by Rob Summers
Chapter 2 Crafts
Cora was packed, ready to go on her Foreign Missions trip, and so all the more annoyed that Hila had waited until this moment to tell her what she was up to. She sagged against the rail of the stairway in her house and looked at her younger cousin darkly.
“And this is why you came back to Viola? To spy on the church board?”
Hila and Eddie stood side by side below her, ready to help her carry her suitcases to the car. Though not directly involved, Eddie looked uncomfortable. Hila, as usual, was calm as a drowsy cat in the sunshine.
“I came here to take care of Eddie,” she said. “This other opportunity just fell in with that. I think it’s best that someone ferret out the facts about Ollie Fulborne.”
“What facts?” Cora burst out so violently that her red hair shook. “He’s a bastard. Everyone knows that.”
“Many of the church people have never had a clear idea of what happened two years ago,” Hila said, raising a forefinger. “They ought to know why the board voted to recommend that Ollie be removed from his eldership. To people like Mom and Dad it’s just a poorly remembered mishmash of rumors.”
“Yes, yes,” Cora looked at her watch. “That would be great if the board would tell them, but what are you doing? You can’t sneak in there as the new secretary— supposing they hire you—and do the board’s job for them.”
“Why not?” Hila said.
“Why not?” Cora rolled her eyes and reached for suitcase handles. “Have you heard of the words deception—lying—stealing?”
“I don’t intend to lie to anyone,” said Hila, following her with more luggage.
“Not in so many words, you mean. But you’re applying for the job under false pretences. Eddie, don’t forget to get more dog food like I told you. And do you know where the extra house keys are?”
“Sure, Mom.”
“Give them to Hila right away. They’re in the China cabinet, Hila.”
In the August heat they walked out to the curb and loaded Cora’s Cavalier, piling seven pieces of gray and silver luggage into the trunk and back seat. When this was finished, Cora looked at her cousin again. “I’m not getting through to you, am I?”
Hila shrugged. “More teenage girls sexually harassed. More teaching of how to win your way to heaven by pious works. Everything goes back to the way it was two years ago. Do I make my case?”
“In your own mind,” Cora said wearily, “and if ends justify means. Look, I’ve got to go or I’ll miss my plane. But I don’t mind telling you I’m praying you don’t get the job.”
She hugged Eddie goodbye, and exchanged a few words with him. She started to embrace Hila but caught herself, remembering that she did not like hugs, and settled for patting her on the shoulder. After giving her a last stern look, she got in and drove off.
Hila turned to Eddie. “You OK?”
“Sure, I’m fine.”
“OK. So what do you think of my plan?”
“I think it’s cool.” Eddie liked anything questionable if an adult was doing it.
“Thank you, sir. Speaking of cool, let’s get back in the air conditioning.” As they walked back into the house, she said to him, “I don’t see why your Mom is so down on this. Isn’t what I’m aiming to do much the same as what she did two years ago? She made use of something that didn’t belong to her, and it worked, she got Ollie off the board.” Eddie shrugged and said nothing. “Does she regret having brought his diary entry to light?”
The boy had paused at the foot of the stair, seeming to want to get up to his room and his endless video gaming. “She says that it was private and she shouldn’t have even looked at it.”
This was unexpected, for Cora had not kept Hila up to date on the state of her conscience. “Well, it’s not private anymore,” she said firmly. “Go on upstairs. You know I don’t mean to say anything bad about your mom.”
When he had gone, she sat down on the living room couch and reviewed in her mind the events which had occurred a few weeks earlier than Ollie’s ousting from the church board. Ollie had been in the habit of leaving his diary and some other personal papers at the church, for River Grove had been at that time between pastors, and he had virtually occupied the pastor’s office. An elder named Mark Lambert, an enemy of Ollie’s, apparently found it there, though according to his wife he had not been deliberately snooping. At any rate he had snooped enough to open the book, note the heretical turn to some of the entries, and steal it.
He called Ollie and demanded to meet with him and discuss the diary. Though furious, Ollie at first agreed to this. They were to meet later that afternoon, a Sunday, at the Whisper Woods retreat grounds owned by the church. However, Ollie changed his mind and instead, taking a confidant, sent elder Kyle Dottison—his strongest supporter on the board and a burly and hot-tempered man. He instructed him to tell Mark that he, Ollie, was not coming, and to get the diary from him.
At the grounds Kyle learned that Mark had not brought the diary with him. They argued. Mark called Kyle names. Kyle became enraged and in a struggle accidentally pushed Mark over the rail that guarded the stony rim of the Angel’s Icebox, a thirty foot drop. When he realized that Mark was dead, Kyle called the police on a cellular phone and confessed at once. He went to prison for manslaughter.
When questioned by the police, Ollie adamantly denied that Mark had been attempting to blackmail him with the diary. This was perhaps true, but Hila kept in mind that it was not in Ollie’s interest to admit that there was anything in the diary shameful enough to tempt blackmail.
Mark’s widow Aggie gave the diary to the police, but not before making a copy of the most offending page. She gave the copied page to Cora, who on the afternoon of October 25th gave it to the church’s new pastor Steve Wurz, asking that the elder board meet immediately to discuss it. The board had duly met, but as the evening service that followed had drawn toward a close, Cora had realized that Pastor Wurz was not going to comment about the diary page to the congregation. Only then had she risen and quoted from it, precipitating another crisis meeting of the board after the service, a meeting that had resulted in Ollie’s stepping down as elder.
Hila felt Cora’s behavior had been correct and admirable, even enviable. A church leader’s concealed heretical writings should be revealed. To think otherwise was not just over-scrupulous but a positive danger to a congregation. She felt it was plain that the people had had a right to know an elder’s real opinions. What was Cora’s problem?
In the pastor’s office at River Grove Church, Joe Burden handed Al Fontaine the resume that was being passed around. “She got downsized at Indianapolis University,” he said. “She had a good record there as an office assistant.”
Al adjusted his bifocals and looked the page over. “I’m sure she can do the job,” he said. “Anybody can be a church secretary. The question is, do we go with our trust in her immediate family or hold off because she’s Cora Pelham’s cousin? How close are those two?”
Joe, a tall young policeman, shrugged and grinned. “What’s the problem?”
“Sorry, I sometimes forget you’ve only been in Viola for a year.” Other elders were conversing just outside the office, so Al pulled Joe to a corner and lowered his voice. “Cora’s the main reason Ollie’s not an elder anymore. A couple years ago, when we were discussing his situation in a board meeting, she pushed her way in and told us she had gone to the newspaper.”
“With what?” Joe asked in a matching whisper.
Al winced as if this question were inappropriate. “With anything that was being said about Ollie. I think she had a copy of his diary page, the one we were discussing—”
“How the heck did you have a page out of his diary?”
“Shh. The pastor distributed copies. There were some statements, not more than a few words, that could be taken as heretical. The kind of thing that would look really bad in print.”
“I�
��d like to see that.”
“I’ll show you my copy sometime. The point is, there’s no love lost between Cora Pelham and Ollie.”
“And Cora and this, uh, Hila Grant are cousins.”
“Right. Cora used to be a Grant, the daughter of Len’s brother Barry. She’s a widow. She doesn’t attend here anymore, but Hila has attended when she’s home visiting her family. Her parents are solid as can be.”
“So what do you think?”
“Probably it’s OK. But wait and see in the interview. She’ll be fielding some tough questions.” Al started to sit down and then caught Joe by the shoulder and whispered even more quietly, “You’ve seen her before, haven’t you?” Joe shook his head. “Didn’t you see her when she was visiting around Christmas? And she’s been here other times too, since then.”
“Must have been times I worked Sundays.”
“Well, expect a knockout.” Joe looked puzzled, so Al added, “I mean her looks. Don’t get staring at her and forget what we’re about.”
Joe laughed and started to say something humorous, but was brought up short by a glimpse of a blond, just outside the doorway, who was talking with the pastor. She was wearing a cream-colored dress with a pattern of flowers on it, stood about five foot seven, and was beautiful. Joe was not sure whether he had ever admired a woman’s posture before, or the way she moved her hands. This was class. He instantly decided to vote for her regardless of what she might say in the interview.
Presently she glided in and sat down. The other elders and Pastor Wurz were seated, and after a few pleasantries, the interview began. Pastor Wurz asked Hila to tell them ‘something about herself,’ and in ten minutes she neatly summarized her early life, education, conversion, job experience, ministry experience, reasons she wanted the job, and reasons that she was an excellent candidate. She did not chatter; every word was slowly and clearly spoken in a pleasant voice. She did not smile much either; she didn’t need to. Once when she hesitated for the word ‘undergraduate,’ three of the six elders supplied it for her in unison.
When she had finished, almost all of the questions the elders had readied were already answered. Someone asked about her church membership, and Tom Bissell, a retired high school teacher, explained that Hila’s membership had not been allowed to lapse during her years in Indianapolis. Someone else asked why she was willing to step down to a part time job, and By Hoplinger, a piano salesman, explained that Hila would be taking care of Cora Pelham’s thirteen year old son Eddie while Cora was away serving as an interpreter on a short-term Missions trip in Venezuela. Cora would be back by Christmas and Hila would recheck her options then.
“You don’t consider this to be a permanent position?” asked Cal Torey, a university professor of engineering.
“Nothing’s permanent,” Hila said smiling.
“If the job was changed to full time, or if Hila got another part time job…” put in Pastor Wurz.
“Yes, that would make it possible for me to keep it,” Hila said.
Torey nodded, his mouth a straight line.
Al Fontaine cleared his throat. “Miss Grant, how do you feel about church loyalty?”
She raised a questioning eyebrow.
“I mean that we’re looking for a team player, someone who will back the decisions of the board, um, avoid all gossip, keep things under her hat. A team player.”
She nodded.
“I mean this even regarding close friends or relatives—especially relatives” The other men were exchanging uncomfortable glances. Al’s voice was a trifle strained.
“What do you mean?” she said evenly.
Al grinned tightly. “I mean, you know, as regards relatives that you’ll be loyal to the intentions of the Pastor and board. You could—”
By Hoplinger interrupted. “In other words, do you believe in unity?” This burly, graying, and handsome man was comfortable with rewording other’s remarks and, as he saw it, getting to the core of the matter. Several elders agreed briefly that By had the question right.
“In Christian unity?” Hila said. “Of course.”
“But more specifically—” Al began; but he paused, searching for words.
“That’s specific enough,” said Joe Burden.
“She’s answered it,” By said. “Any other questions for Hila?”
There were none. Al let it pass.
“That’s it then,” said the Pastor. “Hila, we’ll let you know by tomorrow night. I will say that your experience and the recommendations you brought with you are impressive. We’ll let you go now, since the board wants to discuss this and some other matters.”
So Hila went, and the board discussed. About an hour later, she received a call from By Hoplinger, congratulating her on her new job.
Mary Kirtle slumped her seventy year old body into a chair against the office wall and forced a smile for Hila. “No, not that long. Eighteen years,” she said in a low-pitched, crackly voice that had unsettled the choir for most of the era she named. She was church secretary no longer but would remain in the choir. “I set up those files in 1982. You see how it is: membership, bottom drawer; financial records next up; then committee and board minutes; flyers, bulletins, and photo albums. Always keep it locked. The key’s kept in your desk drawer in front there.”
Hila slid open the desk drawer and looked at the key. She did not ask why the key to the filing cabinet was not hidden someplace less obvious. She had been a secretary for years and understood that convenience ruled.
“I’ll look through everything tomorrow,” she said.
It was Sunday morning, three days after she had gotten the job, but she was not due to truly begin until Monday.
“My number’s on the wall over there with the others,” Mary said with closed eyes. “Call me about anything. I’ll be mostly home now.”
“Why are you so tired? Was it a rough VBS week?”
Mary’s eyes clicked open behind her glasses. “They always are. I only got about five hours sleep a night. I had the nine and ten year olds’ class, and helped with the refreshments, and with the high school skits.”
Hila did not try to look sympathetic. None of the many women (and a few men) who had made the Vacation Bible School a self proclaimed success had volunteered blindly. They exhausted themselves every year over flannelgraph boards, cookies and Kool Aid, songs, and crafts; and then came back to do it again the next summer. The kids loved it, and many made ‘decisions.’ Forty six children between the ages of four and seventeen had, in the past week, committed or recommitted their lives to Jesus Christ. Hila was a doubter concerning the long term meaningfulness of some of the decisions made by teenagers and a complete cynic with regard to the four and five year olds. But far more decisions had been made in the four and five year olds’ class than in any other, so what was to be done? To cross out forty six as the decision total and write in thirty five would have made this year’s commitments number less than the previous year’s. Actually, no one at River Grove but Hila gave a thought to doing such a thing.
“You’ll be involved next year if you’re still here,” Mary said. “We could use you.”
Not on your life, thought Hila, but she said, “That’s quite an opportunity. Are all the files in this one cabinet?”
Mary smiled affectionately through her weariness. “You don’t want any more, do you? Videos and cassettes are kept in the wall cabinets. You said you know how to run the copier? OK. We have the fax machine but it’s hardly ever used.”
Hila had opened a plastic container filled with computer diskettes. “I see you have a lot of backups.”
“I wrote on all of them if you can make out my writing. It’s the same as what you’ll find in the files.”
“You’ve been a good secretary, Mary. You hang on to everything.” Hila watched Mary to see if this was true.
“Pretty much,” Mary said and pulled herself to her feet. �
��Service is about to start. I’ll be around Sundays and Wednesday nights if you need to ask me anything. Or call me.”
Since, as a little girl, Hila had grown old enough to pay attention, she had noticed no significant change in the River Grove worship services, unless one counted Pastor Wurz’s offering box. As she seated herself in a pew beside her parents, the announcements came first.
“We had a great VBS this past week,” Pastor Wurz said. He needs a haircut, thought Hila. “Many people worked very hard, and I’d be afraid to try to name them all for fear of leaving someone out.” Fulborne would have named them, every one of them. “As you know, the theme we chose this year was Joshua’s Seven Trumpets, and all week the kids have been learning about what it is to be a Joshua in this world today.”
Yes, Hila confirmed to herself, the blue banner on the wall not only read ‘Joshua’s Seven Trumpets’ but pictured all seven of them. Check. The banner, booklets, and other materials were, she believed, bought from a Christian publishing company.
“And later in the service,” Wurz grinned, “some of the kids who took part in VBS are going to—uh—how would you describe this Elaine? A sort of march or—?”
A middle aged woman answered cheerily from a back pew. “A Joshua March, Steve. We’re going to show how faith knocks down walls.”
“Well, amen to that, Elaine. We’re looking forward to that.”
Hila looked forward to it. Corny or not, these processions brought the kids into the sanctuary and kids are always fresh and cute.
Wurz covered a few other announcements, ending with some words of appreciation for retiring church secretary Mary Kirtle, who was asked to stand among the choir members behind the pulpit and did so with some show of energy, receiving applause. Incoming secretary Hila Grant, “well known to all of you,” was introduced and asked to stand. As she did so, Hila saw Helen Wurz, the pastor’s wife, turn to look back at her from the front row. Helen gave Hila one second of anxious appraisal, taking in her striking hair and sky blue, Indianapolis-bought dress as if seeing her for the first time, before smiling politely and joining the applause of the congregation. Hila was used to such guarded reactions, and was unconcerned. She calculated that sensible Helen Wurz would drop any jealous suspicions in a few weeks or months. And if not, that was not Hila’s problem.
Hymns next, then the scripture reading. After that, Vicki Ludwig, a pretty college junior, had a vocal solo. The girl waited with an intent expression while whoever was working the sound booth got the canned music running, then belted out a rendition of a song currently topping the Contemporary Christian charts, something rather saccharine but catchy. Her voice was good, her expression—thought Hila—almost unendurably ‘spiritual’; and the rehearsed hand motions were part of the package. She received much applause.
It was time for the sermon. Pastor Wurz had been preaching his way through the book of Acts for so long that Hila could remember his sermon on the second chapter from last Christmas. Now on the twenty sixth, he spoke for half an hour on ‘Paul Before Agrippa,’ noting the historical context and clarifying the social and political undercurrents. He was good. Only hard work and piercing intelligence could produce so lucid an explanation of first century law and religion. Nevertheless, Hila was not deeply interested. This was much better than average, but she craved, in a sermon, a real challenge to her usual mindset and behaviors. She wanted it to hit home. Granted, application to his listeners’ lives was not easy since the great majority of them would never be arrested, as Paul had been, for carrying on missionary work. Wurz recommended imitation of Paul’s boldness and calm faith under any circumstances, and closed with a lengthy prayer.
One more hymn and I’m out, thought Hila, who vaguely resented the unwritten rule that one never leaves a pew during a church service without a good reason. But she had forgotten the Joshua March. Dozens of children, costumed in robes and turbans, were led by their VBS teachers down the aisles and around the perimeter. Some blew ineffectively on cardboard trumpets while others banged homemade tambourines. When the procession stopped, a few attempted to recite Bible verses, and the worse they did the better their elders enjoyed it and the stronger the applause. They were cute as buttons, and Hila laughed and was pleased along with the rest. Soon after their trumpets had blown down a cardboard wall (painted to faintly resemble stone), the kids marched out.
One more hymn and she was out. She left the sanctuary with her parents and joined the crowd filling the hallways. Sunday school, she knew, would be a breeze by comparison with the main service. One could talk during Sunday school, even stand up and move around.
People were in clusters all around her. So many expressionless faces during the sermon were now animated, talking, laughing. During the ten minutes before Sunday school, some hundreds of middle class whites were grabbing at a chance to catch up on each other’s week of doings. Though some, actually, were drifting toward the outer doors and the parking lot, Sunday school attendance being always considerably less than that of the main service.
“Is the singles class still meeting in the same room?” Hila asked her mother. Anna Ellen did not know.
Hila caught sight of Jane Burson, a young woman she had grown up with and who also was still single. Though Jane would probably be teaching a children’s class, she would know where the singles met. Jane was the sort who always did know. She had been a selflessly hard worker at River Grove since about the age of eleven, particularly with the children, and knew ten times more about the people’s lives than a woman like Hila would ever want to be told. As she approached her, she saw that the short, chubby brunette was scanning the crowd as if looking for someone.
“Jane, hello. I’m wondering if the singles class is still in the east wing on the right?”
Jane lifted dark, brooding eyes to her. She was one of those annoying women who wear a haircut suitable for a man, and who never shed those extra twenty pounds, and then wonder why they do not get asked out. Why Hila should be annoyed by this she could not say, except that she had learned to anticipate resentment by such women toward her shoulder length, natural blonde hair and her size ten dresses.
“Hila! Could you help me? I mean, yes, the singles are still down there, but I’m teaching the nine and ten year olds and Irene Carne hasn’t shown up yet to help me. Wouldn’t you give me a hand?”
“What would I need to do?” Hila asked prudently. Song leading was out of the question, since Hila’s voice was poor. She also feared teaching without preparation.
“Don’t worry, I’ll teach the class. But it’s so hard to teach and keep things quiet at the same time. I need a second person to help keep them concentrated.” Jane smiled bleakly. “Some of the boys seem to think Sunday school is playground time.”
Hila wondered how it could be that, in Jane’s many years of teaching the congregation’s children, she had never developed the ability to keep discipline in class, and why, since she could not develop it, she had not quit teaching long ago. Jane taught Junior Church, too, during the main service, and so guaranteed herself two hours a week that varied from uncomfortable to miserable, depending on which little devils the parents lodged with her on a given Sunday.
Hila did not wish to help Jane at all, and under ordinary circumstances would have excused herself, but she considered that she was trying to fit in at River Grove as seamlessly as possible. If she could seem like a contented, unthinking River Grover, someone with no complaints and no agenda, then her plan to resurrect the facts about Oliver Fulborne would go all the easier. She considered also that Jane Burson knew everything about the church, so a little forced closeness to her might be profitable. These matters flashed through her mind and she answered, “I’m not much of a disciplinarian, Jane, but I’ll do what I can.”
“Oh, thank you,” Jane gushed. “We’ll have a great time.” She turned down the hallway, leading the way around groups of chatters. “It’s Daniel in th
e Lions’ Den today, and scripture memorization, and a scissors and paste craft. And Amy Willenkempf is going to win her Junior Missionary prize if she can recite Ephesians 2:1-8. She’ll get a New Testament if she does it.”
“How nice. What say the odds makers? Should I lay money on her?”
“Oh, she’ll do it today,” Jane said humorlessly and without looking up. “She always has her verses word-perfect and cries if she doesn’t.”
“I’m surprised she had time for Ephesians,” Hila said reflectively, “what with all the Joshua verses she must have learned at VBS last week.”
“She learned them all,” Jane said, “and won a trumpet.”
“Jane, were you here at VBS all week? But how did you get off work?”
“I took my vacation time,” Jane said.
Hila grew silent for a moment. Jane held a clerk’s job at a retail store and could expect no more, Hila supposed, than two weeks vacation a year. If VBS had been a solid object, like a building, then at that moment Hila would have cheerfully dynamited it. But she knew that VBS is an idea in people’s minds and no more susceptible to explosions than are the Pleiades.
The worst of the boys in Jane’s class had not shown up this week, and Hila found that by seating herself between two other young demons, she was able to neutralize most of the rest of the trouble. (Jane told her afterwards that her class had not been so orderly in months.) Even at that, fifteen minutes of their fifty were gone before all the children had assembled and the role was taken.
Jane then proceeded to flannelgraph. Daniel’s lions padded on a huge board on an easel while one of the older girls read the story aloud in an expressionless voice. Then Jane led a ‘discussion’ that consisted of her asking the children to parrot back certain short answers from the story. Who shut the lions’ mouths? Was Daniel afraid of the lions? Why not? Hila had brief hopes for the why not, but when Jane’s question was not answered quickly, the teacher supplied the answer herself, first looking down at the leader’s booklet on her lap.
“Daniel was not afraid because he knew he was innocent and trusted in God to deliver him,” she read. “Now what did King Darius do to the men who had accused Daniel? Anyone? Look at verse twenty four.”
“Question,” said Hila. “Did God deliver Daniel because he had done nothing wrong or because God loved Daniel?”
Jane’s eyes unfocused and refocused as if she had just discovered Hila in the room. She glanced down at the booklet, seemed to realize that the answer could not possibly be there, and looked up again. “A little bit of both, I’m sure,” she said, and giggled.
“Well, the reason I ask is that I myself have been guilty of doing so many things wrong,” Hila continued happily. “So that if I had to win God’s approval by being good, it would be hopeless.” She had the full attention of the class. “What do you suppose?” she said to the girl who had read aloud emotionlessly. “Does God do good things for you even if you’ve been bad?”
The girl looked around at the colorful pictures and posters on the walls, as if hoping to find the answer there. She licked her front teeth and said nothing.
Hila leaned forward and stage whispered to her, “It’s Ok, sweetie. I’m just asking for what you think, so whatever you say is right.” A few of the children made small noises of appreciation. It sounded like a good deal.
“Well, I….” The girl looked to Jane, who was poised to resume her lesson as soon as this was over with. “I think so,” said the girl. “I mean, good things happen to us every day.”
“But we aren’t innocent every day?”
“Huh-uh.” She grinned.
“Then maybe—” Hila laid a hand on the shoulder of a restless boy to her right and caught his eye. “—maybe, sir, God blesses us even when we do wrong? Why would He do that?”
The boy wriggled out from under her hand but kept in his chair, that is, the far right edge of it. “I dunno.”
“Good answer! Now that’s saying what you think, so you’re right. Mike—” His name was hand printed on his booklet. “—you get good food at home, don’t you? And TV and video games and, uh—”
“Baseball,” he put in.
“Baseball! And that’s even though you’ve never lived perfectly one day in your life. It couldn’t be that God loves you, could it? Just as you are?”
Several of the children answered affirmatively before Mike could speak.
“Great! You’ve got it. But Jane wants to go on.” Hila had been observing Jane’s bored expression and stiff posture.
“Yes,” said Jane with sudden enthusiasm, “we have several more questions. Now what did the king do to the men who had accused Daniel? Anyone? It’s in verse twenty four.”One of the girls read aloud what the king had done.
After the questions came Bible memorization. First the children rehearsed a new verse; then they reviewed last week’s verse. Several chose to try to recite last week’s verse alone before the group, and all were so successful—with timely hints from Jane—as to receive stickers beside their names on a wall chart. However, a little girl named Elly refused to try even after much coaxing. This was, Hila observed from the wall chart, Elly’s first week in months that she had not recited.
Amy Willenkempf recited her Ephesians passage perfectly, as predicted, and was awarded a paperback New Testament. On its cover was a cartoon of a grinning shepherd boy with tennis-ball sized eyes and surrounded by grinning sheep.
Jane went to the cupboard and brought out the crafts materials: construction paper, Elmer’s glue bottles, and blunt-edged scissors. In the small time left before the bell would ring, the children were supposed to construct paper dens and place in them pop-out figures of Daniel and several rather gentle looking lions. Only two finished, however, and the crafts were put aside to be completed the next week. After the bell rang and the children vanished out the door, Jane and Hila remained to put the materials away.
Hila put an untidy stack of half glued dens in the cupboard and quickly closed the door before they could fall out. “I hope you didn’t mind my adding a few questions to the lesson.”
“Oh, no, of course not,” Jane said. “I’m glad you felt free. Thanks so much for your help.”
“But you saw the point I was making about God’s love for us, that it doesn’t depend on what we do?”
“Of course,” Jane said cheerily, and then moving on abruptly to what was really on her mind, “but did you notice Elly Montcrieff, the girl in the green dress?”
“I noticed she didn’t recite.”
With a glance at the open door, Jane moved closer to Hila and whispered. “She’s starting to distance herself from the group. She’s the only one of the nine and ten year olds who didn’t make a commitment or a recommitment during VBS. I’m afraid she may have gotten into something.”
“Into something? Into what?”
“Something that she doesn’t want to talk about.”
“I don’t understand.”
Jane’s eyes looked smokier than ever behind her glasses. “Who knows? Maybe drugs, or—or sex, or something occult.”
“Jane!”
“It can happen, Hila. A few years ago some of the sixth graders were fooling around with a Ouija board and some strange things happened that scared them. And I could name you at least three teens who have drifted out of the church in the last few years after flirting with things they shouldn’t have.”
It flashed through Hila’s mind that the extreme boredom of Jane’s life must be compensated for in some way, and that this was it: vague and exciting forebodings.
“Teens drifting out of the church—how unusual.”
“After playing with New Age stuff,” Jane said weightily, determined to win her point.
“Well, I think you can put all that to rest, I mean regarding Elly, if you just talk to her.”
“We have talked to her,” said Jane with raised eyebrows. “Dana Pulve
r and me.”
“And?”
“She says nothing’s happening. But when we asked why she wouldn’t make a recommitment last week, all she said was that she didn’t want to be pushed.”
“Which is undoubtedly the reason,” Hila said stiffly.
“Does that make sense to you? Nobody was pushing her. She’s hiding something. This is a very special prayer request, Hila. Several of us are praying for her.”
“No, now wait a minute. Her own parents haven’t caught her doing anything? Well, isn’t it a lot more likely that she just felt stubborn last week?”
“This is something you just sense,” Jane said calmly with a small nod. “Not everyone can discern these things.”
This ‘God told me’ argument trumped all else; it was infuriatingly unanswerable. Hila let it go and finished helping with the cleanup, but left with a mind full of what she had just heard. She prowled the emptying hallways, hoping to find Elly Montcrieff still in the building and, against expectation, did find her. The small eyed, pursed lipped girl was standing alone in front of a bulletin board covered with pictures of missionary families. When Hila went straight to her, the girl looked up anxiously and backed off a step.
“Uh, Elly, I just want you to know that I don’t believe there’s a thing wrong with you, not a thing,” Hila said clumsily. Elly looked uncertain. “No, really, kid. You didn’t want to recommit at VBS. Well, good for you. I mean it. That’s private stuff, isn’t it? So why should anyone make you say things in front of everybody that you don’t want to say?”
The girl answered this with a quick, nervous nod.
“You’re fine, girl. Don’t let anybody tell you any different.”
“There’s Mom and Dad,” Elly said. “They’ve been talking to the pastor.” Her parents were coming down the hall with Pastor Wurz, still talking with him; and all three were smiling. Elly looked Hila straight in the eyes, lipped the words ‘thank you,’ and trotted off to meet them.