Tonight, Haley Thomas was the “jailer,” which meant she had the job of guarding the prisoners. I was the only one who’d been caught. I could tell she really wanted to be up front, where the action was, not stuck in the back of the field with me.
So I did my best to annoy her. Haley was hot, and if she didn’t want to be around me, I was going to make sure it was for an actual reason. That way, I could pretend it wasn’t just because she thought I was totally lame. I turned up my phone as loud as it would go and rapped along with Eminem. It wasn’t long before Haley groaned and shouted, “Okay, I’m so done with this. Somebody else has to be jailer now.”
In the darkness, I could make out Ryan Fletcher, their team’s captain, coming over. He was only a few years older than me but already had muscle definition in his arms and had even started shaving. I never liked him.
He checked his phone. “You’re on duty for another ten minutes.”
“Forget it,” said Haley. “Aren’t we supposed to be having fun?” She put her hand on her hip and leaned to her right, the way girls do when they want to look cute and dangerous at the same time. I could see Ryan trying to decide whether he should give in or try using his authority. (Which would a hot girl like better?) He looked at me and smirked. “I guess it wouldn’t be such a major catastrophe if this one got away.”
“Right?” said Haley. “I’m a wasted resource right now.”
I was about to say that I could hear them, when a new voice chimed in.
“I’ll be jailer.”
We looked over and saw my cousin Becca standing near, watching us. Even at camp, in the heat, she wore her ankle-length skirt and long-sleeved T-shirt.
“Great,” Ryan said, not really looking at her. He and Haley both hurried away toward the front line, excited to be where everyone else was and away from both of us.
Becca came and stood by the edge of the jail, arms folded across her chest. I turned off Eminem.
“You got caught pretty early,” she said.
“I guess my heart’s not really in the game,” I said.
My cousin flopped down on the grass across from me. “Me, either,” she said. She started pulling up stalks of grass in front of her and breaking them in half.
There was a sudden commotion near the front line—laughing and shouting that died down again quickly. Someone must have tried to cross the line. I hesitated a second and then said in a rush, “It was really cool what you said before, during worship.”
Becca looked up from the ground. “Really?”
I nodded.
I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised about what had happened. For a while now, anytime I saw my cousin, she reminded me of a bomb ready to go off. It was all because of the protein-bar incident at VBS the other week. Ms. Swanson had been home sick that day, so it was Lydia Newman who discovered that Becca was selling the bars without permission during VBS. She’d called Becca’s mother to investigate. My aunt had been furious—drove straight to the church and came storming across the field, searching for her daughter. It turned out those bars hadn’t been Becca’s to sell.
In the middle of the field, in front of everyone, my aunt had laid into Becca: “What are you thinking, taking things that don’t belong to you? That’s stealing, Becca! Stealing!”
Becca had already been close to tears. “But, Mom, it’s for the orphans—”
My aunt had shaken her head. “I don’t want to hear it! There’s no excuse for what you did.”
Becca was crying for real then. “I just wanted to feed the children. They don’t have enough food and—”
“Did you ever think that maybe we don’t have any food, Becca? Did you ever think your dad and I work so hard every day, and this is what you do? You’re in big trouble. Wait till your father hears about this!”
She had grabbed Becca by the arm and marched her across the field to their car. Becca had her face in her hands, sobbing. It was not a good look. After they left, nobody knew what to say, so we all just pretended like it hadn’t happened.
Later, the whole story came out: The protein bars were part of an online business venture my aunt was taking part in. The company that made the bars had shipped a ton of boxes to my aunt, and she sold them door-to-door, getting a cut of the profits. That was how Becca had been able to smuggle so many—there were boxes and boxes of them sitting in their kitchen. There was no actual connection to any Haitian charity. Becca had just been saving the small amount of money she’d raised so far in her sock drawer, planning on sending it to the charity when she’d raised enough. Of course, her parents seized the money.
It was all pretty dumb and sad, but I felt bad for Becca. When I saw her the next day at the VBS, her eyes were red and her face kind of wooden. I wanted to tell her something, but I didn’t know what. Plus, if the guys saw me talking to her, the jokes would start up again. In some ways, she’d done me a favor—everyone had already forgotten about the fight between DeShawn and me and were now talking about the weird girl who stole protein bars from her mom. Nothing helps people forget your stupidity like someone else doing something stupider.
Eventually, people would have forgotten, but Becca didn’t do herself any favors. Even though she didn’t have anything to sell now, she kept talking about the Haitian orphans and giving people that Michael Keegan guy’s flyer. Pretty soon, everyone was avoiding her.
So, in a way, what happened tonight had been building for a while. It had been near the end of the worship rally, when just Jon Newman was strumming softly on his guitar, and the rest of the band were sitting quietly on their stools or amps. We all knew what was coming next—it was the same every year—but the way Jon spoke, you’d think it had never happened before. He closed his eyes and told us he felt that the Lord was speaking to him, that there were kids who had words on their heart God wanted them to share, so if anyone felt God urging them to say something, just to raise your hand and Jon would pass the mike around.
This was always the worst part of the rally. It took forever, and you had to stand there, rocking back and forth on your aching feet. You could sit down with your head bowed and your eyes closed so it looked like you were praying privately, but that was risky. Somebody might come up and lay a hand on your shoulder, asking if you’d like them to pray for you. That’s not like being asked if you want seconds at dinner—it’s not something you can just turn down with a polite “No, thank you.”
Last year, I had to sit there silently as Lydia Newman prayed over me for what felt like an hour. “Lord Jesus, we just thank you for Benjamin. We just thank you that you’ve set his feet on a clear path, that you’ve prepared a way for him. Help him see your plan for his life, Lord Jesus.”
I’d pressed my thumbs into my closed eyelids until my forehead throbbed. When Lydia began to run out of things to say, she stopped and asked me if I was sure there wasn’t something specific I wanted prayer for. “Just like … being a good Christian and stuff,” I’d mumbled.
So this year, I’d been wise enough to keep standing for the entire rally, near the back of the hall with the guys, ignoring my aching feet, sweating in the hot and stuffy room and silently cursing every time another kid decided God was telling them something everyone else needed to hear. Danielle Martin was first. She went on and on, teary-eyed, about how Jesus just wanted to tell everyone in the room how much he loved them, and if you weren’t feeling the love of Christ right now, it wasn’t because of him, it was because of you. Sin separated us from the love of Christ, and all we had to do to get back to his love was confess our sin to him, and he would forgive us. “Jesus,” she sobbed, “just wants you to know that he loves you so-o-o-o much. All he wants to do is take you in his arms and show you how much he loves you, but you have to let him. You have to give in to his love.”
Everyone clapped and shouted, “Amen!” and “Thank you, Jesus,” and then Ryan raised his hand a little bashfully. W
hen Jon handed him the mike, he cleared his throat and said in his low voice, “I just feel like God wants to tell us not to be afraid. We worry about so many things now, like our future, how we look to other people, what we’re gonna do with our lives. And God just wants to say, ‘Don’t worry. Don’t be afraid. I’m here, and I’m gonna take care of you. All you have to do is put your faith in me.’”
This was a cheap word, and I knew why Ryan had given it. As we got older, most of the girls at church got into boys that seemed really spiritual and gave public testimonies and prayers. It made them seem deep and mature or something. Ryan had probably made that little speech up a few seconds before raising his hand. I’d thought a few times about doing it, too. I imagined giving this amazing, spiritually convicting word that would have everyone on the floor, crying, and afterward they’d all look at me differently, including Bethany. But I knew I could never go through with it. Just the thought of speaking publicly into the microphone made my heart start pounding. I would have stood there stammering and sweating until I collapsed or threw up.
I looked around the room after Ryan gave his word. A lot of girls were nodding with tears in their eyes. Seriously? I couldn’t believe they’d bought that BS. But there was one girl who didn’t seem to care, or even notice, and that was Bethany. She was in the corner of the room, near the back, sitting next to Nola, who, at this point, I was pretty sure was her new best friend. They sat really close to each other on one of the benches, their shoulders practically touching. Nola had one hand on Bethany’s knee. They weren’t paying attention to anything else going on. I decided they must be praying on their own.
Somebody coughed into the mike. I turned and saw Becca standing with the microphone in her hand, with Jon Newman behind her, looking a little nervous. Of course, he couldn’t refuse to let her speak, but since the protein-bar thing, even the team leaders were a little uneasy around her.
For a second, Becca just stood there, staring at all of us while we waited for her to say something. Then she spoke. “I just want to say, it’s great what we’re doing here tonight, praising Jesus, and everything. It’s great that there are so many of us who want to follow him, serve him, use our lives for his glory. But I just want to say, if you’re serious about all the things you’ve said, if you believe the words to all the songs we just sang, then maybe you should think about taking it one step further.
“There are so, so many people out there in the world who need our help. They aren’t worried about where they’ll go to college or getting the new iPhone. They’re worried about if they’ll be able to find anything to eat tomorrow, if they will have access to clean water. We all just ate a huge meal. You probably didn’t even think twice about it; you probably didn’t even think twice about taking a second hamburger or helping of baked beans. There are kids out there who’ve never even seen that much food in one place before.”
Everyone was quiet as Becca talked. And it was weird, but somehow I could feel that it was a different kind of quiet from the one Danielle and Ryan had gotten. This one was uncomfortable. Jon looked like he wanted to step in and take the mike away, but since Becca wasn’t saying anything wrong or untrue, he couldn’t.
“My parents keep telling me I shouldn’t make people feel guilty,” Becca continued, “but now I’m thinking, why not? Why shouldn’t we feel guilty? Did you know there’s more commands in the Bible to feed the hungry than just about anything else? Did you? So yeah, maybe we should feel guilty. But the cool thing is, we can help. Instead of spending our money on another video game or pair of jeans, we can donate to charities that help these people in need. And when we turn eighteen, we can go work at these charities that help. We don’t have to go to college; we don’t have to live in America. We can do good in the world. We can serve Jesus, just like we promised we would in all those songs we sang.”
Jon took a step toward her but didn’t actually try to take the microphone away. It looked like he was hoping she’d just hand it to him. But Becca seemed to panic. She looked at Jon, then back at the rest of us, who were all watching her wide-eyed. And then her face got hard and angry.
“I know none of you will, though,” she said. “I know none of you actually believe those songs, or if you do, you just think it’s talking about being nice and happy and getting married and having kids and going to church, and maybe it is, but what’s the point of that? What’s the point? We just dance around to music while kids our age are starving. We just talk about love and grace while people die. Doesn’t anybody care? Doesn’t anybody want to do something? Doesn’t anybody …” Becca was crying now. Tears were running down her red face. Jon was able to step in and gently take the mike out of her hands just as Lydia came over, took Becca by the shoulders, and slowly led her away. Becca was still crying as they passed by me and went into one of the back rooms and closed the door.
Jon did his best to smooth things over. He said at our age, it was normal to have questions, and easy to get confused about God’s will for our lives. He said that some of us were called to go into the mission field and serve Christ that way, but it was just as important to serve God here, in our own country. Everyone’s plan was different; the important thing was listening so we could hear it. The band played one final song, and then we all filed out of the building and into the night for capture the flag.
Now, sitting in the grass, after I had told her I thought what she’d said was cool, Becca’s lips started quivering. “Thank you. I mean, I know you’re just saying that. I know everyone thinks I’m crazy, but thanks anyway.”
I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want her to start crying again, but it wasn’t true that I thought she was crazy. What she had said at worship made sense to me—sort of, at least. More sense than anybody else I’d heard at those rallies.
“So, you used to live in Haiti?” I asked finally.
Becca nodded and wiped her eyes. “As soon as I turn eighteen, I’m going back.”
“You guys were missionaries there?”
“Yeah, we lived there four years before we moved back to the States. My sister kept getting sick, and my parents worried we weren’t getting a good enough education. Plus, we were basically out of money.”
I had more questions, but there was another commotion. I looked over the field. DeShawn was walking quickly our way. Devon Miller was following him. He was bouncing around behind DeShawn, shouting and pointing. “He’s caught! I caught him! You’re caught, DeShawn!”
DeShawn whirled around. “I know you caught me!” he snapped. “I don’t care.”
He turned back around and headed over to us, flopping down on the grass in the jail beside me. I looked at him, but he didn’t say anything.
Ever since that day at the movie theater, when DeShawn had given up his seat so I could sit next to Bethany, I didn’t know how to feel about him. I wanted to keep my anger, but I had a hard time remembering what it was I’d been angry with him for. Of course, there was the fight, but I had to admit that I’d pushed him first. There was the way Bethany treated him, but I’d been angry with him way before we’d started VBS. I’d been angry at him almost since he first moved in, when I discovered he wasn’t going to be the funny, hip-hop-loving little brother I’d imagined he’d be. I hadn’t known how to feel about him, so I just decided to dislike him, because it’s easier to dislike someone than try to figure them out, I think. It was almost harder to be around him now that we weren’t straight-up enemies. We were shy and awkward around each other. We didn’t know what to say.
It was Becca who finally spoke. “Hi, DeShawn!”
“Hey.” DeShawn cupped his head in his hands and looked down at the ground.
“You okay?” Becca asked.
“I’m fine,” he said.
Becca and I looked at each other. He looked like he might have been crying. Something must have happened, but I wasn’t brave enough to ask him what. Another bunch of shouts came
from the front lines and then stopped. With DeShawn sitting next to me, I couldn’t talk to Becca about her plans, or what it was like living in Haiti. Instead, we just sat there quietly, listening to the rest of the happy campers.
“It’s a slow game this year,” I said after a while. “Usually, there’s more prisoners by now.”
“Nobody wants to make the first move,” Becca said.
DeShawn looked up. “Man, this is stupid,” he said. “Let’s get out of here.”
I looked at him. “What do you mean?”
DeShawn spread out his arms. “Let’s just go. I don’t wanna play this lame-ass game anymore, do you?”
Becca smiled. “Do you want to?” she asked me.
It was weird, but I’d never thought about ditching the game before. I’d never thought I could just get up and walk away, that I didn’t have to play. “What would we do instead?” I said.
“Something besides sitting for hours in the wet grass,” Becca answered.
I smiled and stood up. “Sure, let’s go. This game sucks, anyway.”
“This is what the sky looks like every night in Haiti,” Becca said. “You can always see the stars.”
It had been Becca’s idea to come down to the lake after we went to my cabin and I left my phone to charge. We weren’t supposed to be out by the water this late without a chaperone, but Becca had said nobody would notice, because of the game. We’d walked down the dark pathway through the woods, to where the lake sat reflecting a sliver of crescent moon. Now we were sitting out on the edge of the dock, Becca on one side of me, DeShawn on the other. We’d taken off our shoes and had our feet dipped in the cool water. We could hear the laughter and shouts from back at camp. Closer, in the woods surrounding the lake, we could hear bullfrogs croaking and crickets chirping and the breeze rustling through the trees. Above us, in the clear sky, there were more stars than I had ever seen.
Another Life Page 24