A Robin Redbreast in a Cage

by R.P. Burnham

Charlie Harris was always nervous at lunchtime, for that was when she had to go into the large cafeteria at Courtney Academy filled with hundreds of students with the prospect of having no friend to sit with and knowing that her clothes and hair marked her as different. Because her uncle didn’t approve of curly hair, she wore her reddish-brown hair in two pigtails that pulled the hair flat on her scalp and minimized the unchristian curliness, even if it was uncomfortable. Her clothes were likewise uncomfortable and most Christian. Today, as usual, she was wearing a frumpy, formless dress that covered her from the neck to below the knees and which, with the help of a special bra, insured that no hint of the female form was visible—just the sort of dress that elicited cruel wisecracks about the potato-sack school of fashion design or mock surprise about not knowing this was honoring your great-great-grandmother day. Charlie couldn’t tell her taunters that her uncle forced her to wear her clothes and that she would prefer to wear the jeans and short skirts of other girls. Having no way to defend herself, she would simply become flustered and humiliated. Her uncle told her to think of how the crowds taunted Jesus on the day of his crucifixion and be strong. She tried that, tried with all her might, and still she felt humiliated and embarrassed. And on this day in May of her junior year her trial was going to be much worse. She had to prepare herself to be taunted not only about her clothes and her religion but about Creationism and Intelligent Design. She had not been able to concentrate in her morning classes thinking of how much her life had changed from the day she was taken from her mother up until this day when the whole school regarded her as the embodiment of Christian fundamentalism.

  Since the night she left home her uncle, the Reverend Edward Harris of The Church of Salvation Through Jesus, was the major force and reality in her life. And yet he had not wanted to take her in. During intense negotiations lasting for over a week between Child Welfare and the minister, Charlie was staying at Mrs. McCade’s house and hoping to be returned to her mother. But Mrs. McCade told her that was impossible and that her choices were either her uncle or an orphanage. Given that stark choice, she wanted to be with family and wondered about the delay. As she found out later, her uncle maintained that she had been living a satanic life and was beyond hope, and to bolster his objections he had cited a passage in Ezekiel where a traveller found a baby girl whom he adopted and brought up only to have her turn into a harlot. Such was Charlie’s fate, thought he. It was her Aunt Cora who changed his mind. She was a small, mousy woman, perfectly Christian in her obedience to her husband, but upon hearing his citation from Ezekiel, she had reminded him of Mordecai whose adopted daughter Esther had walked with God and in righteousness, and she had insisted upon their Christian duty to take in the child who had no other family on earth. She had prevailed, but only after certain conditions were met. Charlie was henceforth to be known as Charlene (”Charlie” was not a girl’s name, her uncle said). She was to become a probationary Christian, which meant that she was to study the Bible and be examined by him as well as attend church every week and pray to be worthy of baptism. She was to wear decent clothes and give up her former associates and her satanic ways. He also wanted to homeschool her with a woman in the church who taught her own children and the two Harris sons and one daughter, but here Child Welfare showed her uncle Charlie’s test scores that were in the 99 percentiles and insisted that someone this academically brilliant must attend Courtney Academy. For the second time her willful uncle reluctantly relented, although as soon as Charlie was in his household he told her that she was not to become friends with anyone at school who was not a devout born-again Christian, nor was she allowed to join in any extra-curricular activities. She was to attend school and hasten home at the end of the day.

  Home was a fairly large and nice house about six blocks from the high school. The church tithed but with only about 130 members (comprised of twenty-five families) and with a large mortgage for their new church building due monthly, the minister’s salary would not be enough to afford such a house. But Uncle Edward had another source of income—a plumbing supply store across the river in Bedford that had been started by Charlie’s grandfather was now owned and operated by her uncle after his father had retired and moved to Florida. Thus the family lived a comfortable Christian life.

  Her uncle was always dressed in suit, either brown or grey, a starched white shirt and expensive tie. He wore his dark hair in a crewcut, was clean-shaven, with a hooked nose in the middle of his face, a square jaw below often pointing up like Mussolini’s jaw in photographs she’d seen in history textbooks, a couple of ears in the regular place, jowls that rimed with scowls bordered the mouth that never smiled. There was nothing special about the face except for the fact that Uncle Edward had mean dark eyes—and never, ever smiled. He was big and powerful and looked more like a boxer than a minister of Jesus. He was scary from the first meeting—and with good reason. He was a man who would brook no contradiction, tolerate no rebelliousness. Very quickly Charlie learned that she was, like everyone else in the family and everyone in the church, a mere planet orbiting the blinding sun of his presence. His power was most awesome when he preached. “Only Jesus! he’d thunder, and the congregation would be swept away. “Only Jesus! Only Jesus!” the people would cry almost in a swoon. Then, frequently mopping his brow with a big white handkerchief, he’d prove to them by citing chapter and verse from the Bible that everyone upon earth and in the cosmos was under the foot of Jesus, whether in their hearts, in sweet heaven or in the boiling, broiling inferno of hell. Jesus was Lord of all, cried her uncle. “Jesus is Lord of all,” boomed the congregation in one voice, and Charlie saw that here on earth, in Waska, Maine, the wrath of the Lord was named Edward Harris. And woe betide anyone who felt that wrath. Charlie witnessed one such miserable sinner one early Sunday in her life as a Christian when her uncle turned his righteous scorn and anger upon a woman who had committed adultery. He forced her to publicly confess her evil, and then when she was driven down to total humiliation and squashed like a bug under his foot, he expelled her from the church and cried upon her anathema.

  So she saw that he was a man not to be crossed. To please him, to keep his wrath at bay, became the goal of her life. She studied the Bible. She became interested in every aspect of the church. She asked questions and listened carefully to the answers. Her uncle seemed to be pleased at her efforts and glad to be proved wrong about her. Everything was going well at home even though at school the teasing about her clothes had already started. But her life was home and church, she told herself. It was in those places she would find her happiness and fulfillment. Then one Saturday while being tested on her biblical reading, she asked how David could be considered a good and religious man when he committed adultery with Bathsheba and then had her husband killed after she became pregnant. Suddenly she saw her uncle stand and frown, then fold his arms across his chest and begin rocking on the balls of his feet. Sometimes his arms would swing down and his fists would be clenched. Terror seized her, for she recognized these signs were exactly those he’d displayed as he listened to the adulterous woman make her confession. Charlie had naively thought that because he was so angry at the woman’s adultery, he would be pleased with her question. But as he glared at her, she understood she was guilty of the greatest of sins—that of questioning the integrity of the Bible. For a moment she thought that he was going to strike her, but after breathing angrily through flared nostrils like a bull about to charge a red cloth, he calmed down enough to explain her error. It was part of God’s plan, he explained with suppressed fury. Bathsheba’s baby was King Solomon. That was the end of that day’s lesson, and during the following week he was decidedly cold towards her. Sometimes she caught him looking at her pensively as if searching for signs of harlotry. Recalling that when she had had to testify at the trial of Jimmy Cronin he had likewise shunned her for a week, she was able to divine that he also did not like women to show any awareness of sex. She had learned an important lesson in survival.
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br />   The adjustment from almost no supervision to total supervision was not easy. Much of Charlie’s effort went into adjusting herself to her uncle’s expectations, but that did not mean the rest of the family was an easy adjustment, though perhaps Aunt Cora was. She was as kind and motherly as possible, always speaking softly to Charlie, never chiding, never criticizing. But being as dependent and powerless as Charlie herself, she could be of no real help. Her three cousins were a different kind of challenge. She rather expected that the near universal fear of displeasing her uncle would make allies of them, but in that she was sorely disappointed. There was no secret kid world separate from an adult world in the Harris household. The two boys, Matthew, aged eleven, Mark, aged nine, and Martha fourteen like Charlie when she first entered the house, were unlike any kids she had ever known. They were not normal. The boys wore white shirts and dress slacks; Martha was always garbed in long dresses. They were totally obedient and strangely adult-like in their actions. They never yelled excitedly. They never argued. They spoke of Jesus as if he was the guy next door. They knew nothing about comic book heroes, popular television shows, video games, or movie stars. They hadn’t read the boy wizard novels. They never met anyone outside of their church and were never allowed to watch any television except for Christian channels and carefully monitored wholesome shows like Walt Disney movies.

  The first time they were alone at home when Uncle Edward was visiting a parishioner and Aunt Cora was shopping, they sat at the dining room table and read the Bible. Charlie, expecting them to be following the ancient wisdom of when the cat’s away the mice will play, marveled that they weren’t playing some game or watching television. Finally her curiosity could not be suppressed and she asked, “Can’t you ever have any fun?” She addressed her question to Martha, but Matthew answered. “Our fun is finding joy in Jesus,” he said. “He is the Alpha and Omega of our lives. His love fills our hearts and His word fills our mind.” That was her first glimpse into Matthew’s personality. While they were all prone to citing the Bible at the drop of a hat, Matthew positively reveled in it. Sometimes from a direct question, other times from no context Charlie could divine, he would reel off biblical citations and quotations with amazing facility: the Father sent the son to be savior, John 4:14; Jesus was the way—no one could come to the Father except through him, John 14:6; salvation comes through faith alone, Romans 1:17 and 5: 17. He was very proud of his knowledge and already had let it be known that he wanted to follow his father into the ministry. The younger son, Mark, was proud in a different way. Their mother had almost died at his birth and so had he. That they both lived was regarded as a sign of particular favor on the part of the Lord for Uncle Edward’s benefit, and ever after Mark was regarded as a gift from Jesus. That was how he first introduced himself to Charlie. “Hello, Charlene. I’m Mark, a gift from Jesus.” As for Martha, she was like her mother, quiet and gentle, powerless and obedient.

  After a probationary year and a deep study of the Bible that allowed her to recognize Matthew’s citations (and see that he sometimes got them wrong), Charlie was baptized. She had anticipated this day as the time she would move beyond her doubts and reservations. But they didn’t go away—not at first. Thoughts unbidden would creep up on her. She’d hear Matthew citing chapter and verse and notice a curiously mechanical ring to his voice as if it was a mathematical formula he had memorized. Some times the behavior of the whole family seemed to her disconnected from reality, as if they were all actors in a play mouthing the words of her uncle, who was writer/director. But these thoughts would be like something glimpsed from the corner of her eye that disappeared when she turned and looked at them fully. They were feelings, not facts that she could prove. So for days on end she would struggle with these doubts while trying wholeheartedly to believe in the peace of Jesus. Days came where she would succeed in driving the doubts away for a while, but they would not last. Something else would come upon her—the coldness that seemed to lie behind their religiosity; a word or citation that reminded her of how the Old Testament kings and prophets were bloodthirsty and cruel; the nagging thought that though the Bible was supposed to be the unerring word of God, there were countless passages that directly contradicted each other; the glee her uncle obviously took in imagining all non-Christians roasting in hellfire after the Rapture of the Second Coming that seemed cruel and inhumane to her; the hatred of things that seemed harmless like watching TV or playing video games and yet were regarded as satanic by all the church members; their general lack of human compassion for others or even any interest in others not born-again Christians; the oppressive feeling that it was unfair that she could not play softball or soccer because she was a girl—all these things could not be driven from her mind as hard as she tried. Nor could she hide from herself that she felt no different after being baptized. Her heart was supposed to be full with the love of Jesus, and yet she felt no joy. Thinking that she was the one at fault for not feeling the great joy the others spoke of, she would turn away in her mind from Jesus and have worldly thoughts about her classmates at Courtney Academy as she daydreamed of a normal life where she dated and socialized. Then she’d feel tenfold guilt and horror at her apostasy and would cry to Jesus, pray to Him, for the deliverance of his joy.

  While no divine light dazzled her into joy after these prayers, the Holy Spirit through the course of time brought a certain peace and contentment, if not joy. What actually happened was that pretending to believe and saying the right things when necessary slowly and by degrees became real belief. Being surrounded by certainty finally brought her certainty. By the end of her second year in the Harris home, she had been reborn and changed utterly; she was a Christian and had been saved.

  Yet she was aware somewhere inside her must needs have lurked that old Charlie who played video games and loved sports. Why else would she dread every noontime trip to the cafeteria? She understood that in one sense she was never alone: her uncle, her aunt, her cousins, her church and all the ways she’d changed from a gawky kid to a young woman wearing an old-fashioned dress that hid her sexuality were all freight she carried with her through the food line. What made her situation worse today, ten times worse, arose from her intelligence. With no distractions, she had applied herself to her studies and gotten straight A’s at Courtney Academy. At first her uncle had been unimpressed by and indifferent to her academic achievements, apparently only pleased to the extent that studying was a path that led away from the wiles and temptations of the satanic world. As a female, she understood that her future pointed in only one direction: towards marriage. But all that changed one night last summer when her uncle came home from a meeting with church elders. One of the elders, Brother Johnson, had spoken of how Charlene, with her high intelligence and ability to write well, could become an asset for the church. His idea was that she could become the spokesman for the national church and its public face, and he had convinced her uncle of his plan, with twofold results. First, she was going to be allowed to go to college, and secondly, she was going to be allowed to take that most satanic of sciences, biology. Her uncle didn’t share with her any of the details of his plan, but he did carefully monitor what she was studying in biology, and frequently through the year he had asked her to read various papers on the subject of Intelligent Design by writers such as Michael J. Behe and William A. Demski, as well as an eighteenth-century English thinker, William Paley, who was the first one to use the analogy of a watch—that if a person found such a complex and ingenious device he would have to conclude that behind the marvelous device was a watchmaker. Charlie spent hours explaining her readings to her uncle and answering his questions. He was chiefly interested in knowing whether or not these arguments sounded scientific to her based upon what she had learned in class. She told him that she thought they did, which pleased him mightily. Still up until this week she had remained in the dark about where these readings and discussions were leading. Then last night’s local paper had an announcement that the Rev
erend Edward Harris and Joseph Moore, the minister of the Bible Baptist Church in Waska, were planning to go before the town’s school board and demand that Intelligent Design be taught in science classes.

  By morning, it seems, every student at Courtney Academy had heard this news, and everyone knew that the Rev. Harris was Charlie’s uncle. Unfortunately, as Charlie well understood, the more vicious and ignorant members of the student body now had a target for their scorn and ridicule. She had already heard whisperings in her morning classes and a few snide insults in the hallways. These early signs of what lay ahead had made her dread the cafeteria. It was the one place at school that faculty supervision was slight, and knowing this she had even considered going without lunch. But hunger always gave her a belly ache, and she dreaded even more the embarrassment of a noisy stomach in her afternoon classes. So here she was, so nervous her hands trembled as she held her tray and waited in line. The noise of hundreds of voices talking at once, modulated by an occasional whoop, loud laugh or a grating, high-pitched voice, was making her tingle all over, and she found herself clutching her tray so hard her hands began hurting. With relief she put it on the rollers of the food line and concentrated on choosing her lunch. The fast-food hamburgers and junk food looked terribly tempting, but even though she knew her uncle was unlikely to ever know what she chose, it was as if he was inside her mind and whispering “satanic’ whenever the thought of those hamburgers became conscious. Obediently she chose Salisbury steak, mashed potatoes and peas, with a chocolate chip cookie for dessert and a glass of milk for her beverage.

  After having her meal ticket punched, she walked down the middle aisle looking for a free seat that was safe. Many eyes watched her progress, and a few catcalls of “Creationism” were shouted while someone else loudly hummed “Here Comes the Bride,” but she managed to ignore them. There was an empty chair next to Jan Parker, but she wouldn’t think of sitting there. Jan, now a cheerleader and a school bigshot, had cut her completely and didn’t even acknowledge her existence as she walked by. There was a seat at the table where three girls who were in her English class were sitting, but they had never been friendly. She looked towards the back, hoping to find an empty table. In the third from the last row Yvonne Wagner was looking at her. A plain girl with a bad complexion, she was too shy to shout at Charlie, but she was clearly glad for some company. She was in her English and Spanish classes and as close a friend as the rules her uncle laid down allowed—she saw her at school and no where else.

  Feeling relief, she sat down. “Hi, Yvonne. Did you read the Tennyson poems?”

  “Yes, I loved ‘Flower in the Crannied Wall.’ It expressed the mystery of life perfectly.” Yvonne was of a poetic nature. She held her hamburger before her mouth as she spoke before taking a big bite.

  Charlie began on her Salisbury steak, cutting a piece with her fork. “Have you heard about all the Intelligent Design stuff?”

  She nodded, her mouth still full. “Everyone’s talking about it.”

  Charlie noticed several students in surrounding tables looking at her. She grew self-conscious. “I don’t know why kids blame me. It’s my uncle’s idea.”

  Yvonne chewed thoughtfully. “I guess it’s because you’re here and he isn’t. But you don’t believe in that Creationism stuff, do you?”

  Charlie saw Jeremy Lawrence, her lab partner in biology and a kind boy, had sat down at the next table and overheard Yvonne. She thought he had very appealing wide blue eyes. They always seemed kind and gentle, as if he never frowned or thought ill of others. He was another of the very few she was friendly with at school, and it was a comfort to have both him and Yvonne nearby. She started to relax a little as she said, “Hi, Jeremy.”

  He smiled slightly and nodded. He too was a shy person.

  She looked back at Yvonne. “I don’t know about Creationism. Intelligent Design is a better argument. That stuff is actually written by scientists who are also Christians.”

  “What do they say?”

  “Oh, lot’s of stuff. A good argument is an early one by a man named Paley. He lived in England in the seventeen hundreds. He said that if you found a watch and saw how intricate it was, you would conclude from that that a watchmaker made it. It’s the same with the world and God. There’s also a lot of complex ideas. One of ’em’s called ‘irreducible complexity.’ It’s—”

  But she got no further. A boy sitting in the table behind Yvonne had been whispering quietly to his companions for the last minute. Now he turned and said to Charlie, “Hey, Charlene, I’m thinking of having Voodoo as part of the curriculum. Is that okay with you?”

  Charlie merely frowned at the childish and unimaginative remark and turned away, but that gesture seemed to anger a boy named Bob Parole, who was in her biology class and had something of a reputation as a smart aleck—she had heard that he was known to rag opposing players at sporting events mercilessly. “Don’t you be turning your nose up to Voodoo, Miss Christian. The crap you’re selling—Creationism—is no better.”

  “It’s Intelligent Design that’s the issue,” Charlie said quietly. “Nobody’s talking about Creationism.”

  “Oh, but we are. My father said it’s just a way to sneak Creationism in the back door. Only ignorant people believe that crap. How you been getting them A’s, Charlene. You sleeping with the teachers, or what?’

  Charlie could feel her face burn crimson. She looked at Yvonne, hoping she’d say something in her defense, but her friend was too shy. She too looked embarrassed.

  “The way you dress certainly turns all the guys on,” another boy said, sensing here a weakness. “You’re one fine piece of ass, I’m sure.”

  “I’m sure she dazzles all the male teachers,” Bob Parole said, “but for a minute let’s stick to the issue. Charlene, you’ve seen those trilobites and other fossils in Mr. Adamson’s lab. Do you think God made them on the third day?”

  To correct him and say that God made animals on the fifth day would only bring forth ridicule. The safest answer was a short one: “I don’t know.”

  “Yeah, that’s just it. You don’t know. And when you don’t know, you should keep your mouth shut.”

  “I never said anything,” Charlie said, feeling tears of frustration and embarrassment stinging her eyes. “I just want to be left alone.”

  She could see Jeremy looking at her with his big blue eyes expressing concern. Seeing her tears was a strong enough impetus to overcome his shyness. “Hey, you guys. Cut it out. It’s not her fault her uncle wants that stuff. Blame him, not her.”

  “Mind your own business. It is her fault. If she wasn’t in school this crap wouldn’t even be discussed.”

  Nevertheless they did quiet down for a while, and Charlie and Yvonne went back to their lunch, eating now in shocked silence. Charlie wanted to escape, to go somewhere far away where no one knew her and she could be invisible. She hardly dared to make a sound in case it drew attention to her again. She had lost her appetite. Her hand trembled as she lifted it for every mouthful, and her stomach felt sick after she swallowed. “I have to leave,” she finally whispered to her friend as she rose and started to get her bookbag.

  The move was observed and her vulnerability noted. Her tormenters started up again, this time loudly addressing each other for her benefit.

  “She’s weird,” Bob Parole said.

  “Weird!? She’s left the planet. What do they call it? The rapture.”

  “Sounds like group sex to me,” said another.

  “She doesn’t belong with normal people, that’s for sure,” Bob said. “But I wonder, I really wonder, if she even has so ungodly a thing as a twat between her legs.”

  “It’s not worth finding out,” one of them said by way of answering. “She’s too ugly.”

  More was said but before she heard it Charlie was rushing away and trying mightily to keep her tears to herself.

  Suddenly she found Jeremy was beside her. “Don’t listen to those idiots, Charlene. They’re
morons.”

  She nodded, feeling grateful but too distraught to even speak.

  They emptied their trays into the rubbish, and then Jeremy said, “Come on, I’ll walk you to biology.”

  Again she nodded, feeling grateful but not knowing how to express it.

  Outside as they walked to the science building it was a beautiful May afternoon, the warmest of the year. Jeremy seemed to take it all in with delight. He looked at the flowers lining the path, the trees wearing new coats of shining leaves, the birds that flitted among the branches or hopped on the ground, the deep blue of the sky, all with eyes of wonder. From a plastic bag he was carrying he showed her a pair of rubber boots he brought so that he could wade into the marsh they were going to look at.

  “They were attacking me for my beliefs,” Charlie said. “It isn’t fair.”

  “You believe what you want to believe. There’s supposed to be freedom in America, though all those conformists don’t know a thing about it.”

  “What do you believe, Jeremy?”

  He smiled strangely. “Now there’s a tricky question. The easy answer is—I don’t know. I’m still looking. I don’t think, though, that I believe in God. I hope that’s okay? I like Thoreau a lot. He found spiritual values in the woods. Did you read Walden last year in freshman honors?”

  “No, Mrs. Borge had us read The Scarlet Letter. But what do you mean about spiritual values found in the woods, and yet you don’t believe in God? I don’t understand.”

  They were at the science building now but stayed outside. Today’s lab was going to be a field trip to the woods, marshes and fields behind the school to look for plants, animals and birds as well as evidence of ecological interdependence.

  “I heard Yvonne say she liked ‘Flower in the Crannied Wall.’ It’s things like that. Thoreau was in the woods, but he was surrounded by mystery and beauty. Those are spiritual, don’t you think?”

  “I guess. I’m not really sure.” She remembered that her uncle insisted there was only one source of spiritual values in the world, the Bible. She thought Jeremy was wrong, but she could see his sincerity and was confused. It made her think of all the doubts she used to have, a thought that scared her. Satan was everywhere, her uncle said, and could easily trick you.

  Others from their class arrived and waited at the rendezvous site, excited to be involved with field work so that they could get an idea of how a working biologist did his job. It was the first and only biology lab that was outdoors. In their two classes this week they had studied wetland ecology, and Mr. Adamson had showed them many species, both dried specimens and photographs, they could expect to see on their excursion.

  Waiting, Jeremy and Charlie dropped all mention of her lunchtime humiliation and sought normality in discussing their reading assignment. Jeremy said he was especially looking forward to this field work. He loved nature, but books on the one hand and pickled specimens to dissect on the other were an indirect way to experience the beauty and wonder of nature. Today, he said, they would meet her face to face.

  When Charlie, thinking of her uncle, crinkled her face involuntarily, Jeremy smiled and said, “You should remember nature is God’s handiwork.”

  They stood a little apart from the rest of the class as they waited for Mr. Adamson’s arrival. Occasionally Charlie noticed a few kids looking at her and whispering something to their companions which invariably produced malicious smiles. When she woke this morning she had anticipated any embarrassment she was going to feel today would emanate from the clothes she wore. Everyone was told to wear more casual clothes and the girls especially were admonished not to wear skirts or dresses. She hadn’t dared to mention this advice to her uncle, and even if she did it would not matter—she did not own a pair of jeans. Now she knew they might also be laughing at the dress she wore, but they were laughing more about the religion she followed. What was that word Tom Parole and his friends had used—weird? Well, she certainly felt weird. Thinking of the example of Jesus, she admonished herself and tried to look brave.

  It didn’t last long. She saw Tom Parole arrive late and begin speaking, with many glances towards her, to several of the students. She tensed as she tried to listen to Jeremy’s thoughts on wetland loss and what that meant (it had been part of their reading assignment). But before another scene developed, Mr. Adamson showed up dressed in old dungarees and high boots instead of his usual suit, and she suddenly felt safe.

  He was a tall, thin and balding man in his late fifties with gray hair and glasses. He had an habitual round-shouldered slouch that made him look defensive, but it was deceiving. He was a very forceful teacher who wouldn’t tolerate any shenanigans in his classroom. Kids like Tom Parole who were wiseguys in other classes were perfectly behaved in Mr. Adamson’s biology class, and this despite the fact he never got angry or even raised his voice. Charlie had often thought about the contrast between him and her uncle. He, her uncle, was a strong-willed man too, but he used bullying and harsh words to get his way. What this difference meant Charlie was not sure and never dared to draw any conclusion.

  After a quick visual attendance check by their leader, the class walked en masse past the athletic fields to arrive at the natural field of high grass and shrubs where they followed a path made by innumerable feet to the edge of the pine forest. Down a hill to their left where a brook ran out of the woods was the marsh. It had open water about two football fields in length and one in width and was surrounded by some thirty yards or so of marsh reeds and other vegetation. There was a now-unused railroad track on the side nearest to them, and after going down the hill they stopped at it, and here Mr. Adamson spoke for about ten minutes, reminding them of some of the things easily seen and spoke in general terms about some easily seen ecological processes. He said the most common birds we see are the result of the white man’s effect on the land—English sparrows, starling and pigeons were all introduced species from Europe. The fact that robins are common in towns now was the result of clearing forests in colonial times, for it was a species of open spaces near woodlands. Bluebirds, which used to be common, have been in decline because aggressive starlings take their nesting sites. Mocking birds, cardinals, and possums are part of a northern migration of southern species, partly or wholly caused by human interference such as feeding stations and the availability of garbage. Garbage also explains the southern migration of herring gulls, which used to be found far north of Maine. He pointed to the abundant and—Charlie thought—beautiful purple flowers called purple loosestrife and mentioned that it was an exotic not native to America that was driving some native species close to extinction. He also mentioned gypsy moths and zebra mussels, but here Charlie’s mind wandered because she saw Tom Parole staring at her insolently as if he regarded her as an evasive species that did not belong here. Her attention came back to Mr. Adamson when he discussed the importance of wetlands for a healthy earth and clean water supply, for it was the wetlands that acted as a natural filter.

  Then from the case he had been carrying with the help of a shoulder strap, he took out four pairs of binoculars and had the students take turns scanning the marsh for birds and aquatic animals. Besides some mallards, a blue heron was seen and then a green heron. One student saw a strange chicken-like dark bird that nobody knew until Mr. Adamson identified it for them: it was a coot. A red-tailed hawk was seen circling above. A large mound at the end of the marsh was discovered to be a muskrat’s home, but the animal was not sighted. As he was speaking, Charlie noticed some small yellow birds with reddish streakings on their breast in the bushes below the railroad tracks and whispered to Jeremy, “Look, there’s some yellow warblers. I was looking at their picture last night.”

  She meant to whisper but in her excitement spoke loud enough for others, including Mr. Adamson, to overhear her. His compliment brought a blush to her cheeks.

  “Charlene’s right,” he said. “That’s the kind of observation we all should be looking for.”

  With the teacher’s
general remarks completed, the group broke up into the lab-partner pairings and dispersed around the marsh to observe and make field notes of all aspects of nature they encountered. Their instructions were to not only make verbal notes but also sketches as accurate as possible to illuminate the words.

  Charlie and Jeremy walked up the railroad tracks some distance before descending to the marsh. Jeremy, wearing his boots, was able to wade into the muddy and watery edges of the marsh to get a closer view of some of the things they saw. Sometimes Charlie could see the specimen fairly well; other times Jeremy would have to shout out the characteristics as she jotted down the notes. Many other things they saw on drier land so that both could examine them closely. In this way they took notes and made sketches of about twenty-five specimen in an hour—plants, insects, birds and amphibians, including a pied-billed grebe, two species of cattail, two different dragonflies, a little sulphur butterfly with black-tipped yellow wings, New England aster, a daisy-like flower purplish in color with a hairy stem and smooth, toothless leaves, a marsh wren and the like. One flower that they spent a long time discussing had a long stem with filament-like leaves and small yellow flowers. Charlie made a nice drawing of it, but all they could agree upon was that it was probably some sort of bladderwort. Another large plant also was a mystery. It was growing in muddy, shallow water, had a spherical fuzzy head and was about four or five feet high.

  Mr. Adamson, making his rounds, was with two students forty feet behind them. Since he would be checking on their progress next, Charlie and Jeremy stood and waited. They watched a redwing blackbird drop into the reeds and decided his nest must be hidden there. While Charlie was adding that information to their field notes, Jeremy brought up the lunchtime troubles. His face showed he was still bothered by her victimization, and Charlie, seeing that, knew he was a friend and wouldn’t say anything to disturb her. Besides, for the first time today she felt relaxed and happy to be in beautiful natural surroundings.

  “Charlene, about those boys. You should remember how ignorant they are. Even the ones who get good grades don’t understand anything about life or reality. Have you ever heard of ‘group think’?”

  When she shook her head no, he said, “Well, they show it. Anyone who is different seems weird to them because they’re all little conformists. Thoreau said a man who is right is a majority of one. You should remember that. Belief comes from inside. Those guys live borrowed lives using other people’s mediocre ideas. Thoreau also said the majority of people live lives of quiet desperation.”

  Again she looked puzzled and did not know how to reply.

  Jeremy seemed to understand what was troubling her. “I noticed you thought it was strange that Thoreau and Tennyson could have spiritual thoughts without Christianity.”

  “I’m not sure it’s possible.”

  “Oh, it is. The Buddhists even have spiritual thoughts without God. Our consciousness has a spark of the divine in it. Atman and Brahman are the terms.”

  “Isn’t that blasphemy, or…” She tried to think of a more neutral term, but could only come up with pride. “Isn’t it overweening pride?”

  He laughed. “For a Christian maybe. My mother is into Buddhism, and she’s certainly spiritual.”

  “Do you believe it too?”

  “I’m not convinced, but it is interesting stuff. I think the Buddhists are very wise saying that you must give up all selfish thoughts and desires to become enlightened. But my mother says it’s easier said than done.”

  Before she could answer Mr. Adamson came up. “How are you two getting on?” he asked in a friendly way. He too seemed very happy to be out of the classroom and in nature’s lab.

  “We’ve got about twenty-five things,” Jeremy said.

  Mr. Adamson raised his eyebrows and made a low whistle. “That many? If this was a contest, you two would be winning.”

  “That’s because Charlene really knows the material,” Jeremy said modestly. He had been just as good as she was at identifying things.

  “But this plant here, Mr. Adamson,” Charlie said, pointing, “is a mystery to us.”

  Mr. Adamson examined the tall plant and seemed to know what it was, but before he said anything he asked to see Charlene’s drawing and notes.

  He looked admiringly at her notebook and said, “Excellent. You’ve noted down all the important characteristics and drawn it accurately. That means when you got back from the field you’d be able to identify it easily in the books.” He pointed to the spherical head. “That’s the thing that nails it. It’s buttonbush, cephalanthus occidentalis. It grows in very wet places and can survive being under water for long periods of time. It’s one of the plants that shows a wetland is of long duration, not just seasonal. Again, you’re both doing excellent work.”

  He was about to turn back when he paused, looked at Charlie and then back over his shoulder. He seemed to be mulling over something before coming to a decision. Reaching into the black case he was carrying and extracting a pair of binoculars, he said, “Jeremy, would you do me a favor and bring these binoculars to Lorraine and Sandy. Before I got to you they yelled up at me that they’ve spotted a nest they’d like to examine closely.”

  As soon as he was gone, Mr. Adamson looked at Charlie and gave her a slight smile to show his good intentions. “Charlene, a word about this Intelligent Design business. You’re a very bright girl and an excellent student, one of the best I’ve had in many a year. But you’re in danger of completely misunderstanding how science works. You must understand that it has nothing to do with belief. It requires open-minded inquiry, and the scientist should always let the facts lead him or her to the truth, not try to fit those facts into a pre-existing belief. Suppose, for instance, that someone didn’t want this area to be wetland because he wanted to build here. Buttonbush is a plant that proves this is a permanent wetland. But if he called it something else so that he could get his building permit, he’d be dishonest, wouldn’t he?”

  Charlie nodded shyly.

  “That doesn’t mean that scientists don’t think religion doesn’t have a place in life. Plenty of scientists are also religious people, but their scientific work is separate from their religious beliefs. We all recognize that life is a deep mystery that gives rise to questions about the creator. There is a place for God in human life and in the life of a scientist, but not in a scientist’s work. The way I would sum it up for you is this: if you have Jesus in your heart that’s all you need. You don’t need proof. If you follow Jesus’ teachings like the Sermon on the Mount, then it has nothing to do with science. Do you understand the point I’m making?”

  “Yes, sir, Mr. Adamson. I do. And I think you’re right.”

  “Good.”

  That was it! The conversation she thought was going to be the final crushing attack of the day when Mr. Adamson first sent Jeremy away was nothing—more than nothing, it was a pleasant surprise. She was grateful to Mr. Adamson and surprised at how understanding he was. He respected her and showed it.

  She did not have much time to think about the implications of his remarks, however, as she and Jeremy worked against time to find five more specimens to examine before the lab was over, but it was her last class of the day, and after thanking Jeremy and saying good-bye, then going quickly to her locker to get her books, she thought about Mr. Adamson on her walk home. The biggest surprise was that he seemed to be a Christian or at least not anti-Christian. The way her uncle talked, all scientists were atheists and of the devil’s party. Even so, she didn’t think her uncle would like his remarks about the nature of science, but she hoped he wouldn’t get angry with her. If she told him what her teacher said about having Jesus in your heart, there would be less chance of facing his anger. But regardless, she would tell him everything simply because she was incapable of lying to him. Then her mind wandered into dangerous territory. She asked herself why Mr. Adamson was so nice and her uncle so mean. Her uncle was supposed to be filled with the love of Jesus, and yet—but she real
ized Satan was whispering these thoughts to her and stopped herself. She turned her mind to Jeremy, wishing that somehow he would become a Christian and they could become closer friends. But Satan was beckoning her down that path too, and— then a voice yelling “Hey, Christian bitch!” brought her back from her dangerous daydream. It was a car passing filled with boys from C.A. They yelled and gave her the finger, which had the effect of reminding her of all the excruciating humiliation and embarrassment she had been subjected to today, and just like that the good mood the field trip had induced in her melted away, and she found herself wishing that like her cousins she could be home-schooled. She saw no sign that tomorrow or the days following would be any better. She was now a marked girl.

  Thus she entered the Harris home with conflicted feelings. From the picture of Jesus in the foyer, from a bookstand in the dining room with an open Bible, to all the Christian books on the living room shelves and all the prints of biblical scenes in every room in the house, there was no mistaking that this was a Christian home. Though for a long time these displays of religiosity were very strange to her, now they were familiar and part of being at home. That’s because she knew the rules to be observed. Though here certain thoughts were to be kept to oneself, and though she still had the feeling that all the inmates behaved and spoke according to a script, still she knew where she stood. She understood the rules and knew how to behave. No one would taunt her here, no one would laugh at her clothes, no one would shout out an embarrassing insult.

  So it was a refuge. She feared her uncle and could never be totally forthright with any of her relatives, and yet it was still home, a place where she hoped to be comforted.

  Inside the two boys were working on their homework at the dining room table, and in the kitchen, separated from the dining room by only a long counter, her aunt and Martha were making preparations for dinner. Martha, peeling potatoes, saw her first. Her pale blue eyes widened and her red lips made an oval, for the dear sweet and gentle girl had instantly sensed that Charlie was troubled.

  “What’s wrong, Charlene? You looked pained.”

  She put her books on the counter and said, “I am. I had an awful day. A group of boys taunted me so much at lunchtime I had to leave.”

  “You mean about Intelligent Design?”

  Charlie nodded and then broke into tears. “The things they said were awful. They made fun of my clothes and our religion.” She couldn’t mention the sexual insults, for that was one of the forbidden topics.

  She looked up to see Aunt Cora had turned from the stove and was gazing at her, her face looking so sad she could have been Mary watching her suffering son, and thought she understood the reason: her powerless aunt could do nothing to lessen her pain, but she could feel it as her own. Fresh tears sprang into Charlie’s eyes at the lovingkindness she could feel like a hug.

  “What did they say?” Martha asked, gazing into her eyes.

  “They were all boys. They said it was ignorant to be Christian, things like that. And as I said, they belittled my clothes.”

  “Your clothes,” Matthew said from where he was listening at the dining room table. “What’s wrong with your clothes?”

  “I don’t dress like the other girls. It makes me stand out.”

  “You dress like a Christian,” said the future preacher. “Those Philistines dress for Satan. You should be proud, not ashamed.”

  For a moment the old Charlie rose up in her mind, but before she made a sharp retort, she stifled it. “I was defenseless against them at first,” she said quietly, looking at Martha. “There were five or six boys taunting me before a nice boy in my biology class came to my defense.”

  “If it was me I wouldn’t need any defender,” Matthew said. “I wouldn’t even listen to their worldly ways. Paul told the Corinthians to cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump. That’s what we have to do. Those boys are all going to burn in hellfire. You should have told them that. It’s what I would have done.”

  “Well, you’re a boy, Matthew. It’s different for us girls.”

  “She was bullied and picked on,” Martha said. “She couldn’t defend herself. Don’t you see that?” Then she turned to Charlie. “I’m glad I don’t have to go to Courtney Academy. I think you’re very brave, Charlene.”

  Matthew listened to this aside impatiently. “There’s never a time we shouldn’t speak up for our lord. That’s all I can say.”

  Aunt Cora did not dare to chastise her son, but she answered him indirectly. “Charlene, we’ll have apple pie and ice-cream for the dessert tonight—your favorite. I hope that will cheer you up.”

  It did. The intent behind the words of some sort of female solidarity of compassion was perfectly understood. Charlie went upstairs to the bedroom she shared with Martha feeling that her aunt, Martha, Jeremy Lawrence and Mr. Adamson were on her side. Since she was supposed to see the world’s dualism as one between Christians and Satanists, she was aware that this was a dangerous feeling. She didn’t let herself verbalize, only feel it.

  There were two beds on one side of the room separated by a nightstand, two desks and chairs on the other, and under the window one large bureau they shared. She put her books down on her desk, then pulled at her bra, which was very uncomfortable and which she would have liked to remove except that the rules of the house said she had to crush her womanly shape away while she was awake. She opened her Spanish book and was just starting to work on the subjunctive mood when Martha came into the room. She too had homework to do. In her case, it was to read several chapters of John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress.

  Charlie always found her sweetly sympathetic and loved her gentle and quiet cousin very much, even though she never dared discuss anything serious (such as religious doubts) with her. She always had the feeling Martha was not strong enough and would be hurt and shocked to know of such things. She was closest to her of anyone in the family, and still a wall of separation existed between them. But passive pain Martha understood, and after they both studied for a while, she interrupted the silence to surprise Charlie by saying, “I feel so bad for what you had to go through, Charlene. You must be mad at my father for making you take biology.”

  “Mad at Uncle Edward? Oh, no. And besides, biology is really interesting if you ignore the evolution stuff.”

  “Mrs. Pogue teaches us biblical biology. And she makes a good point. God is all powerful. Why couldn’t He make everything in one week six thousand years ago? He’s God. To me there is no mystery. Have you learned how those scientists claim they know things are older?”

  “Yes. They use carbon 14 dating. It’s something about something called an isotope that breaks down at a predictable rate.”

  Martha frowned thoughtfully. “But how do they know it’s accurate?”

  “I don’t know. That’s a good point. I know they must be wrong.”

  Martha went back to reading Pilgrim’s Progress; then after a few minutes, she asked, “Is that carbon test all they have?”

  Charlie shook her head. She’d been thinking about evolution and what Mr. Adamson said about being open-minded, and she had the feeling she wasn’t being fair. She remembered something else he had told the class earlier in the year. “Well,” she said, “there’s other things like finding shells and fossilized sea creatures on mountain tops. Mr. Adamson talked about that about a month ago. He said Darwin found such things in the Andes.”

  Martha’s sweet face looked puzzled. “How can that be?”

  “It’s something about geology. The earth has plates that move and force flatland to be pushed up to make mountains. Mr. Adamson says they move at less than an inch a year. This, though, I do not believe.”

  “Yes, those shells could have been swept to mountain tops during Noah’s flood, couldn’t they?”

  “I don’t see why not.”

  “So you don’t believe Mr. Adamson?”

  “I believe he believes it and that he’s a sincere man. I think he might even be a Christian.
But these things are mysteries. I think life is a mystery and we must have faith in Jesus.”

  “Amen,” murmured her cousin. “But I don’t see how he could be a Christian and believe in Darwin.”

  Charlie smiled. “It’s another mystery,” she said, and then went back to her Spanish verbs while Martha safely visited Vanity Fair.

  There were no smiles at dinner. Uncle Edward, who never smiled, wore a frown through the entire meal, even when he said grace. Before dinner Matthew had told the girls he’d heard his father saying something about the books at the plumbing supply business being all messed up, but Charlie didn’t think that was what was bothering him. She was pretty sure she was the cause of his displeasure.

  Uncle Edward went down to his office beside the family room in the basement immediately after dinner and stayed there. While Charlie helped clean up and then worked on her biology field notes, she anxiously awaited the expected summons, which came at about 7:30 just as she was about to read her English assignment.

  She came into the office feeling almost sick with anxiety. Uncle Edward was standing behind his desk with his arms folded, still wearing a dark frown. He regarded her for a moment in a hostile way as if he was once again searching her face for signs of harlotry.

  A long uncomfortable moment passed while she felt his eyes boring through her. She hung her head, ashamed of herself.

  “I spoke to your mother today. She claims to be trying to reform herself. She’s joined Alcoholics Anonymous and claims”—the word positively dripped with sarcasm when he said it—“that she hasn’t had a drink in three months.”

  Charlie had seen her mother only briefly, infrequently and always with her uncle by her side during the past two years and nine months. Whenever she thought of her mother, the picture she saw in her mind always included a drink in her mother’s hand. She could understand her uncle’s sarcasm. It fit reality more than the extraordinary message he conveyed.

  “She says she knows she wronged you and wants to apologize,” her uncle continued, then waited for Charlie to say something. When she didn’t, he went on. “I told her that if she goes another three months, she can see you, though only under supervision.” Again he looked up, expecting a reply.

  “Whatever you decide is best is fine with me, Uncle Edward.”

  He nodded, then sat at his desk and looked through a few papers. “Your aunt tells me you were insulted and taunted today. I trust you remembered the advice I’ve given you before. I trust you were a strong Christian.”

  “I tried to be, Uncle…”

  Uncle Edward looked up, frowning, and made an impatient motion with his hand as if waving away a pesky fly. It was the verb he didn’t like, she knew. “Remember that they are of the devil’s party. Their words cannot penetrate the invisible shield of Jesus.”

  “Yes, Uncle Edward. I sought his comfort.”

  That answer was better. He nodded, then leaned back in his chair, but Charlie’s hope that she would be dismissed and escape any further discussion was quickly squelched. “Did you have occasion to speak to Mr. Adamson? I’m told he will have a lot to say about our cherished plan.”

  “Yes, sir. I did speak with Mr. Adamson.”

  His eyes narrowed. He’d detected something in her tone he didn’t like. “And what did he say.”

  Charlie took a deep breath. She had to tell him what her teacher said, knowing he was not going to like it. “He doesn’t believe Intelligent Design is science. He said I was danger of completely misunderstanding how science works, that it… that it has nothing to do with belief. Science, he said, requires open-minded inquiry, and the scientist should always let the facts lead him or her to the truth, not try to fit those facts into a pre-existing belief.”

  With a sudden motion her uncle stood. He folded and unfolded his arms and started rocking on the balls of his feet while the scowl on his face grew darker and darker. His hands were clenched into tight fists. Seeing these signs, Charlie trembled in terror. “You explained to him how it was scientific, didn’t you?

  “I did,” Charlie said meekly. “But he said science has no place for personal belief. It uses objective criteria.”

  “And what did you say to that, young lady. Those readings I gave you, weren’t they scientific?”

  “Yes, sir, they were. I did. I did tell him what you told me to say…” She paused to see if the heavens were going to open at the enormity of the lie she just told, but nothing happened. Her uncle frowned more deeply, that’s all. “He said a lot of scientists were religious,” she continued, feeling a little more confident, “ but that their religious beliefs and their scientific practices were two different things. Uncle Edward, I think Mr. Adamson is a Christian because he said something else…”

  “What?” her uncle demanded. “What did he say?”

  She thought for a moment, trying to remember the exact words. “He said if you have Jesus in your heart that’s all you need. You don’t need proof. If you follow Jesus’ teachings like the Sermon on the Mount, then it has nothing to do with science.”

  His eyes widened and then almost instantly narrowed as his face assumed a worried, troubled expression. He turned and looked at a print of Jesus raising Lazurus from the dead, then down at his feet. It took Charlie a few moments to realize that he was dumbfounded and—remembering a word she’d just learned this week in English class—nonplussed. It was the first time she’d ever seen behind the bullying exterior to the man inside, and it came to her as a revelation. He could be bullying and willful only because he simplified the world into black and white. Now exposed to some unexpected shades of gray, he was lost. That he had understood nothing about the awkward position he had put her in in school today also became clear to her. He didn’t think of others’ needs, only his own. He saw life as a battle where people were used to advance his agenda. And this was the man she had feared? She still did, but it was different now.

  She saw him tremble as if his frame was shaken by some horrendous inner battle. But he spoke calmly when he said, “All right, Charlene. You may go now.”

  The Buried Life