Katy's Debate (Katy Lambright Series, The)

by Kim Vogel Sawyer

  “Oh, Caleb, that’s so nice of you!” Annika crooned. She turned eagerly to Katy. “Wouldn’t that be better?”

  “Dad gave you the week off,” Katy reminded Caleb. Why was he so determined to weasel his way over here?

  “I know but…” Caleb rubbed his chin. His cheeks flushed pink. “You and Annika want time together. If you don’t have to milk, you’ll have more time. I don’t have anything else to do, so…”

  “Let him, Katy,” Annika prodded. She hugged Caleb’s elbow to her side. “Consider it a Christmas present.” She fluttered her eyelashes in Caleb’s direction.

  Katy didn’t want a Christmas present from Caleb! And Annika’s behavior was about to make her sick. “But—”

  Caleb slipped away from Annika’s hold. “I’ll go ask Mr. Lambright and be right back.” He darted out the door before Katy could stop him.

  She glared at Annika. “Why did you bring him over here?”

  Annika drew back, her face confused. “He already told you—he saw me in town, and I said I wanted to come out. So he drove me.” Her voice turned defensive. “What’s your problem?”

  “He’s my problem. This was supposed to be my break.” Partly a break from Caleb. “You know how much he bugs me, always calling me Katydid and teasing me until I want to smack him.” She altered her voice and mimicked his low, slow speech. “I’ve eaten Katy’s cooking before. It didn’t kill me.” Balling her hands, she pressed them to her temple. “Ugh, I can’t stand that guy! And then you act all sweet and gushy with him, and it makes me want to puke.”

  “Well!” Annika plunked her fists on her hips. “Pardon me for liking somebody without your approval. As if I need your approval.” Annika tipped forward at the waist, her eyes snapping. “You know what your trouble is, Katy Lambright? You’re jealous.”

  Katy dropped her jaw. “Jealous? Of what?”

  “You’re jealous of your dad because he’s finally getting married and won’t have to be alone anymore. You’re jealous of me because I’m getting a boyfriend.” Annika folded her arms over her chest and stuck her nose in the air. “You’re jealous, and it’s making you ugly.”

  “You think I’m jealous of you and Caleb?” Katy laughed. “As if! You’re welcome to him! I don’t give a—“ Ugly expressions she’d heard at school quivered on her tongue. She swallowed them and finished, “a hoot about Caleb Penner! I think he’s bubble-brained and unattractive to boot. You’re welcome to him!”

  “Ahem.” The sound of someone clearing his throat came from the back door. Katy and Annika both jerked in that direction. Katy’s face flooded with fire. Caleb stood in the doorway.

  From the look on his face, Katy knew he’d heard every awful word she’d said. Even though she didn’t like him, guilt hit her hard. She hadn’t meant to hurt him. She held out one hand. “Caleb, I—“

  He shook his head. “Don’t worry about it.” His eyes squinted half-shut, and his lips formed a firm, sullen line. “I just wanted to tell you your dad said it was fine for me to come milk tonight if you want time with Annika.” He turned to head back outside.

  Annika raced to his side and caught his arm “That is very sweet of you, Caleb, but it won’t be necessary. I have no interest in spending my evening with Katy.” She shot Katy a venomous look then turned a huge smile on Caleb. “Do you want to go to my house? We can play checkers or something, and you can eat lunch with us.”

  “Okay, sure.” Caleb didn’t sound very enthusiastic, but it didn’t seem to bother Annika.

  She beamed.

  “Great! Let’s go.” She didn’t even tell Katy good-bye as she hustled Caleb out the door.

  Katy stood in the middle of the kitchen. Her throat ached, her nose stung, and she knew she was going to cry. Why was she losing everybody? She lost her mom to the world. She lost her dad to Mrs. Graber. And now she’d lost Annika to—of all people!—Caleb Penner.

  “Why?” She asked the question out loud, almost like a prayer. But nobody answered.

  At five o’clock Katy wandered out to the barn to help Dad with the milking. The cows stood in a restless line, eager to have their swollen milk sacs emptied. She quickly zipped into a pair of coveralls and entered the milking room. Dad turned from flipping the switch on his machine and gave Katy a surprised look.

  “I thought Caleb was milking for you tonight.” He hollered over the whir of the machine.

  Katy shrugged and tried to look uncaring. “I told him not to bother. I can do it.” A cow ambled into position. Katy deftly attached the suction cups and flipped on her milking machine.

  Dad’s eyebrows lowered, but the noise of the machine kept him from asking any questions. At supper, however, when Dad and Katy sat across the table from one another and dished up the chicken, broccoli, and rice casserole, Dad said, “I thought Annika was coming for supper.”

  A sting hit the back of Katy’s nose. She sniffled. “She changed her mind.” She scooped a bite of casserole into her mouth and focused on chewing.

  “Oh?” Dad slathered a slice of bread with butter. “But weren’t you girls going to spend the evening together? That’s what Caleb said.”

  Katy put down her fork. “Dad…”

  Dad’s hand paused midway to his mouth.

  “Annika and I got into a fight.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes.”

  “So she decided not to come over?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh.” Dad took a bite of the bread, chewed, and swallowed. “What was the fight about?”

  Katy snatched up her fork and buried the tines in the casserole. “I don’t wanna talk about it.”

  “Okay.”

  She and Dad ate in silence for a few minutes. Then Dad asked very quietly, “Was it about Caleb?”

  Katy swallowed her bite without chewing and gawked at Dad. How could he have known? “Did you hear us?” Oh, she hoped he hadn’t heard the awful things she’d said!

  Dad chuckled. “No, I just guessed. We saw this coming.”

  The fine hairs on Katy’s neck bristled. We?

  “It’s pretty obvious Annika likes Caleb.” Dad cocked one eyebrow and gave Katy a quirky grin. “And it’s just as obvious Caleb likes you. Rosemary said it was bound to cause problems, eventually.”

  Her again? That woman was infiltrating every fiber of Katy’s existence! Katy pushed away from the table. Her chair legs screeched against the floor. Katy’s voice mimicked the high-pitched sound. “Well, as usual, Rosemary was right. But he’s a stupid boy. Annika is welcome to him. And I don’t want you and Mrs. Graber talking about me!” She stormed for the stairs.

  “Kathleen Lambright!” Dad rarely used her whole name. Doing it now let her know how angry he was.

  Katy knew she’d been disrespectful. She knew she should go back. She knew she should apologize. Instead, she ran up the stairs, slammed herself in her room, and dove under the covers on her bed. She wished she could hide forever.

  Chapter Eighteen

  In the morning Katy looked at her reflection in the little mirror above the bathroom sink and groaned. All the crying she’d done the night before still showed in her puffy red-rimmed eyes. If she had Jewel’s makeup case, she could hide the evidence.

  “But Mennonites don’t wear makeup,” she told her image.

  With a sigh, she twisted her hair into a knot, tucked it under a cap, then hurried to her room to dress. Caleb and Dad were out in the barn milking, and Dad would be in soon for breakfast. She wouldn’t make him wait, and she would prepare a big, hearty breakfast. Then she wouldn’t have to verbally apologize. She hoped. She didn’t think she’d be able to form the words.

  As she set the table for breakfast, she remembered the look on Dad’s face when she’d jumped up and yelled at him. Dad was a mild-mannered man, but he’d been mad. Really mad. She still wondered why he hadn’t come charging up after her to demand an apology. Maybe he suspected the truth—that she wasn’t sorry for what she’d said. She wished she hadn’t screa
med it at the top of her lungs, but she was glad she said it. He needed to know she didn’t want Mrs. Graber’s interference in her life.

  She put several sausage links in a skillet on the stove and then stirred up a batch of waffle batter with cinnamon and raisins mixed in. Sweet scented steam rose from the waffle iron, mixing with the spicy aroma of sizzling sausage. Katy’s stomach growled. She’d eaten little of her supper last night, and she was hungry. Dad would be too. Neither of them had cleaned up the supper mess, and leftovers were scattered all over the counter. Judging by amount of food left on his plate, he hadn’t taken another bite after Katy left the table.

  Guilt pricked again, but she pushed it down and refused to give it wing. He was in the wrong for bringing that woman into their lives. Pretending to be happy about it would be the same as lying. And now that she’d blurted out her real feelings, there was no need to pretend.

  Dad came through the back door just as Katy removed the skillet from the stove. She pointed to the table where the waffles waited on a plate under an overturned serving bowl that kept them warm. “Breakfast is ready. I’ll get the syrup.”

  “I’ll eat later.” Dad stood with his hand on the screen door’s handle. “I just came to tell you I need to jump-start Caleb’s car. Soon as I get him headed down the road, I’ll take you to the bus stop. Eat without me.” He stepped back outside.

  Katy stood with the skillet in her hand and stared after him.

  No smile.

  No “Good morning, Katy-girl.”

  Dad never carried grudges…until now. Regret wiggled through her, but she replaced the feeling with a dose of anger. Fine! Let him stay mad! She’d just stay mad too! She clanked the skillet onto the table, sat, and ate. The food that had smelled so good only minutes before tasted like sawdust, but she ate anyway. Then she stacked her dishes next to last night’s supper dishes in the sink—they could just sit there all day and stink up the place!—and retrieved her backpack. She could wait in the truck for Dad. And if he expected her to talk on the way, then he had another think coming.

  When Katy got off the bus, she spotted Shelby, Jewel, and two other friends, Cora and Trisha, standing near the front doors of the school. A little smile tugged at her lips. The break had been awful—the worst Christmas she could remember—but now she was back at school. A new semester. A new start. A chance to have some fun. She hurried across the brown, crunchy grass to join the girls.

  “Hi, Shelby! Jewel, Trisha, Cora…” She greeted them by turn then looked around in curiosity. “Where’s Bridget?” Katy secretly called Trisha, Cora, and Bridget the Three Musketeers after a book she’d read a few years ago. You never saw one without the other two.

  Trisha made a face. “She’s gone. Moved away.”

  Katy’s mouth fell open. “Moved away? But when?” She flung an accusing look at the group. “Why didn’t somebody tell me?”

  Jewel snorted. “How could anyone tell you when you don’t have a phone? What were we supposed to use, Pony Express?”

  Katy ducked her head so the others wouldn’t see tears spring into her eyes. It wasn’t fair! Bridget was one of her friends, and she hadn’t even been able to tell her good-bye.

  Cora sniffled. “She left yesterday. You knew her dad lost his job back after Thanksgiving.”

  Katy remembered Shelby telling her how worried Bridget had been. She’d promised to pray for the family, but she realized with a start she hadn’t honored the promise. When everything started happening with Mrs. Graber, she’d forgotten all about praying for Bridget’s dad. She’d let Bridget down.

  Cora went on. “Her uncle in Arizona invited them to come stay with him and look for a job there. So they just packed up everything and moved.”

  “But so soon?” Katy could hardly believe how quickly things changed. Bridget here, part of their group, and then—boom!—gone. Just like that.

  “People have to make a living,” Jewel said in a way that made Katy feel stupid. “It’s not like they had a choice.”

  “They had a choice,” Katy argued, matching Jewel’s tone. “There’s always a choice. They could have kept looking for a job in Salina. They could have prayed and trusted God to take care of them. But they decided to move away without even saying good-bye.”

  “She did say good-bye,” Jewel snapped back. “Just because you weren’t around to hear it, don’t take it out on us. Sheesh!” She stalked away with her back stiff.

  Katy looked at Shelby. “Why’s she so grouchy?”

  Shelby’s eyebrows rose. Katy expected her to ask why Katy was so grouchy. Instead, she sighed. “Christmas wasn’t all that great for her. Her mom was supposed to pick her up Christmas Eve and take her home for a day or two. Instead, her mom got picked up on a DUI, and the social services worker cancelled the visit. Jewel was really disappointed.”

  Katy understood disappointment. She’d had plenty of it herself this holiday. “What’s a DUI?”

  Cora giggled. “Katy, you’re so funny. You don’t know anything. DUI means driving under the influence. Jewel’s mom was driving while she was drunk.”

  “Pretty stupid,” Trisha added. “Jewel’s better off without her mom.”

  “You’ll never convince her of that,” Shelby muttered.

  Katy stared after Jewel, who paced back and forth beside some bushes. How many people were mad at Katy? Annika, Caleb, Dad, and now Jewel too. This year wasn’t starting out so great. She sighed. “I better go talk to her.” She started after Jewel, but the bell rang, and she turned around. She couldn’t be late for class or then a teacher might be mad at her too. She would talk to Jewel at lunch.

  In biology, the class watched a video on pond life. Katy tried to keep notes, as the teacher had instructed, but the uninteresting topic combined with dim lights and a narrator’s droning voice nearly lulled her to sleep. Her eyelids felt heavy, and she bobbed her head so hard that her neck hurt. The class bell brought her fully awake, however, and she eagerly headed to her second-hour class.

  She slipped into her familiar desk in the front row in the English classroom. Her classmates talked and laughed, more rowdy than usual. She supposed they weren’t ready to give up their break from studies. But Mr. Gorsky quieted them with a raised hand and a stern look. As soon as they settled down though, he smiled.

  “Welcome back, and happy new year.” He pointed to the whiteboard behind him, where the word neoteric was printed in his bold, all-capped printing. “There’s our word for the day.” Then he chuckled. “Actually, that’s going to be our word for the rest of the year.”

  One of the boys behind Katy called out, “Does that mean it’s the last word for the year?”

  “Oh, no.” Mr. Gorsky shook his head, his mustache twitching. “Sorry, Keagan. We’ll still have a new word each day. But this one is going to be our focus word for the semester.”

  Keagan groaned, but the sound faded into soft laughter.

  Mr. Gorsky propped his hips against his desk and then folded his arms over his chest. “So who knows what neoteric means?”

  Silence fell. Katy glanced around. The other kids appeared puzzled. No one seemed familiar with the word.

  “Well then,” Mr. Gorsky prompted, “somebody guess, based on the way it sounds.”

  The girl next to Katy raised her hand. “Does it have anything to do with hospitals and babies—stuff like that?”

  A titter went around the room, but Mr. Gorsky swept it away. “I believe you’re referring to neonatal, which isn’t quite the same thing. But thanks for taking a shot at it. Anyone else?”

  Keagan, the same boy who’d hoped it would be the last word, said, “I think I’ve seen neoteric before. Doesn’t it have something to do with being smart?”

  “Smart?” The boy next to Keagan snorted. “Yeah, right!”

  “Actually,” Mr. Gorsky said, “that’s a step in the right direction.”

  Keagan punched his neighbor in the arm. “See there? I knew what I was talking about.”

 
“I said it was a step in the right direction,” Mr. Gorsky corrected. “I didn’t say you’d found the destination.”

  Everyone laughed.

  “Let’s look at the first syllable by itself.” The teacher pushed off from the desk and moved to the whiteboard. He picked up a blue marker and made a slash through the middle of the word. “Remembering that Keagan’s guess is a step in the right direction, then what might neo mean?”

  Katy crinkled her brow and stared at the shortened word. Then she wiggled her fingers.

  Mr. Gorsky pointed at her with the marker. “Yes?”

  “Does it have something to do with learning or thinking?”

  “Yes!” Mr. Gorsky grinned. He turned and began slashing words onto the whiteboard as he spoke. “Neoteric is a fancy of way of saying someone is thinking in a way that hasn’t been explored before. Used as an adjective, it means new or modern; as a noun, it refers to being a modern thinker. Being neoteric can be daring. Even radical. But basically it means thinking in new and different ways.”

  He dropped the marker into the tray at the bottom of the board and faced the class. “I want that word to be your challenge this semester. I want each of you to be forward thinkers—jumping outside the box instead of following what everyone else is doing.”

  Katy’s scalp began to tingle. She liked the idea.

  “We’re going to continue studying classic literature.” He waved his hands, stilling the complaining rumble. “But instead of studying it for the sake of plot, characterization, and motive, we’re going to search for places where the author has made an attempt at neoteric thinking. And we’re going to use neoteric thinking in our own writing.” His flung his arms wide. “We’re going to be bold! Daring!”

  A few kids cheered.

  “Because…” Mr. Gorsky dropped the theatrics and sent the class a serious, teacher-ish look that brought everyone under control. “That’s how new things—changes—happen. When someone is brave enough to step beyond what he’s always done, a new world opens up. And new worlds are splendid places to explore.”