like?”

Katie knew the answer with chapter and verse, but waited a moment to see if someone else would come up with it.

“I know!” Moe called out.  “It says you shouldn’t be happy about it!”

“And you should feed him when he’s hungry,” Jessie added.

“This is so scary,” remarked Izzie, “you guys knowing the Bible like a bunch of dictionaries or something.  It is not normal.  But, I kinda like it.”

It was an odd caravan that drove to Kansas City that afternoon.  Grandma’s SUV led the way, with Chris riding shotgun and feeling nearly comfortable with her.  Next came Ben and Mrs. Scroggins in their car, and then the Sparrows’ van, with Moe and the girls bundled up in the back.  They were whispering together about a surprise they had ordered with some help from Mom, which they would pick up today in the city.  The Sergeant carefully declined to eavesdrop, having some general idea of what the surprise might be.

They dropped Izzie off first, who was already asking when she could come back before she got out of the car.  “You guys are totally more interesting than TV,” she reiterated.  “And I am so sorry about the flu!” she called after them.  “I’m just sick about it.”  Assuring her for the hundredth time that it was okay, they closed the door before Izzie could realize what she’d just said.

As agreed upon, they joined Grandma in the parking lot of the hospital.  “It’s been good to see you,” the Sergeant told her.  “Thanks for coming out.”

“Don’t say goodbye yet.”  Grandma got out of the car with frank curiosity.  “I want to go in with you.”

Dimes was in the hospital’s security wing, a dismal place where only a limited number could visit at once.  Quietly the Sergeant, his wife, Mrs. Scroggins, and Grandma entered the guarded room.  Dimes looked up at them like they were ghosts.  “Come to gloat?” he croaked bitterly.

“We came to bring you a couple of things,” Mrs. Sparrow told him.  “A fruit basket, and some cookies.  I’m afraid they were baked on the wood stove, though, because our electricity is still off....”

Dimes looked absolutely incredulous and possibly angry.  They waited a moment for the inevitable profane tirade, but it never came.  “You’re that kind of Christians,” he finally concluded.

“That’s right.”

“Good.”  He grinned toothlessly, as if that fact presented him with some kind of a free ticket.  “Then I can ask you a favor, even if we ain’t exactly friends – right?”

‘Not exactly friends’ would be one way of putting it, thought the Sergeant to himself, but aloud he said, “I guess so.  Depending on what it is.”

“Good.  It’s about my boy Dalton.  He’s gonna be lost out there on his own in a busted trailer, with no one to see after him.  Can you folks kinda, ya know, look in on him every now and then and make sure he’s okay?”

Dimes’ tone was so casual, one would have thought he had just asked them to look after his dog for a couple of days.  But the fact that he would ask at all was so amazing that there was only one possible answer – even for people who believed in standing strictly to everything they said.  “Of course we will,” they told him.  “We’ll do everything we can to make sure Dalton is okay until you come back.”

On the way down the elevator, Mrs. Scroggins suddenly observed, “You know what?  The old codger didn’t use one cuss word the whole time!”

“Miracles happen.”  Mrs. Sparrow cast a quick glance at her mother, who looked thoughtful.

Out in the parking lot, they said goodbye for real.  Grandma hugged them all, but without the stiff possessiveness that had been there before.  “I’m not a person who hides her opinions,” she told them (stating the obvious) “and I still do not agree with the way you’ve chosen to live.  I believe you’re making a big mistake about school, which will come back to haunt you when college time gets here.”

“I think we can agree to disagree about that,” the Sergeant suggested brightly.

“That won’t make me stop trying to talk you out of it,” Grandma warned with a wag of her finger.  “But....”  Her voice fell, and she continued slowly.  “At the same time, it would take a blind person not to see that you all are different.  I can’t deny that you’re better people than you were before, and I can’t fault whatever or whoever is responsible for that.”

“We’re just serving a better Master,” the Sergeant put in.

“Well, we all serve Him to one degree or another, don’t we.”   Grandma pointed casually toward the sky.  “Anyway,” she continued, “I want you to know that I won’t be bothering you again.”

“Your visit was no bother,” said Mrs. Sparrow, with the agreement of all.  “In fact, you were a big help.”

Grandma waved a knowing hand at them as she walked to her car.  “You understand what I mean,” she called back.  “Now, I’ll come again in June.  When I do, I expect to find that you children have all met or exceeded academic standards for this year – and heaven help you if not.  Remember, there will be a test!”

They all waved goodbye, and found themselves almost looking forward to Grandma’s next visit – even if there would be a test.  The real test had already been passed.

30

The Order Of The Golden Sparrow

Waking as usual at 6:30, Sergeant Sparrow turned off the alarm before he realized that Crystal had already left the room.  Normally the Sergeant was the first member of the family to get up, but on certain days his wife would rise early to fix a hot breakfast for all of them.  She had probably decided to do so this morning, he concluded, because this was something of a special day.  Today, his first birthday since their marriage, Mr. Sparrow turned forty-two years old.  Heavy on the ‘old’, he reminded himself as he got out of bed and began to do pushups.

In his prime, the Sergeant could do fifty one-handed pushups each way and barely break a sweat.  Now he was reduced to a pathetically small number of two-handed pushups at a stretch, and he was sure the geriatric ward couldn’t be far away.  Still, he was determined to keep as active as possible for as long as he could.

While exercising, the Sergeant improved the time by talking to God, mentioning as always the concerns of the day and each member of the family.  Today his prayer was chiefly one of thanksgiving, for the best birthday present he could ever have hoped for – to wake up, on the first morning of this new year of life, married to the most wonderful wife and leading the most wonderful family in the world.  His mother-in-law was right about one thing: they had all been radically changed in the past year, and the Sergeant knew it wasn’t through any power of his own.  He knew, because he had been changed too – and that was something else for which to give thanks.

After his workout, Sergeant Sparrow eased into his favorite pair of running shoes and quietly went downstairs.  The road was clear enough for a good run, he knew, as long as he watched out for patches of ice.  But as he went through the front room the Sergeant stopped, for here he was confronted by a strange sight.  The children, whom he’d thought to be snoring in bed, were dressed and lined up at tight attention in front of their mother.  Ben was with them, and Mrs. Scroggins was watching from nearby.

Mrs. Sparrow turned to him without a hint of a smile.  “Sergeant,” she announced, “with your permission, your troops would like to make a presentation.”

“Proceed,” the Sergeant told her with a sober salute.  He couldn’t wait to see where this was going.

“Private,” she said to Chris, “read the citation.”

Chris stepped forward and cleared his throat.  “By the power vested in us as his grateful family,” he read, “and on the occasion of his birthday, we present this award to Sergeant Sparrow in appreciation for his role in our lives.  Without regard for his own reputation or gratification, he has guided this family outstandingly, by God’s grace, in the first eight months of his command.  The Bible tells us that we should give honor to whom it is due, and so we do that today.”

Mrs. Sparrow then produced a blue box, and snapped it open to reveal a medal.  It was only painted plastic from a trophy shop, but it was as good as gold for the man receiving it.  The Sergeant stood to attention as she pinned it to his shirt.

“On behalf of your platoon, I hereby present you with the Order of the Golden Sparrow, an award which has never before been given in all of history.  (And probably never will be again.)”

On the front of the medal was a little picture of a sparrow wearing an army beret.  On the back was an inscription, which made the Sergeant smile as he read it.  “THE ONLY EASY DAY WAS YESTERDAY.”

“We love you, Dad.”  Jessie went off script for a moment.

“I love you all so much,” the Sergeant said in a voice that was slightly choked.  “And, I accept this honor on behalf of the real Commander.  As long as we keep following Him, we’ll all get the ultimate award someday.  Now... at ease!”

The Sergeant gave Mom a hug that quickly grew to include Jessie, Katie, and finally everyone.  Early light streamed through the open curtains, the brightening horizon promised a beautiful morning, and they all felt as clean and fresh as the new day dawning.  They held each other, watched the sunrise, and thanked Jesus for the family He had made of them – and wondered what would happen next.

Dear Reader,

If you enjoyed The Sparrow Found A House, please share it with your friends and family – and be sure to mention that they can all get free digital copies at elishapress.com.

If you have questions or comments about this book or Elisha Press in general, please send them to my personal email address, jason@elishapress.com.  I look forward to hearing from you.

Philippians 4:8 forever!

Jason McIntire