It is a curious thought, but it is only when you see people looking ridiculous that you realize just how much you love them.
— Agatha Christie
I’d mail it tomorrow. No emails tonight. Pips would understand.
Chapter 10
Vanishing Point
The next morning, shots punctuated the quiet on our drive to school. I shuddered at each one. Wednesday, September tenth, the first day of bear hunting season.
At the red light, Dad turned to me. “Sadie …”
I wished we could drive into another world. A world with no hunting and no sick Mom and no Frankie. I had no idea what to say. Dad didn’t seem to know either.
“Sades, I love you,” he finally said.
When we pulled up to school, three fire trucks blocked the front drive, lights flashing. Kids huddled in small groups, watching the fire fighters rush back and forth from their trucks around to the back of the building.
Ruth sat alone on the front steps, biting her lip.
I hurried over. “What happened?”
“The climbing stump, you know, the big one off the playground? Someone set it on fire, and the entire middle burned out. The firemen think it smoldered all night. This morning, when the teachers arrived, flames shot up toward the other trees out back.”
“The fire’s out now, right?” I asked.
Ruth sighed. “Yes, Sadie. But we know who started it.”
“No, we don’t. We know who was on the roof messing with a lighter a few days ago, but anyone could have lit that stump on fire.”
“But Mario, Nick, and Demitri weren’t at last night’s meeting.” Ruth rubbed her hands over her face, across her jeans, smoothed her hair. “That can’t be a coincidence.”
“Ruth, you worry too much.”
“They’ll ask if anyone knows anything. We can’t pretend we don’t.”
Behind us, a voice hissed, “If you say anything, Ruth, about anyone, you’ll get it from me.”
We whirled around to face Frankie, Tess, and Nicole.
“That goes for you too, Zitzie,” Tess said.
The day had been miserable. The firemen spent two hours explaining the dangers of fire in an all-school assembly. When your body is one big mosquito bite, the only thing worse than trying to sleep is trying to sit still in an all-school assembly. And Ruth was right. Our principal, Mr. Garrett, announced that anyone who withheld information would be suspended along with those who’d set the fire. Ruth wore her I-might-cry-any-minute look all day. From her seat behind me, Frankie kicked my calf at least ten times.
By the time I got to Vivian’s house, my head ached, my calf throbbed, my skin felt like it might burst into itchy flame, and I wanted to scream. Perched on my stool at the art table, I scowled at my drawing of that day’s object, a teapot.
“It still looks flat.” I scrubbed my eraser across the page.
Vivian came around the table to watch over my shoulder. “Where is your vanishing point?”
I jabbed my pencil at the black grid I had drawn over my picture, lines that were supposed to help me make my object appear three dimensional, as though it vanished right in the center of the page. “It used to be there.”
“Sadie, put down your pencil before you poke out your eye.” Vivian opened the french doors. “Let’s go outside.”
I followed her out to the back porch steps, and we sat down, leaning against the railing. Clouds drifted lazily over the treetops, a slideshow of changing pictures.
“Why are you frustrated?” Vivian asked.
“I want my drawings to work.”
“You’re learning to see in a new way, Sadie. Your brain is screaming, NO! That vanishing point goes against everything I believe. But I’m positive you can do this.”
“I’m not.” I plucked a handful of grass and shredded the blades one by one.
Vivian laughed. “It’s not easy to learn something you’ve always known how to do. You’ve doodled with crayons since you were a toddler, so you should already know how to draw, right?”
“It’s humiliating.” I tossed the grass onto the ground.
“Who’s watching? Only me, and I know how hard it is. I’m not laughing.”
“It’s a waste of time, drawing pictures I’d never show anyone.”
“What else should you be doing?” Vivian said. “Time is only wasted when you’d rather spend it on something else.”
“Well, I … feel so itchy all the time, not from the mosquito bites, but like I want to crawl out of my skin and start all over again. Nothing fits right since we moved here. I feel like a different person than I used to be.”
Vivian nodded and looked up at the clouds. I liked the way Vivian never rushed me. She wasn’t like other teachers I’d had, quick to answer. She gave me time to think, to decide if I’d finished my thought or if I had more to say. She treated my words as though each was important, as though each had depth and weight.
“Do you think,” she asked after a few more moments, “that you are different, or the way others see you is different?”
“What do you mean?”
“Just now, inside, when you drew what you thought you saw, everything was out of proportion. Could it be that people see you as the mediator’s kid, someone from outside who thinks she knows it all? Is it all out of proportion?”
“Well, yeah, it’s out of proportion. Frankie thinks I’m sneaking around spying for my evil Dad who is plotting to bury Owl Creek in new laws.”
“Are you really this upset because of what Frankie thinks of you?” Vivian asked. “People must have misunderstood you in California sometimes too.”
“This feels different. I feel different.”
“You mean you’re changing because of the way people see you?”
“Not into a sneak,” I said quickly.
“But you’re changing?”
Was I? I’d been quick to rationalize not telling about Frankie and the boys and the lighter, but I’d been furious with Dad for not reporting Jim. I wanted to be the kind of person who did the right thing. Back home, doing the right thing had felt easy. But in Owl Creek, I wasn’t sure what the right thing was.
A thought flickered at the edge of my mind, clear, but also difficult to define. “Maybe the right thing’s the vanishing point.”
I stood, walked back inside and turned to a fresh page in my sketchbook. Back to the teapot. I sketched it again and this time the vanishing point was a little more obvious. At least my teapot looked slightly three-dimensional. Not totally proportional, but close. I promised Vivian I’d draw something with a vanishing point each day this week.
Peter offered to take me home on his way to town, and on the drive he rolled down the truck windows, letting the cool autumn air blow in. For the first time that day, I didn’t hear shots. Maybe the hunters had finished for the day. Signs for pumpkins and corn and squash lined the road.
Peter breathed deep. “Fall is in the air. Soon the leaves will start to change.” He smiled at me. “Mom doesn’t usually get so excited about teaching. You must be good.”
I shook my head. “More like I’m a challenge.”
Peter laughed. “Well, she likes those too. I’m her biggest challenge so far. Someday I’m going to make something of myself — make her proud. Just as soon as I figure out what I want to be when I grow up.”
Peter must have sensed my unasked question. “Oh, I’m ancient — almost twenty-five. I’ll get a job one of these days. I trained to be a firefighter until Dad’s accident, and then after …” He shrugged. “Well, I didn’t want to leave Mom alone, and honestly, I’m not sure I want to be the first one at a tragic scene.”
Peter turned down my road. “Anyway … my point is Mom loves teaching you, and anything that brings her joy, well, it makes me happy too.”
“She’s a good teacher,” I said. My words seemed a lame response to everything he’d said, but I hadn’t heard about his dad’s accident before now. I didn’t want to pry.
&
nbsp; “What did Mom teach you today?” Peter asked.
“The right thing’s the vanishing point,” I said, speaking aloud the words that had continued to echo in my mind, trying to make sense of themselves. Sometimes life felt like a big game of chance — you might choose right and you might choose wrong, and you’d never know until after you chose. Was that why Dad didn’t report Jim? Was I just as bad for not reporting the boys? If the right choice was always invisible, how were you ever supposed to know what to do?
Peter pulled into my driveway. “Intriguing. What does she mean?”
Before I opened my door, I tried to explain. “The vanishing point is the spot in the distance where what you see gets so small, it seems to disappear. Ask your mom to show you — it’s kind of crazy when you start to see it. When the right thing is difficult to figure out, it’s almost invisible. But maybe you can find it in the end?”
“Hopefully so.” Peter smiled at me. “If I figure it out, I’ll let you know!”
I jumped down from the truck and waved as he drove away.
Chapter 11
The Tree House
At school the next morning, Ruth halfheartedly brought up the fire again, but before I could repeat my reasons for not reporting the boys, she said, “Oh never mind, Sadie. Tonight’s youth group — you’re still coming, right?”
I hadn’t asked my parents for permission to go to Ruth’s after school, so at lunch I called Mom from the office. The day ended up being almost normal, except for the Zitzie picture that Abby and Erin drew and posted on the white board during recess. Frankie’s nickname for me had caught on.
Ruth and I spent the afternoon playing Disneyland with Mark and Hannah, after they learned I’d been to the park not once, but three times. Ruth kept apologizing, but I didn’t mind. Her little brother and sister were daredevils, and their trampoline version of Space Mountain was fun, in a say-your-final-prayers kind of way.
Later that evening, Ruth’s mom drove us to the church, a small A-frame sanctuary with stained glass windows. Ruth and I waved to her mom, and then wound through the maze of buildings into the woods. Ruth wasn’t kidding. Not only did they meet in a tree house — they met in the craziest, rambliest one I’d ever seen. Weathervanes and wind chimes spun and sang on top of randomly placed chimneys and turrets.
Ruth held out the rope ladder. “You first.”
“Are you sure it’s safe?” I asked.
A young woman’s face, topped with black and teal spiky hair, looked down through the hole. “Come on up. We don’t bite.”
“Are all youth groups like this?” I asked.
“Go!” Ruth said.
I grabbed hold of the rope and climbed. The spiky-haired woman pulled me onto the deck and then helped Ruth.
“Sadie, this is Penny. She’s the one who leads our trips.”
I tried not to stare. Penny, with her teal hair and ears pierced in five places apiece, didn’t look anything like the youth group leader I’d pictured.
“Nice to meet you,” Penny said. “Ruth told me you might come tonight. Our other leaders are around here someplace. Ben does all the audio visual stuff — anything with cords — and Doug’s in charge of everything else.”
Across the deck two girls sat on a bench, watching the band tune guitars and check microphones inside. The shorter one looked over and smiled.
“Hey, Ruth.”
“Hey Lindsay, Bea, this is Sadie.”
“Hi,” they both said in unison, smiling.
I’d almost forgotten what being smiled at felt like. A few more people came up the ladder followed by a man with thick-rimmed glasses and a stubbly beard.
“Time to start. Oh, is this Sadie?” He walked over to us and shook my hand. “Welcome. Nice to meet you. I’m Doug.” From the creases at the edges of his eyes, I could tell he laughed a lot.
“Hi,” I said, suddenly feeling tongue tied.
Ruth led me inside. A few lamps lit the otherwise dark room, and some colored lights pointed toward the band. The twenty or so kids and adults found beanbags and window seats. Lindsay and Bea looked like the only other seventh grade girls. There were a few younger girls, and six older ones — the oldest looked like a senior in high school. I always had trouble guessing boy’s ages, but they were scattered too, a few younger, and more older. No one frowned at me or called me Zitzie, which was a welcome relief. Ruth and I took two beanbags in the middle of the room.
Doug went up front. “Just a few details before Equilibrium plays. Next week we’ll meet late down by the big rocks for the star shower. Bring a coat because it’ll get cold. Penny’s arranging a slide show, so don’t forget to send her your mud pictures. We also have a guest here tonight, Ruth’s friend, Sadie — welcome, Sadie — and I think that’s it for my announcements. Am I forgetting anything?”
A guy who looked like he belonged on the football team called, “Yeah, when’s the marshmallow eating contest?”
“Those marshmallows!” Doug said. “I keep forgetting. Next week, I promise.”
“Doug’s just scared,” the guy sitting next to the football player said. “He’ll never be able to keep his record.”
Doug laughed. “We’ll see about that. Okay. Let’s kick this off with a prayer.”
Everyone closed their eyes. I sank low into my beanbag and watched Ruth. The first time I’d prayed for Big Murphy, I felt a bit calmer but nothing more. Was I doing something wrong?
Doug started praying. I looked up to see if he was watching me, but no, his eyes were closed too.
“God, we’re here. We’re open. We want to hear from you. Thank you for being with us, for your whisper in the wind and for your laughter in the river. Thank you for your children, Cameron, T.J., and Ryan, who celebrate you with their gifts. Help us be a blessing to one another. Amen.”
A simple drumbeat started and everyone opened their eyes. Ruth’s expression had been calm and unreadable during the prayer. Had she felt anything in particular? I could ask her, but asking would feel strange. And what did Doug mean when he said God whispered in the wind and laughed in the river? Cameron’s guitar started, and T.J came in with the bass. The drumbeat thumped inside my rib cage and chased out my thoughts.
Then Cameron sang. Ruth fought her smile and glared at me out of the corner of her eye. Cameron looked over at her a few times as he sang, but I couldn’t tell if his glance was different for Ruth than for others in the room. I hoped it was. Ruth and I would definitely have to talk more about Cameron.
I settled in and listened to the words. In the first verse Cameron asked question after question. Surprisingly his questions echoed mine. Does God care about every single thing we do? Does he notice when someone cries? Does he know when someone is sick? In the chorus, Cameron, T.J., and Ryan sang together:
Your name is I Am, I Am
that I Am And you are strong enough to hold my questions.
And when I feel I can’t stand, you help me up
And we walk hand in hand.
When the song ended, everyone cheered.
“That was our new one,” Cameron said. “Now we’ll play some old favorites.”
They played four more songs, but I wasn’t really listening. Hand in hand? They talked about God like they could touch him, like he was something real. To me, God was like fog, something you think is there, but when you move closer, it’s gone.
Doug got up after the music. “We’ve talked a lot about connecting with God, about finding tiny moments of beauty in your life and noticing God with you. Does anyone have examples from this week?”
Lindsay raised her hand. “I saw my new baby niece this weekend. I bounced her on my lap, and she wiggled all over. But then I leaned her back, held her in my arm right here.” She ran her fingertips over her lower arm. “She looked into my eyes and suddenly, I felt this tug, like someone telling me to pay attention, to notice that moment. Right then, I knew her and she knew me and we didn’t have to say anything at all.”
“And tha
t tug, that sharpening of focus, do you think that was God?” Doug asked.
“I do,” Lindsay said. “But I can’t tell you why.”
She seemed so comfortable talking about God, about her questions. I didn’t even know where to begin.
Doug said, “It isn’t easy, listening for God. But you’re all doing a fantastic job. How about you, Jasper?”
Jasper was a smaller boy, probably a sixth grader, sitting in a beanbag at the far left of the room.
“Um … well, we went fishing last Saturday. The light was super bright on the water, and I thought about that story you told about Moses. So I took off my flip-flops.”
People laughed, and then a girl in the back of the room spoke up. “I have a comment.”
“What is it, Claudia?”
“I told my parents how you talk about God, and they think you don’t take him seriously enough. He’s God — the creator of the universe. Doesn’t he deserve more respect?”
Murmurs started around the room.
“Now wait a minute, everyone. Claudia brings up an important point. We have to find the tiny ways to connect with God so we see and appreciate all he does, but we also must remember his glory. He does deserve respect, Claudia. And I think that is what the people in this room aim to give him.”
“Well, I don’t think joking about flip-flops is very respectful.”
“I don’t think Jasper was joking.” Doug’s voice was quiet, calm, and sure.
Claudia pressed her lips together and leaned against the wall. Tension. Even here. Still, Ruth looked calm, as though she’d heard all this before.
“Claudia, remember we all see God differently. We have you to remind us to approach God with awe and reverence. And we have Jasper, who reminds us that sometimes giving God our reverence can be as simple as taking off our flip-flops.”
A few more people gave examples — God was in a sunset, in the joy at a birthday party, in the hopeful look on a dad’s face as he went out to interview for a new job. I’d never considered any of these “God moments,” as Doug called them. But the more he talked, the more I wondered.
Shades of Truth Page 5