“Good,” I said.
“Let me know if you hear any weird noises or see anyone strange, you know, peeking in windows.”
“I will. Unless it’s a cute blonde girl. And if you see her peeking in my window, you just let her peek.”
Kimbal growled his disapproval, but I just stared him down, daring him to try and parent me. It was a risk. He used to be my SRO, back when I was a juvenile delinquent, and I knew that if I annoyed him too much, he’d drop my grandma a casual comment that could get me in a lot of trouble.
The silence went on too long. “Well, I’ve got to study,” I said.
“Right.” Kimbal jerked his head in a short nod. “So, finals tomorrow. Good luck with those. And give me a call if you see anyone around your house.”
“Will do.”
Kimbal left. I stood alone in the hallway a moment, feeling weird about the whole thing. I didn’t like the idea of anyone lurking around our house. I peeked in Grandma’s room, then in mine. Nothing looked out of place. If MacCormack was connected to Anya, she had to know where I lived. My guess was, the only reason she hadn’t come for me was Kimbal and the Sloan twins guarding my every move.
I gave God a quick prayer of thanks for their protection, then went into my room and locked the door. I dug Nick’s journal out from my backpack and sat on my bed. He’d written it just like mine, so Prière must have taught him the ropes of intersession just like he’d taught me. Maybe now I’d finally learn something about Kimatra Patel.
One glance at the first page, though, and I knew something was off. Nick had less than one login per month. He wasn’t as detailed as me. He didn’t differentiate between glimpses or dreams, and some of his entries… “Guy with cancer gets sick on a flight to Europe.” “Girl wears gloves because she’s afraid of touching people.” Or my personal favorite, “LA street racer gets killed in an attempt to hijack a gasoline truck.”
These were scenes from movies! The jerk was faking it.
Then there was this: “A farm boy’s aunt and uncle are killed by the government.” Was Prière so clueless that he couldn’t tell what Nick was doing? Old French dude or not, the guy must have at least heard of Star Wars. I mean, come on.
I got up to grab my own journal and compare them, but it wasn’t in my desk drawer. Weird. I scanned the desk, the floor, looked under a pile of laundry. It wasn’t on my bed, either. Not under my pillow. Nothing.
Where in the figs-and-jam was my intercession journal?
A chill ran over me as I recalled Kimbal’s mystery prowler.
I went a little crazy after that thought, looking for my journal. I mean, Prière had been on my case for months to use a code, but … ain’t nobody got time for that. Right?
Maybe I should have made time.
If someone had taken my journal, they’d truly have a lot of fairly useless information. But some of it was personal. And some of it was about Grace and Mary. I imagined pics of the pages going viral on Facebook. I didn’t want anyone making that stuff public.
Okay, I needed to calm down. Be realistic. Why would anyone care about my intercession journal? For that matter, who would want the thing? I probably just left it someplace, as Nick had. Could be someone was reading it right now just like I was reading Nick’s.
Like people said, “What goes around comes around.” Right?
****
Mario made me go for a swim that night. It felt great. Well, until I did the breast stroke. Since my left leg was so wimpy, I kept drifting to one side. Mario said that swimming a few laps each day would really help. My breast stroke had never been stellar, so it could have been my lack of skill more than my injury.
That night I dreamed about a crying girl, but it wasn’t actress Kimatra Patel who was shedding tears in my REM stage. It was Grace. I’d dreamed about Grace dozens of times over the years, and this had been a familiar one. In my dream, however, I didn’t know any of that. It was like I was watching her cry and couldn’t do anything to help. I kept yelling her name, but she never seemed to hear me.
The dream eventually shifted to me running through a forest. The ground was mossy underfoot and wolves were chasing me. One jumped on my back. I threw it off and it morphed into Nick. He growled at me and said he wanted his journal back. We started fighting. Kimbal showed up and broke us apart. He was trying to calm us down when my alarm woke me for school.
I wasn’t sure if that was all prophetic dream or a combo of prophecy and nightmare inspired by my fear over my lost journal and my guilt for having read Nick’s. Regardless, I grabbed a spiral notebook and jotted it down. Like I said, I sucked at codes, so I decided that nicknames would have to do. I made myself Lebron. Kimbal was Gingerman. And Nick was Santa Claus.
Donesville. Crack that code, prowler.
REPORT NUMBER: 5
REPORT TITLE: I Play with Garden Gnomes
SUBMITTED BY: Agent-in-Training Spencer Garmond
LOCATION: Grace’s Residence, 780 S. Pine Street, #107, Pilot Point, California, USA
DATE AND TIME: Tuesday, May 29, 5:52 a.m.
Tuesday morning, I picked up Grace for Mission League for the last time this school year. After today, there’d be no more classes until fall. Just our summer trainings and the Alaska trip.
Grace had texted me to come knock on her window, and I found her kneeling in prayer on her One Direction pillow.
I didn’t know what she saw in that Harry guy. He looked like a girl.
Grace seemed fine. No bruises that I could see from here. She finished praying, saw me, and opened the window.
“How’s your dad been?” I asked.
She clouded right up. “Fine,” she snapped. “Why?”
I shrugged. My question had said enough. She knew that I hadn’t forgotten about her dad, and I hoped she’d heard my unspoken offer. That she knew she could ask me for help if she needed to.
I just really hoped she wouldn’t need it.
****
The Mission League final came and went with little stress. I rather enjoyed learning survival skills this year, so they’d stuck with me without too much effort. The Bio 2 final I had first period, however… That one was going to hurt.
When I picked up my backpack to leave Harris Hall, I left Nick’s journal on the floor under his usual desk. I couldn’t think of any other way to return it without implicating myself. I figured Mr. S or Kerri would find it and give it back to Nick.
Unfortunately, I still couldn’t find mine.
****
Finals week and the days after flashed by, and before I knew it, Saturday had arrived and I was sitting in the Pilot Point gymnasium, watching Gabe, Isabel, Nick, and Alex—a guy from my basketball team—graduate from high school.
It kind of freaked me out.
I mean, it wasn’t that long ago that I was a skinny middle schooler, getting arrested for tagging. Now I was one year away from being a full-on grown-up adult. A man. I didn’t want any of that. Grownups were old and had jobs and excessive body hair. This also meant I had very little time to get my scholarships back. Most prospects my age had signed already.
None of that mattered, though. I needed to look ahead. Glass half full and all that jazz.
Alex invited me to his grad party, but I wasn’t feeling it. That crowd would only make me wistful about my lost scholarships and tempted to do things I really shouldn’t do. So instead I went to Gabe’s grad party, which was at his house. I ate cookies, drank punch, and teased Mary and Martha—mostly Mary, who was getting cuter by the day. After that I stopped by Isabel’s for a very similar experience. She had Cuban milk cake instead of cookies, Jarritos sodas instead of punch, and since Grace was there, I teased her instead of Mary. Afterwards, Grace asked for a ride home, and as we were driving, I wondered if our entire friendship was going to happen in my car. Was I nothing more to her than a chauffeur? Maybe it would change things if I asked her out. Or took her to do something date-like. To a movie or dinner or something like that.
Nah. Too risky.
So there I was, home by eleven on grad night. This only added to my feeling like a hairy, grown-up adult. When I came inside, I found Grandma sitting in her armchair, crocheting. I flopped down on the couch.
“How was graduation?” she asked.
“Good. Except Desh didn’t graduate. Got behind and couldn’t catch up. He’s going to try and finish this summer. But it’s Desh, so…” I shrugged. “He’ll probably repeat part of his senior year this fall.”
“That doesn’t mean he can play basketball again, does it?”
“Naw,” I said. “He’s already played four years. That’s the max.”
She moved her glasses down to the tip of her nose and looked over the top of the frames. “You okay? You look sad.”
“I’m fine.” Not really. “I feel like…” I sighed. “Everything’s changing.”
A wry smile. “Isn’t that what you’ve always wanted? To be done with high school so you can play basketball somewhere?”
“Yeah, but I’m still a long way from that.” And it still might not happen. “It feels weird getting older.”
“It will always feel weird. Wait until your my age.”
I didn’t want to think about being her age. “It’s just that things are going to be harder with Gabe and Isabel gone.” Those two had done a lot to keep me out of trouble.
Grandma nodded. “Easier with Nick gone, though.”
I chuckled. She knew me so well.
“And you still have Lukas and Wally,” she added.
Well, she was half right. I had Lukas. I didn’t have Wally, though, and I was very okay with that.
“So what’s next?” Grandma asked.
I had no intention of overthinking things just now. I gave her a huge grin. “It’s summer. Now I get to sleep in.”
****
Sunday afternoon—to celebrate the start of summer—my youth group had the annual Kickin’ it with My Gnomies scavenger hunt in which we divided into groups and ran around town to get pictures of our team and our garden gnome with different things on a checklist.
It was actually pretty fun.
I texted Grace to see if she wanted a ride, but she was already with Isabel. Said she’d see me there. So I drove the banana over to Cornerstone Christian and parked in the lot.
Every time I came here it reminded me of the night when I was twelve and our Seis Puños gang had tagged the place. The cops had showed up and caught me. Terrified, I had squealed on all my friends: Kip, Sammy, Jeb, Paco, and Nick. We all got in trouble. But Nick, as the preacher’s kid who’d given us the keys to the church, had gotten the worst of it from his dad. Whatever Pastor Muren did must have been so severe it scarred Nick for life because five years later he still hated me for squealing.
I went inside the church and downstairs to the youth room. The place was packed. The event usually brought in about forty kids. Pastor Scott—the youth pastor—was in the middle of announcements. He always had a million things going on: fundraisers, community outreaches, Bible studies, game nights, mission trips, prayer circles, the worship band—led by Gabe—girls night, guys night, prayer buddies, blah, blah, blah. But tonight he offered something new.
“We’re going to be having a baptism coming up on June 23. Why get baptized?” Scattered hands shot into the air. “Gabe.”
“Because Jesus said, ‘Go then, to all people everywhere and make them my disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.’”
“That’s exactly right. What else? Are there other reasons or benefits of being baptized? Drew?”
“Because it shows other people what you believe.”
“Yes,” Pastor Scott said. “Baptism is also a public confession of faith. An outward statement of an inward belief. A symbol of your new life as a Christian. It’s a chance to stand before friends and family and share what you believe.
“There are many ways to be baptized. Other churches might do things differently than we do. The word ‘baptize’ literally means ‘to dip under water,’ so I’m going to dunk you. Going all the way under the water is, I think, the best way to symbolize the death of your old self and the resurrection of your new self. It should be all in.
“So if you’ve made the decision to believe in Christ, I encourage you to pray about this. You can sign up on that list.” He pointed to the wall where a sheet of paper had been taped up. “Any questions? Yes, John.”
“Will I have to say something?”
“I’d like you to. Your stories matter. They help other people come to know God. So, I’ll explain to everyone what baptism is and why we do it, then I’ll ask each person to share why they want to be baptized. It’s as simple as that.”
I wanted to be baptized.
The thought caught me off guard, and I instantly started coming up with excuses: It would be too embarrassing. What would I say? Sue Adams from the Pilot Point Bulletin would probably write an article about it. It would be too embarrassing. I didn’t want people to know I had recently become a Christian. It was really nobody’s business what I believed, anyway. Besides, it would be too embarrassing.
All these thoughts made me feel guilty.
I was a chicken.
I wanted this.
Not true. I wanted to already have done this.
I needed to sign that paper on the wall.
No, I didn’t.
Yes, I did.
The debate nagged me through the rest of the announcements. When Pastor Scott told us to head to the gym, I lingered until I was the last one in the room. Then I scratched my name on the list under that of a seventh grader named Heather.
Done and done.
Take that, wimpy Spencer. Brave Spencer just schooled you.
I arrived in the gym just as Pastor Scott was counting off six teams. When he reached my friends, he tapped Grace’s head. “You’re a three.” Then Arianna’s head. “Four.” Then Isabel’s head. “Five.”
My eyes ran ahead of him. I’d be a four if I stayed here. I grabbed Lukas’s wrist and yanked him to my left, taking his place in line.
Lukas scowled. “Ow! What are you—?”
“Whoa, look at that!” I said, pointing at the doors.
Lukas jerked his head that way. “What?”
Pastor Scott passed us, naming me a three and Lukas a four.
Lukas punched my arm. “You dog.”
I just grinned.
When we’d all been numbered, Pastor Scott had us break into our groups. Threes were to stand under the basketball hoop, so I jogged there, jumped up and grabbed the rim, thought about doing a pull up, then worried about landing wrong on my knee when I dropped.
“Down, Garmond,” Pastor Scott said from somewhere.
I let go, putting most of my weight on my good leg.
Besides me and Grace, our group also had Luke—El McWilly—Williamson, Wally Parks, Xander Hicks, Mary Stopplecamp, and Sherry Palma.
I liked El McWilly—the freshman Tae Kwon Do expert—just fine. Wally was also in the Mission League and on Team Alpha. The kid was afraid of his own shadow, but I was used to dealing with him. Xander was cool. He was little bro to Jensina Hick’s, a former member of the Mission League who graduated last year. She still came to youth group with Xander because he had a hearing impairment, and she signed for him.
Mary Stopplecamp was one of Gabe’s twin sisters. She played basketball, and we were pretty good friends. I liked to scrimmage with her and stuff. She’d had a crush on me since Moscow and had told me many times that she and I were going to get married someday. The idea had been silly back when she was in sixth grade. But then I’d found out she was gifted in prophecy, like me. And over the past year she got a little older and cuter, and now she was in eighth grade and I just kind of felt weird around her these days.
Then there was Sherry…
Sherry was the one reason I didn’t like coming to this youth group on a regular basis. She had been my first and only “girlfriend.” We’d lasted s
ix days freshman year before I broke up with her in the cafeteria. Told her I didn’t need any ball and chain at fourteen years old. She’d started throwing food at me. Then she’d started telling people all these horrible—fabricated—things I’d done to her.
It had been way ugly.
Thinking the night might get awkward, I kept my distance from Sherry and Mary, and leaned close to Grace, making sure my arm touched hers. She was holding the picture list. “So, what have we got to do?” I asked.
Grace, to my delight, didn’t lean away. “New stuff this year.”
I read the locations.
Kicking It With My Gnomies Picture List
•At the fire station
•Eating ice cream at DQ
•Shopping for hair dye
•In the river/creek
•With a human baby
•On PPCS Football Field
•At a piano
•Going down a slide
•With a boy with a piercing
•With a girl with pigtails
•With person in not-blue pants
•Jewelry for sale
•On a tricycle
•With a person holding a candy bar
•By “Welcome to Pilot Point” sign
•In a pick-up truck
•With a live animal (no dog/cat)
•Climbing a tree
•At a different church
• Wearing a hat (not a baseball hat)
ALL students must appear in each picture.
ONE item per picture. No combining!
Items must come from OUTSIDE the team’s homes/belongings.
Be BACK to gym by 5:00 p.m.
“Does at least one person in every group have a car?” Pastor Scott asked. “Someone who can legally drive other teenagers?”
I made a point of not looking at Grace since I’d been driving her around illegally for weeks. I’d only had my license for about a month and a half, and in California, under-eighteen drivers needed to have their license a year before driving with any non-sibling passengers who were under-eighteen. Frankly, I was surprised Kimbal hadn’t said anything, but maybe since he wasn’t a Pilot Point PD cop anymore, he didn’t care.
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