by Lara Zielin
I stepped onto the grass and looked into the field teeming with people, tents, RVs, and cars. A couple of rent-a-cops—people the Paul Bunyan Press said the city was paying overtime to keep order in the camp—sauntered by, their walkie-talkies chirping.
I turned to avoid a man wearing a plastic donut on his head and, as I did, glimpsed two faces that made me draw in my breath. It was Nat and Molly. I threw myself behind a parked RV and flattened myself against its side.
Nat and Molly were at the camp.
How could this have happened? Coming to the camp was an idea that Nat and I had hatched together—it was supposed to be our big adventure before our senior year started. How could Nat have betrayed me like that and brought Molly? I peeked around the RV and watched as Molly said something and Nat tossed her head back and laughed. It made my heart sink to see how quickly I was being replaced.
They were walking away from me, toward Loon Willow. I ducked behind another RV a few feet behind them. I craned my neck and stared as Nat picked her way through the camp like a heron, lifting her long legs and placing her feet carefully on the ground, while Molly glided through like a jaguar, her narrow eyes taking in everything.
Once they’d faded into the darkness, I leaned against the RV and tried not to bawl. At least it’s not my fault, I thought, trying to comfort myself. Nat was the one who ruined everything, acting the way she did.
I closed my eyes and felt the cool metal of the RV against my shirt. I thought back to my fight with Nat in biology class, and I could still smell the formaldehyde and dust in the room. It had taken place the Monday after our baptism, and we were both trying to make sense of what had happened, whispering furiously while our teacher, Mr. Pocs, finished scribbling a time line on the board for an end-of-chapter review.
“I tried calling you yesterday afternoon but I couldn’t get through,” Nat said, her voice low. “Is everything okay?”
I shrugged. “Define okay. Our phone rang almost nonstop. I guess everyone in the church wanted to discuss what happened with Mr. O’Connor in the river.” I left out the part about the Christian college discussion, figuring I could fill her in on that later.
Nat nodded. “Yeah. My parents had a talk with me about it.”
“What did they say?”
“They said they were sorry that Mr. O’Connor ruined our baptism . . .” Nat trailed off and shifted uncomfortably.
Before I could reply, a piece of paper came flying at our heads. I whipped around and saw Carson grinning at us, his Whitestrip-bright teeth gleaming. I rolled my eyes and faced the front. Nat tried shooting him a hard stare, but it dissolved in a cascade of giggles. I fumed, wondering why being around Carson turned Nat into such a dingbat.
“So anyway,” I pressed, “I overheard my parents talking, and I think some of the people in the church want my mom to step down.”
“Oh,” said Nat, refocusing. Her grin was gone.
“And I can’t help it, but I feel like there’s something else going on here.”
Nat lifted her chin just slightly. “What do you mean?”
I flicked my short fingernails together. It felt complicated, but it started with the fact that the evangelical church had pretty much settled the issue about women preaching a long time ago. Granted, there was no official charter about it, but women were everywhere in the evangelical church—in ministry, writing books, on TV, singing, preaching. I just couldn’t wrap my head around why this debate was suddenly resurfacing now, at Living Word. And why would Gary O’Connor, of all people, be the vessel to deliver a prophecy about it, if in fact the prophecy was real?
“I don’t know. I’m just not sure that was a totally pure prophecy, if you know what I’m saying.”
“You think Mr. O’Connor made it up?”
“Well, think about it—no women preaching? It’s so . . . Dark Ages. I mean, you were there. Do you believe it?”
Nat shrugged. “What he said is in the Bible.”
“Okay,” I said slowly, hoping maybe Nat was just playing devil’s advocate, “but do you think that one scripture, taken out of context, should mean women shouldn’t preach?”
Nat flipped her hands so her palms were facing upward. “No one’s saying that’s what’s going to happen, Em,” she said. “Just because a few people want your mom to step down after Mr. O’Connor’s prophecy doesn’t mean that she will.”
I wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shake her.
“Don’t get mad, Em,” she said, reading the look on my face. “You asked me if I believed what Mr. O’Connor said, and I’m just saying, it is in the Bible. That’s all.”
Yeah, well, in the Old Testament it said women had to hide in huts when they had their periods, and I didn’t hear Mr. O’Connor telling the women at Living Word Redeemer to build shacks in their backyards. What’s more, in the New Testament it said God wanted people to use their gifts and talents. If my mom’s gift was for preaching, then shouldn’t she use it?
“I don’t want to argue,” Nat said before I could say anything else. Which was just as well since Mr. Pocs was done with his time line and was ready to lecture.
“Scientists estimate the earth is about five billion years old,” he said, wiping chalk from his hands onto his pants and facing the classroom. “If Mount Everest were time, human existence would be about an inch of snow near the top. All the rest of the mountain would be Earth’s history—the atmosphere, the continents first forming, the dinosaurs—which happened when we weren’t around.”
Natalie started fidgeting in her seat.
“Most of what you’ve studied—or dissected—for this chapter has been derived from simple life-forms. Creatures with no vertebrae, no spine.”
I shuddered, thinking about the earthworms we’d pulled apart.
“Many of these life-forms have been around long before humans,” continued Mr. Pocs, “who only really started evolving about a million years ago. The earliest ones descended from primates around—”
Natalie’s hand shot up.
“Yes? Natalie?”
“Evolution is a theory. One theory. What about intelligent design? Are you going to include that in your review too?”
Mr. Pocs sighed and ran a hand through his thinning black hair. You could tell this wasn’t the first time he’d been asked this kind of question, and there was probably a reason he taught this chapter near the end of the school year, not the beginning.
“Natalie—and this goes for all of you—I want you to know something right off the bat. I honestly respect your right to think about evolution and figure out where the science fits into your belief system. I want you to do that. But that doesn’t mean the curriculum is going to change for this class. Not until the school board tells me differently. Do I make myself clear?”
Natalie’s hand shot up again. I kicked her underneath the table, but she ignored me.
“I can only do this for so long, Natalie,” said Mr. Pocs wearily, “before we have to move on.”
Natalie sat up a little straighter. “Evolution is a theory. Intelligent design is a theory. Why does one win out over the other?”
Mr. Pocs nodded. “That’s a good question. A very good question. And I’m happy to answer it.”
He held his pen up above his head and dropped it. “How many people are surprised that my pen fell to the ground? How many people thought my pen was going to float out the window when I let go of it?”
The room was silent.
“That’s right! Not one of you. And you know why? Because gravity is a theory, just like evolution is a theory. We can’t see gravity. We can’t hold it in our hands. But if we do enough scientific tests that can be repeated, over and over, to show that its existence is real, then the theory begins to hold water.
“And that’s why we teach the theory of evolution and the theory of gravity, but not intelligent design. Because as much as proponents of intelligent design would like you to think that they use the scientific method to come up with the
ir ideas, they don’t.”
Natalie’s brow was furrowed and she was gripping her own pen like she might break it.
“As sacred as ancient religious texts are, they aren’t the source of information I’m going to use to teach this class. Which brings me to my last point. Science is complicated. Evolution is complicated. Scientists try to boil it down when explaining it and teaching it, especially at the eleventh-grade level, but when you’re talking about the complex biological engines driving evolution, you really need a Ph.D. to understand it. And that’s why intelligent design, I think, is so popular.”
Because anyone can understand it, I wanted to shout, but I buttoned my lip and decided Mr. Pocs had better do the talking.
Here, Mr. Pocs stopped and leaned up against his desk. “It’s so much easier to just believe we were created in a flash by the hand of God. It saves you a lot of work,” he said.
Natalie could take no more. “Are you saying people who believe in intelligent design are lazy?”
“No, Natalie,” said Mr. Pocs gently. “I’m just saying we live in a culture that gets its news from The Daily Show and cares more about who won American Idol than who won the Nobel Peace Prize. Most Americans aren’t going to take the time to learn which theory the science actually supports. They’ll have a knee-jerk reaction. And that’s what I’m trying to keep us from in this class. We will study the science carefully. What we learn will always be based on rigorous testing and proven methodologies. That’s my mission. Understood?”
A few kids glanced over at Nat; others nodded. Then suddenly, Mr. Pocs looked toward the back of the room. “Yes, Mr. Tanner?”
Nat and I snapped our heads around at the same time. Carson actually had his hand up. I stared at his chiseled face in disbelief.
“I get what you’re saying and all,” Carson said to Mr. Pocs, “but how’s it fair that you guys have supposedly figured all this stuff out for us? Are we supposed to just trust that you got it right? Shouldn’t we at least have the chance to see both sides of it to make up our own minds? Isn’t that, like, the goal of school or something?”
Mr. Pocs smiled wryly. “Thank you for contributing for a change, Carson. To answer your question, yes, making up your own minds is, ‘like, the goal of school or something. ’ At least in the sense that you would all begin to think for yourselves. For my part, I have a science curriculum to teach you, and you have a final coming up, so I suggest you learn now and think later. Consequently, this discussion is closed.”
Mr. Pocs turned back to the dry-erase board to jot down some review questions. The moment his back was to us, Nat flipped around and shot Carson a dazzling smile. When she turned back to the table, she caught my eye and glowered.
I felt like I’d been punched. Carson got a halogen-bright smile, and I got a look that could refreeze the melting polar ice caps. What had I done to deserve that? For the next hour, while Mr. Pocs droned on and on, Natalie kept her head down and furiously scribbled notes. I tore off a page of my notebook paper and slid it toward her.
You okay? What’s UP?
She ignored me. When the bell rang, she didn’t even look at me but bolted from her desk. I sprinted after her.
“Natalie!” I called to her as the hallways started overflowing with kids. She melted in the crowds and I lost sight of her.
I turned on my heel and headed for the cafeteria. Nat, Molly, and I always ate lunch together. With any luck, we could sort this whole thing out.
But when I got to our usual lunch table, Nat wouldn’t look at me while Molly—clutching her low-fat cheese stick and her Diet Coke—seemed like she wanted to rip my throat out.
I’d barely gotten my butt into the seat when she started in on me.
“So, Nat tells me you think my dad’s a liar,” she said, tearing the top off her Diet Coke with her acrylic nails. I glanced at Nat, who had her head bent over her lunch, her hair hiding her face.
I opened my backpack, took out my sandwich, and tossed it onto the table. “Well, I sure don’t appreciate him saying something that’s causing some people to think my mom should step down as pastor of Living Word.”
“How is it my dad’s fault if some people interpret his prophecy that way?” Molly asked, indignant. “He was just saying what God told him to. He can’t control how other people react to it.”
“We all know,” I said, “that wasn’t God. Your dad never should have opened his mouth in the first place.”
Just then, I caught two freshmen at the end of the table staring at Molly, Nat, and me. “You got a problem over there?” I asked, looking right at one of them—a spindly kid with hair so blond it was almost white and skin the color of grain. He looked like human shredded wheat.
“N-no,” he stuttered, and went back to coating his fries in ketchup.
Molly pointed a long finger at me. “So you are saying my dad’s a liar.”
“Well, I sure don’t believe him,” I said.
Molly surprised me by standing up. Not wanting to let her tower over me, I stood up too.
“My dad is a man of God and he doesn’t make things up,” Molly said. “So you’d better get used to the idea that your parents are running that church into the ground and people are sick of it.”
I pictured the wads of cash that Mr. O’Connor was always stuffing into the collection plate, his face bloated by his own charity. I felt my stomach churn at the image of it, and a roar started in my ears. I raised my voice so I could hear myself over it. “Funny how your dad seems to think that the more money he puts in the plate at service, the godlier he gets. You’d better tell him that my parents don’t listen to people’s prophecies just because they’re rich. They have to be true.”
“What my dad said was true,” Molly growled. “That means your mom is a sinner and an abomination!”
Anger pulsed through me. I got right in Molly’s face. “Maybe you didn’t hear me before,” I said, “so let me be perfectly clear. Your dad’s full. Of. Crap.” Little flecks of my spit hit Molly in the face.
By this time, the freshmen at the end of the table had started listening in again, and so had half the lunchroom for that matter. There was a tiny pause, which happens only sometimes, when, coincidentally, everyone sort of shushes at once. That’s when Molly, her eyes big and angry, opened her mouth to fire back at me.
“My dad is not lying!” Molly yelled.
The outburst was like a gunshot going off. Everyone in the lunchroom—including the teachers and the hair-netted lady behind the hot lunch counter—turned to look at Molly. Her mouth was still open and she seemed unable to close it. She looked at me, horrified.
“Moll—” I started, but she wasn’t having any of it. She jumped away from the table and sprinted toward the double doors leading out of the lunchroom and into the hallway.
I looked at Nat, whose face was the color of a glue stick. But at least I could see her face now.
“Uh, thanks,” I said with as much sarcasm as I could muster. “I really appreciate the way you stuck up for me and my family just then.”
Nat stood up. “Excuse me?” she asked. Her emerald eyes glinted under the harsh glare of the lunchroom lights.
“I said it was really cool the way you just let Molly stand there and call my mom an abomination. You could have at least helped me defend her or something.”
Nat crossed her arms over her chest. “It’s pretty funny that you would say that, Emma, considering the fact that you hung me out to dry in biology class not twenty minutes ago.”
Hung her out to dry? “What are you talking about?” I asked.
“I’m talking about the fact that Mr. Pocs was so totally mean to me and you never stepped in either. Not once.”
That? Please. “I thought you knew me well enough to know I’m not the type to just wade in and defend intelligent design,” I said.
“Yeah, well, I thought friends were supposed to support each other. No matter what.”
“Sure. I support you, but in biology cl
ass I just didn’t agree with you. That’s cool, right?”
Nat slammed her hand on the table, making me jump. “You tell me, Emma. If I said I believed Mr. O’Connor’s prophecy, would we still be friends? Or do you expect everyone to be open-minded except when it comes to things that you disagree with?”
“Except you don’t think Mr. O’Connor’s prophecy is true. So this is like apples and oranges or something.”
Nat grabbed the remains of her lunch and shoved them into her bag. “What do you know about it, anyway? Maybe I do agree with Mr. O’Connor. After today, I might just start going around saying Mr. O’Connor is the next John the Baptist.”
I scoffed. “Nat—” I said, but she was done listening to me. She stomped out of the lunchroom, leaving me alone at the table.
Chapter Seven
The noise and activity of the campout was all around me, but thinking about Nat and Molly made it hard to concentrate on anything in particular. Yet I knew I couldn’t keep wallowing in my memories for too much longer. Despite the way the images stuck in my brain like infected splinters, I couldn’t sit around and pick at them. I had a story to get, and I had to make it good—Pulitzer quality at least.
No sweat.
Through pools of dim light, I spotted several Harley gangs dotted around the camp. From what I could make out, most of them were tattooed, clad in black, and polishing their motorcycles. They looked like they ’d sooner eat me for breakfast than a donut. I craned my neck and could see, beyond them in the distance, RVs freckled with the angular face of Dale Earnhardt Jr., and a bit farther on, a Renaissance crowd fighting each other with swords for the One Ring—the glazed kind.
A stone’s throw away was a group of Harley bikers who were gathered around a campfire. As I stood watching them, an enormous hulk of a man eased himself into a rickety lawn chair. The bandana pulled tight around his bald head had an American flag printed on it, and silver hoops hung from both his ears. His muscles bulged and rippled as he dug inside a tattered canvas bag with Just Say No printed on the front of it. He pushed around several items I couldn’t see until, finally, he pulled out yarn and knitting needles.