I would use the cabin as a storehouse. As I scrubbed shampoo through my hair, I figured I could probably snag a can of food from the pantry every day or two. We had canned beans and noodles for lunch all the time. I could maybe take peanut butter too, if I was careful.
As I toweled off, I realized that I would need money as well. Since Esther had stolen that money from Miriam, there probably wasn’t much chance of being able to get my hands on the cash Miriam kept in her office. Maybe I could find a way to grab a dollar here and there while the funders weren’t paying attention.
I pulled some fresh clothes on and tossed my mud-crusted things from yesterday in the laundry. I’ll find a way. I’ll watch them and I’ll find a way to get some money.
Grabbing my backpack, I extracted my book, cringing at the dampness in the pages. I set it carefully at the foot of my bed to let it dry, then dumped my flashlight out of the backpack and hung the pack over a doorknob to dry.
I had to get money. The only way I was going to get far enough in time was if I took a bus or something. I would need to find out if Cooperton had a bus station. Maybe I could get on the computers when Aaron wasn’t around.
I chose another book from the pile on my dresser and flopped onto my bed. My stomach rolled and grumbled, but I ignored it. I wasn’t going to make it easier for them; they would have to come to me to hand out a punishment. Opening to the first page, I tried to ignore the fear that kept trying to convince me it might be better if I turned to stone right now.
Jerking awake, I blinked, seeing two shapes standing in the doorway. As I took a deep breath, I blinked fast, clearing the fuzz from my vision. When had I fallen asleep?
Miriam led the way into my bedroom, Abraham not far behind.
I pushed to a sitting position and fought to keep the fear from my face. Miriam’s eyes had no expression at all, but Abraham looked furious.
This was going to be bad.
“God bless you, Joshua,” Miriam said, her voice quiet and harsh, like two rocks sliding against each other. She waited.
“God bless you.” Each word felt like a dull knife sliding through my chest.
“Do you understand the gravity of what you’ve done?”
I tried to look away, but she held my gaze. “Uh—“
Abraham’s loud voice cut me off. “Do you have any idea of how stupid you have been?”
I nodded. My throat closed, allowing only space for breath, not words.
“Do you have anything to say for yourself?” Miram asked.
I finally got my eyes to move and kept them centered between the two adults. I forced the words to come out, although they sounded squeaky. “I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry?” Abraham said. “That’s it? You’re sorry? You were gone all night! We searched everywhere, didn’t find you, and had to call the police!”
Miriam’s hand went to Abraham’s wrist. He sucked in a breath, as if she had cut him off before he could say something more. His pockmarked face, already red, grew a darker shade. But he closed his mouth.
“Joshua,” Miriam said. “We want to help you. We know it’s been a rough time, with Malachi gone and everything, but we can’t help if you continuously make these awful choices.”
“Miriam, come on,” Abraham said. “The police were here for crying out loud.”
“Abraham.” The word sounded sharp, like a sword.
Abraham clammed up. I loved the expression on his face, as if he’d swallowed a pill bug.
Miriam turned back to me. “As I said, we can’t do anything for you if you always make rash, thoughtless choices that bring serious consequences. We want you and the other children to enjoy your life and education. We want you to find value in your service to God and the Faith.”
My brain finally kicked into gear and I had to bite back a retort. Something about how it was never about what I wanted.
“Do you understand what I’m saying to you?” Miriam said.
“Yes.” I nodded. I felt her winding up for the big punch, the upper cut that would make my life miserable for probably years. I forced a penitent look onto my face. I could do the Redirect step too. “I’m really sorry.”
A few seconds of silence passed. I resisted the desire to glance at Miriam’s face to see if she believed me.
“If you are truly sorry, that is good and right.”
“I really am.”
“What makes you sorry for what you’ve done? What are you sorry about?”
I’d heard Miriam and some of the other adults, mostly Tabitha and Penelope, ask this before. I thought fast. “I’m sorry for letting anger direct my choices. And I’m sorry for causing problems for others—I mean you and the other adults.” It felt incomplete. What else? “I’m sorry for making you worry.” Lying felt like a betrayal of everything I knew was true about Miriam. I wondered if she ever missed being human—or if she ever had actually been human.
“That’s good.” Miriam shifted. I automatically followed her movement with my eyes and felt her trap me again. I couldn’t look away. “Nonetheless, there are consequences that you must experience so you learn from these mistakes.”
I blinked slowly and put my eyes somewhere else. “Okay.”
“You had two thousand lines for using violence with David. Now you have three thousand, of the same line, since your anger did violence to others last night.” Miriam’s voice sounded flat, like from a machine. “And you will do them within the same time span. By Sunday.”
Three thousand? That was ridiculous. That would take me a year, not a week!
“Do you remember the line?” Miriam asked.
I thought back to last night. Abraham appearing in my room, taking me to Miriam. “I don’t know.”
She recited, “I must control my temper at all times and in all places so that I will represent God in a more perfect fashion.” She stopped. “Three thousand, Joshua.”
Anger flared deep inside me. What did she expect me to learn from that? How to grow finger calluses? I fought the fury down. “Okay.”
“You will also show increased respect for the adults who sacrifice so much for you by doing the adult dishes for two weeks, instead of for only one.”
Maybe I could polish some shoes, too? This was getting crazy.
“And Joshua,” Abraham said, after glancing at Miriam. “You are grounded. There will be no leaving this house, except to go to the porch.”
What? I took in the small pile of books on my dresser; I’d already read them and we weren’t due for another library trip until next week.
So my punishment was manual labor, endless writing, and absolute boredom. Great.
“And that is for two weeks.”
I swore mentally. So no library trip for me. But I had to admit I wasn’t surprised. Nobody had ever gotten more than five hundred lines—but nobody had ever run away and been brought back in a police car.
“Do you understand all of this?” Miriam said.
I wanted to lean back and kick them both in their knees. How about that for a punishment for not giving a damn? “Yes.”
“And you have a long way to go before we will trust you again, Joshua,” Miriam said. “You need to take responsibility for yourself and your choices.”
I would if I could. You want to control every bit of my life, so it’s kind of hard. “Okay,” I said.
“Now, you also need immediate consequences.” Miriam looked to Abraham. He glared at me and shifted.
I hadn’t noticed the wood kitchen spoon in his left hand. Had he been hiding it on purpose? Fear lodged in my throat like a hot pebble. I wanted to shout how unfair they were being, how the lines and dishes and grounding were enough.
But that would make it worse.
“I’ll do this.” Miriam held out her hand.
“Miriam.” Confusion spread on his face, mixing with what I thought might have been disappointment. “Let me do it.”
“No, Abraham.” Miriam’s hand didn’t waver. Abraham gave her the spo
on and stalked out of the room.
Miriam said nothing, only giving me a meaningful look. I tried to swallow the fear, but it wouldn’t go down. I forced myself to stand.
“Turn around. You may lean on your bed.” Miriam’s voice sounded like she was twenty feet tall and standing in a huge room.
I turned and grabbed the post of my bed.
“Bend more.”
I held my breath and let my hands slide down the post. The first blow fell immediately, a strange, sharp fire that jabbed into me then spread across my backside and down my legs. I counted each time she hit, gritting my teeth, forcing the tears to stay away. What would she do if the spoon broke?
I gasped and hissed as another blow fell. How could the back of a spoon feel like the sharp end of a knife?
The gap between ten and eleven was longer than I expected. In the silence, I heard her breathing hard, felt my heart slamming in my chest. Was she done?
Four more blows landed, each one an explosion of hot pain. I realized my cheeks were wet. I stayed bent over, keeping my face hidden.
“You are,” a short pause, “half an hour late to classes. Get moving.”
A few soft steps, a whisper of cloth on cloth, then the door closed behind her.
Dropping to my knees, I leaned onto my bed, trying to catch my breath. All I could think of was that I was glad Miriam had done it. Abraham had to be stronger than her.
I buried my face in my blanket and cleaned off the tears. After a few minutes, I finally felt like my head was clearing and like I could control my breathing. Fourteen, nearly fifteen, and I still cried. The last time Esther had been spanked had been years ago; I think she’d been fifteen. Abraham had done it in front of all of us kids. Esther had smiled the entire time.
I let another minute or so pass, then pushed to my feet and sat carefully on my bed. It didn’t hurt too much, but the school desk upstairs wouldn’t be the same. I needed more padding.
Had this been what Officer Ambler had been talking about? Getting spanked? If I still had her card and I called her, would she be able to help?
Help what? What could she really do, anyway? Put everyone in jail? The Faith had been around forever and as far as I knew, nobody from it had been tossed in jail. I dropped my jeans and pulled on another pair of underwear, then a pair of shorts, pulling my jeans back up.
Maybe that would help me sit. As I headed for the door, I realized I’d been forgetting the worst of it. Three thousand lines. In less than a week. That was insane.
But there was no way she was going to change her mind. I had to start as soon as possible.
I headed up to class, slowing as I got to the door. The plywood under foot squeaked a bit.
Luke was staring at a wall, Saul was hunched over his desk, drawing something, and Mary was reading. Penelope hadn’t come in yet. She was usually a minute or two late, since she didn’t have to teach Focus. That class was all Miriam.
Everyone looked up at me as I walked into the classroom.
“Did you get arrested?” I should have known Luke would ask that.
“No,” I said. “It’s not like I broke a law or anything.”
“Unless being an idiot is against the law,” Saul said, his voice almost retreating, as if he worried I would deck him for calling me a name. Why did the only other boy my age have to be so annoying?
“Sauly, you’re a moron.” I glared at him. “You’d be in jail already if being stupid was a crime.”
“Shut up!” Saul shook his head and bent back to his paper.
“Did you get handcuffed?” Luke seemed fascinated by the sight of me.
I leaned on the doorjamb, not eager to sit down. The pain had already begun to fade, though. “No. All she did was put me in her car and drive me back here.”
“Did she have a shotgun in there? Or a bunch of other guns?”
I shook my head. “Not that I saw.” I kept my voice casual as the realization came to me that the other kids might actually think differently of me now. I was the one who’d taken off and been picked up by a cop.
Yeah, I was the idiot who couldn’t get away.
“Well did she at least read you your rights, or use the siren or something?” Luke thumped his desk with a fist. “Come on, Joshy, you were in a police car. Say something interesting!”
“It was kind of dumb. It’s not like I wanted them to find me.”
“Man,” Luke shook his head. “Trust old boring Josh to make getting picked up by a cop the dullest thing to ever happen.” He turned away and chewed on a finger.
Okay, maybe they wouldn’t think differently of me. I headed to my desk.
“I’m glad you came back.”
I stopped and faced Mary’s desk. She was looking up at me, her round face pink and her green eyes bright in the well-lit schoolroom.
“What?” I said, unsure of what to say. “Oh. I mean—“
Mary smiled. “I know you didn’t want to, but I’m glad you got caught.” She kept her voice low.
My face was suddenly hot. Why was I smiling so goofily? “Oh. Uh.. thanks.”
She smiled again and turned her attention back to the book on her desk.
I got to my desk, glad Saul was so caught up in whatever he was doing and that Luke had already zoned out. I felt like an idiot. She was thirteen! Fourteen a couple weeks after I turn fifteen! My eyes slid back to rest on Mary’s head. Her wavy brown hair shook slightly each time she moved her head to look at a new page.
I tried not to think about the way she had smiled at me. But I was glad she didn’t think I was a moron for getting caught and being brought back in a police car.
“Sauly, shut up,” I said, Saul’s incessant humming finally penetrating my mind.
“You shut up,” Saul said absently. “I’m working.”
“Working?” Yeah, Sauly was an artist. Fiddling around with the guitar Abraham and Penelope had given him two Christmases before did not make the idiot an artist. I had to admit though, he could draw pretty well. “Just keep it down.” He seriously had no clue how different his life was from ours, did he?
“You keep it down,” Saul muttered.
“Keep what down?” I asked.
Saul looked up, confused. “Huh?”
“Huh what?” I asked. Saul was so easy to get to!
“Shut up!” Saul said, his eyes going back to what I now saw was a notebook full of blank music sheets.
“Drawing?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Saul said.
“A new brain for yourself?”
“Shut up!” Saul shouted.
“That’s enough,” Penelope said. I turned to watch her as she walked across the plywood floor to her desk. Sometimes I wondered how they had gotten that big desk up the narrow stairs.
Penelope stood at the enormous teacher desk, looking at me for something like an hour. “Josh, what you did was very wrong.”
I figured it was best to keep quiet.
“I don’t care if you’ve heard this already, but you caused serious problems here. Making so many people worry about you and stay up half the night looking for you is not how you treat people who are trying to make a better world for you.” Penelope shifted a paper on her desk. “Well? What have you got to say for yourself?”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“You had damn well better be,” she said. “The last thing we need is for the police to think we’re doing something awful out here, what with Esther running away and then you.” She huffed and glared at her desk. “But you don’t seem to care about the good we’re trying to do here.” Now she looked at me. “You were incredibly thoughtless and selfish.”
I nodded. All the good they were doing? Begging for money, keeping us trapped here, and for what? But I shoved the thoughts aside. “I know. I’m really sorry.” I knew I sounded sincere.
“I hope your consequences are serious.” Penelope sat in her chair. “All right. Let’s pick up where we left off.”
My butt twinged as I rea
ched into the cubby under my seat for my books. While leaning over, I caught Mary’s eye. She smiled and unobtrusively wagged a finger at me, as if I were a bad dog.
I grinned at her, realizing that she was the only one who actually seemed glad to see me.
Better than nothing.
Chapter 16
Penelope stared at me. “Joshua, was that you?” Her accent made her sound extra appalled.
I tried not to laugh, something that the other three failed at. They weren’t helping. “Yes, sorry Penelope.”
“Are you ill?”
“No, just hungry.” Geography had been fine, but as her lecture on essay structure had droned on, it seemed like my stomach had decided to let me know that my breakfast in the diner hadn’t been enough and lunch needed to show up fast.
Penelope glanced at her watch. “Well, try to keep your hunger under control for fifteen more minutes, please.”
“Okay.”
Finally lunchtime came. I darted from my seat and led the way down to the kitchen. I was on lunch duty today anyway.
While Luke grabbed fruit cups and stacked them on the counter next to a pile of plates, I slathered peanut butter and honey on week-old bread. The green spots were easy to trim off.
“Josh, slow down,” Luke said. “Unless you’re making a counter sandwich too.”
“Shut up,” I said.
“Sounds like he’s hungry enough to eat the counter,” Saul said, snickering.
“You shut up too.” I pressed all the sandwiches closed and grabbed two of them, a plastic plate, and a fruit cup. “Come and get it!”
Little kids thundered past me as I made my way to the table, gobbling one of the sandwiches on my way. I carefully eased myself into a chair. I had finished my first sandwich by the time the others showed back up, taking their usual spots.
I shoved a chunk of sandwich in my mouth and noticed David staring at me. “What?” I sounded like a dying yak.
“Why are you eating so fast?” David took a tiny nibble from his sandwich. He always said he hated bread, that it made his mouth itch. Whiner.
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