“We need some round, buggy eyeballs,” Sierra said, reaching for the scissors. “And some long, good jumpy legs. Did you know that God made frogs?”
“I know that story about the prince,” Angie said. “He got turned into a frog, and the princess had to kiss him to turn back into a prince.”
“Right,” Sierra said, smiling. “That’s a good fairy tale, isn’t it?”
“I would never kiss a frog,” Meruka spouted, her tongue sticking out through her toothless gap. “Ewww!”
“Some people eat frogs,” a little boy announced.
“I’d rather kiss one than eat one.”
“Here, Monte.” Sierra held out two bulging eyeballs she had made. “Are you ready for these?”
“Have you ever kissed a frog, Missy Era?”
“Missy Era?”
“That’s your name, isn’t it?”
“Oh. Miss Sierra,” she decoded with a smile. “You can call me Sierra.”
“Have you ever kissed a frog, Sierra?”
The truth was, at sixteen, she had never kissed any guy-frog or prince. “No, I’ve never kissed a frog.”
The little girls giggled.
Suddenly, from the roof overhanging the porch, they heard a clamor of heavy footsteps. Sierra looked up and noticed for the first time the ladder leaning against the front of the house. Clunky boots appeared on the top rung and steadily made their way down, the ladder. The circle of artists all watched as a pair of jeans appeared on the ladder above the boots. Next came a carpenter’s belt topped with a blue denim work shirt.
Sierra swallowed hard. Paul had been above them the whole time. He must have heard her comments. Landing on the ground and hoisting the ladder under his arm, Paul slowly looked up, and Sierra caught his engaging grin.
He looked right at her and said only one word as he hauled away the ladder: “Ribbit.”
AN AGELESS yet brand-new fairy tale danced inside Sierra’s imagination. Was Paul trying to tell her he was a prince in disguise? She had already guessed that.
Only a week or so ago, she would have felt dangerous and impulsive—qualities that had bothered her about herself. Now she felt useful and determined. She was sure Paul had some interest in her—a curiosity if nothing else. It confirmed her daydream that an attraction existed between her and Paul, and it wasn’t only her feelings.
Quietly humming to herself, Sierra helped each kid with his or her art project. Monte’s frog turned out to be kind of distorted and silly looking. It didn’t matter to him. He showed everyone, proudly boasting that Sierra helped him.
She collected the crayons and bits of paper from the porch as the children began to leave. Every now and then she looked up to see if Paul was around. She didn’t want him to disappear this time.
The director came out onto the porch and shook Sierra’s hand, thanking her for coming. She pulled him aside from the three kids still coloring and asked if she could continue to volunteer.
“We’d love it,” Mr. Mackenzie said. “You can see how much we need the help. My nephew speaks highly of you.”
Paul spoke highly of me?
“I think very highly of Paul as well,” Sierra said. “And Jeremy. My sister, Tawni, is dating Jeremy.”
“Really!” Mr. Mackenzie had a gentle, engaging manner about him. “And is your sister here?”
“No. But we’d like to invite you and Paul to come some evening for dinner before he leaves for Scotland.”
“He’s told you, then.”
“Actually, Tawni told me.”
“We’ll have to see about arranging a meeting in the next week since Paul is leaving a week from tomorrow. You knew that, didn’t you?”
Sierra felt as if a load of bricks had been dumped on her stomach. “No. I didn’t know he was leaving so soon.” Sierra cleared her throat. “My mom said she’d call you. I’m sure we can arrange something before he leaves.”
“Wonderful! It’s a delight to know you, Sierra. You are welcome here anytime. Any amount of volunteering you would like to do would be greatly appreciated.”
Sierra finished picking up the art mess. Most of the kids had gone. Her two faithful sidekicks, Meruka and Angie, eagerly helped her clean up. She could barely think straight with this new information about Paul marching across her brain.
“Are you going to come back tomorrow?” Meruka quizzed her.
“What? Oh. No, not tomorrow. I will come back another day. And maybe we can do some more art.”
“Will you tell us some more stories with puppets?” asked Angie.
“Well, maybe. Would you like that?”
Angie looked at Sierra with innocent eyes and nodded her head.
“Hey, Sierra,” Randy called from the yard, “you about ready to go?
“No!” she called out a little too urgently. She hadn’t talked with Paul yet. “I need to put these things inside. I’ll be a few minutes.”
“Well be waiting,” Randy said.
Sierra scooped up the last scrap of paper and dashed into the house. Slipping the supplies back into the cupboard, she quickly tidied up the room and then took off to find Paul. She couldn’t locate him anywhere.
He said he would be around. And last Tuesday, what was it he had said when he touched my arm? Something about how we should talk.
She took one last peek in the meeting room and gave up. If she would see Paul tonight—or ever again—it would have to be a God-thing. Gathering up her disappointment, Sierra walked to Randy’s truck with long strides. She sat next to Tre, silently staring out the window all the way to the pizza place. The cloud of gloom hung over her while they ate.
Paul was leaving in a week. How could they have come so far in seeing each other and being around each other for hours, and yet still be so far away from each other?
Randy got Tre to open up and talk a little about his family and his interest in music. Sierra ate one slice of pizza and wondered if Mom had called Paul’s uncle yet to set a time for them to come to dinner. When Randy dropped her off, she couldn’t wait to run inside and ask Mom.
“Wait up,” Randy said, following Sierra up the steps to her front door. She had forgotten how Randy usually hung out at their house on Fridays. It was only eight-thirty. Of course he would want to come in. That didn’t mean she had to entertain him.
“Sounds like the boys are in the family room,” Sierra said to Randy as they stepped inside. She planned to find her mom and make some dinner plans.
“Hey,” Randy said as she made a beeline up the stairs, “I didn’t come in to see your brothers.”
Sierra stopped and looked down at Randy. His head was tilted, his eyes questioning. With a hesitant hand, he flipped his straight blond hair.
“I was hoping we could talk for a while,” he said.
“Now?” Sierra realized how rude that must sound. Randy always had time to listen to her woes. How hard would it be for her to do the same for him? “I mean, can you wait just a minute?”
“Sure,” Randy said, giving her a crooked grin. “I’ll wait in the family room.”
“Thanks,” Sierra said and then took the rest of the stairs two at a time.
She found Mom in Granna Mae’s room. They were playing a game of Scrabble.
“Mom,” Sierra asked breathlessly, “you know our idea about inviting Mr. Mackenzie and Paul for dinner? Paul leaves for Scotland in a week. If we’re going to invite them, we should do it tomorrow night because I have finals all next week.”
“Take a breath, Lovey,” Granna Mae said.
“I called him about an hour ago. We’re all set for next Friday night,” Mom responded.
Sierra lowered herself onto the edge of Granna Mae’s bed. Next Friday. A whole week, and I won’t see him until the day before he leaves! I have to work out something else. Something more. I need a chance to tell Paul how I’ve prayed for him and find a way to let him know how I feel about him.
“Help me out here, will you, Lovey? I have a j, and I can’t figure o
ut how to use it.”
Sierra went over and stood behind Granna Mae, examining her letters and running the possible combinations through her head. They couldn’t use the j this time, but Sierra managed to come up with “aft,” and the flanded on a triple letter box. The game proceeded at an increased pace now that Sierra and Granna Mae were teamed up against Mom, the reigning champion of the house.
Forty minutes later, the scores were tallied. Mom won by seven.
“I suppose I should check on the boys,” Mom said, stretching. “It’s past their bedtime.”
The image of her brothers watching TV brought back the memory of Randy. “Oh, no!” Sierra said, jumping up and running downstairs. She blasted into the family room and saw only her dad and her two brothers engrossed in the last five minutes of a video. “Where’s Randy?”
“He left a little while ago,” Dad said. “Is everything okay?”
“I hope so,” Sierra said, charging out the front door and scanning the street for his truck. He was long gone.
Sierra tipped her face heavenward and whispered, “I’m sorry.” Here she had been so upset about Paul’s disappearing and her not being able to talk with him, and then, without thinking, Sierra had disappeared on Randy when he said he wanted to talk with her.
The thought hit Sierra that perhaps her anticipation of talking with Paul was not mutual after all. Maybe Paul saw Sierra the way she saw Randy—a pleasant interruption. In the stillness of the dark, empty night, the tears came, bubbling up from someplace deep inside.
“MY LIFE IS FALLING APART,” Amy said on the phone early the next morning.
Sierra was hurrying to dress for work, and she didn’t feel a boatload of sympathy for Amy. Sierra’s own emotions over not talking to Paul and ignoring Randy had kept her tossing and turning all night. She was not in a good mood.
“We can’t have our dinner tonight because my sister has the flu and my mother thinks it’s not polite to invite people to your house if someone is sick.”
“Your mother’s probably right,” Sierra said, shuddering at the thought of getting the flu right now. “This is an awfully intense week ahead, Amy. Maybe we should wait until school is out.”
“I guess we’ll have to. I’ll call Drake and tell him. I’m hoping he suggests we all go out to eat instead.”
“That would be fine with me,” Sierra said. She felt a little guilty about how clammed up she had been during the pizza outing the night before. First Sierra had made sure Tre was invited, and then she had ended up being lost in her own dreamworld the whole time. It would be good to see Randy tonight and get everything back on track. She couldn’t do anything about Paul but wait until dinner next Friday. Or try to see him sometime this week at the Highland House. But that didn’t seem like a great place to talk. At least she could apologize to Randy and feel better about that relationship.
All day at work, Sierra fought a headache. She attributed it to not enough sleep, stress over finals, anxiety over seeing Paul, and maybe that all she had eaten for breakfast was a mushy, spotted banana. Even the daily pan of “burnt offering” cinnamon rolls on the table in the back offered no solace. Jody offered her a packet of Energy Revive, a collection of vitamin B and ginseng tablets. Sierra believed vitamins were a good thing. But the way her stomach was feeling, it didn’t seem likely she would be able to keep the pills down.
The instant the round tummy of the bear clock on the wall announced it was four o’clock, Sierra was out of there. What a relief to know she could go straight home since Amy’s dinner party had been postponed. None of Sierra’s friends had contacted her at work, so she didn’t know if they were planning on doing something. If they were, she decided she would pass. All she wanted was a hot bath, some food, and a long nap.
Her heart sank when she turned down the street and saw Randy’s truck parked in front of her house. A large mower stuck out of the back of the truck bed. Randy stood in the front yard in his lawn service clothes, wearing a blue baseball cap backward and talking to Sierra’s dad. They both heard the noisy approach of her diesel-engine VW Rabbit and turned to watch her park. Both of them smiled and waved.
Sierra wished she could vaporize and not have to go through the humble apology to Randy. She knew he would understand about her deserting him last night. He always did. She just didn’t like admitting she had forgotten about him.
“Hi,” she called out, slamming the car door and forcing her brightest smile.
“What? No leftovers for the family this week?” Dad said, noticing she wasn’t carrying the white bakery bag she usually brought with her each Saturday evening.
“Didn’t I tell you? Mrs. Kraus decided to start donating all the extras to the Highland House.”
“They need them more than we do,” Dad said, patting his stomach. “Well, I have a project going out back. I’ll see you around, Randy.”
“Bye,” Randy said. Turning to Sierra, he cautiously asked, “Are you doing okay?” He looked adorable in the backward baseball cap with blond fringes of his floppy hair sticking out of the sides. He smelled like freshly cut grass, and his pants looked as if he had just lost a tackle football game.
“I’m okay. Randy, I apologize about last night.”
He didn’t halt her painful admission but let her continue.
“I don’t know what to say. I meant to come down right after I talked to my mom. But then I started helping Granna Mae with her j in the Scrabble game, and I lost track of time.”
Instead of his usual amiable laugh and crooked smile to show he understood, Randy’s face remained still. Sierra thought she saw a hint of hurt in his eyes.
“I knew it had to be something important,” Randy said with a bite in his words. “Look, Sierra. If you don’t want me to come around, just tell me. I thought we were getting pretty close. You know—buddies. Now I’m not sure what’s going on. If I’m bugging you, I want you to tell me.”
“You don’t bug me, Randy. Not at all. Please don’t ever think that. It’s just that…” She didn’t know how to tell him about her overwhelming feelings for Paul. He would probably understand. Randy was such a good listener, and he definitely kept confidences better than Amy. Still, it felt odd telling one guy that she liked another guy.
“What is it?” Randy said, adjusting his weight from one foot to the other.
“There’s been a lot going on lately. I know I’ve been acting kind of strange. Please don’t read anything into that about our friendship. I need you to hang in there with me for this next week or so.”
Randy was quiet for a few moments, absorbing her words. “I can do that,” he said.
“Good. Thanks.” Sierra smiled her relief at him.
“I guess our dinner at Amy’s was cancelled,” he said. “I thought I’d see if you wanted to go do something.”
A little night-light next to Sierra’s heart suddenly lit in a soft glow. He was actually asking her to go out. It was so sweet of him. “I was planning to come home and crash,” Sierra said. “I’m fried, and I still have to type up the written report for the Highland House. If you want to stay for dinner, I’m sure it would be fine with my parents.”
Randy seemed to weigh the options. “I think I’ll follow your shining example,” he said, the comforting, crooked grin creeping back into place. “I should go home and finish my report, too. Maybe we can do something next weekend—just the two of us—after the pressure of finals is off. How about Friday night?”
“Sure,” Sierra said quickly. It felt good to have things cleared up with Randy. He turned to leave, and then she remembered. Friday was when Paul and his uncle were coming for dinner. “Ah, maybe not Friday. We have company coming. You and I could do something on Saturday, couldn’t we?”
“Saturday,” Randy repeated, as if trying to verbally stick a thumbtack in Sierra’s words to get them to stay in one place. “I think there’s a concert Saturday night.”
“Great! That would be fun. See you Monday.” She waved good-bye and made h
er way to the bathtub.
When Sierra did see Randy on Monday, it was right before they were to give their reports in front of the class.
“You go first,” he said, then added teasingly, “We’ll save the best for last.”
Sierra stood before Mr. Rykert’s class and gave her presentation, feeling at ease in front of the group. Public speaking didn’t spook her the way it did a lot of her friends.
Coming to a conclusion, Sierra said, “For me, the best part about going to Highland House was discovering we can do lots of things to fulfill the commandment of Christ found in Luke 6:31.” She looked down at her note cards and read, “Do to others as you would have them do to you.”
Looking at her classmates, Sierra said, “Whether it’s donating time or food or assistance of some kind, lots of needs are out there, and there’s plenty we can do about them. I plan to volunteer at the Highland House. I’d like to close with a verse from Matthew 25:37–40.
“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’”
Sierra had begun her report telling about Monte and his paper frog. She concluded by saying, “Perhaps Monte would be considered one of the least of these. I learned that in serving Monte, I’m actually serving Christ.”
Before she could take her seat, the class burst into applause. Randy stood up, clapping and whistling. Sierra turned and swatted her hand in his direction to get him to sit down and stop making such a ruckus. She had to admit, though, she did like the way Randy teased her.
“Wonderfully presented, Sierra,” Mr. Rykert said, walking to the front of the class. “We’ll hear now from Tre.” He nodded at Tre, urging him to go up front.
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