"How do you know that? I mean, don"t you wonder sometimes how much of what we believe about G.o.d is real and how much of it we say simply because we want to believe it?"
Christy propped herself up on her elbow and looked at Katie. "What do you mean? It sounds like you"re saying you don"t trust G.o.d."
"I don"t know. It just seems that G.o.d has forgotten about me when it comes to boyfriends, that"s all. Not that I hold it against Him. After all, G.o.d must be rather busy these days-earthquakes, pestilence, famines, wars. What"s a plea from Katie for a boyfriend when He has so much else to tend to?"
"G.o.d is big enough to handle all of that and your feelings too. Please don"t think He"s forgotten you."
"If you say so," Katie said with a sigh.
It was quiet for a few moments before Katie asked, "So what time are we leaving in the morning?"
"I don"t know. Pretty early, I guess. I"m sure the rest of them will wake us when they get up."
"Then we"d better get some sleep. Good night." Katie rolled over on her side with her back to Christy. In minutes, the only sound that came from her was the deep, slow, rhythmic breathing of someone lost in dreamland.
Christy was unable to enter dreamland herself for quite some time. She lay on her back in the stillness, watching for shooting stars and thinking about Katie. It bothered her that Katie had sounded like she was doubting her faith in G.o.d. What bothered Christy even more was that she didn"t have any really good answers for Katie.
Not that I have to defend You, G.o.d. You are G.o.d. You can do what You want. But I do wish sometimes that You and Your ways were easier to understand. Sometimes all I know is that You"re there. Maybe sometimes that"s all I need to know.
Christy noticed a trail of thin, iridescent clouds moving slowly across the night sky. The dust beneath His feet, she thought. You are here, and You do care, don"t You, G.o.d? Please help Katie to see that and to understand You. Christy closed her eyes and drifted into a deep, sweet sleep.
When she awoke, the first thing Christy saw was Katie"s face, which made Christy gasp. Katie had two black rings around both her eyes, a result of the blow she took to her nose the night before.
"Katie," Christy called softly, nudging her on the shoulder. "Katie, wake up."
"What?" Katie answered, sounding groggy and irritated. "Just five more minutes, okay?"
"It"s time to get up, Katie. We"re on the houseboat. We have to get going. And you need to look in a mirror." Christy said the last part in a low voice and bit her lower lip, wondering how Katie would react to what she would see in the mirror.
Christy knew that if it had happened to her, she would be devastated and would probably try to find a way out of going to school the next morning. How could anyone begin her senior year with two black eyes?
Amazingly enough, the prize fighter look only bothered Katie for about two seconds. She looked in the mirror, screamed, then laughed and laughed until everyone else couldn"t help but laugh along with her.
"You wait, Doug! I"m really going to get you back for this one!" she threatened him. She was still threatening when they arrived home from their trip late that evening. As Doug unloaded Katie"s gear from the back of his truck. Katie reminded him, "When you least expect it. I will get you back. Doug. You can count on it."
Christy would have expected the jovial att.i.tude to be long gone by the next morning. But when Christy picked up Katie for school, the first thing Katie said as she bounced into the car was, "What do you think of laxatives?"
Christy looked blankly at her friend. Katie had not even tried to cover up the black and blue with makeup. She looked awful. "What do you mean, laxatives?" Christy asked.
"You know the way Doug will eat anything? Why don"t we make him some cookies and fill the dough with laxatives? He"d never know what hit him!"
"Katie, I can"t believe you"re even suggesting such a thing! That is so cruel. You would never really do anything like that, would you? You know when he hit your nose it was an accident. He felt awful about it. I think he apologized to you every five minutes on the drive home."
"Good. If you ask me, a little guilt is good for a guy."
Christy pulled into the parking lot on the back side of Kelley High and slowly proceeded up and down the rows in search of a parking place. "Did everybody decide to be early today or what? This seems like a lot more cars than last year."
"You know how it is on the first day," Katie commented. "Everyone wants to make a good impression and all that. Besides, there are a lot more seniors this year than last. You know what I think?"
Christy found a remote parking spot and carefully eased the car in between the narrow white lines.
"I think," Katie continued, "since you"re on yearbook staff you should put a picture of the parking lot in the yearbook. n.o.body ever does that. I think a parking lot is as important as a locker. Maybe more so. Especially your senior year."
"You could be right. That"s a good idea, Katie." Christy gathered the few things she had brought with her and carefully locked the car.
Even though she had been at this same school for three years and she liked Kelley High, Christy still felt as if a load of bricks had just been dumped in her stomach. It didn"t matter that this was her senior year. She felt the same way she had the first day of kindergarten back in Wisconsin. Terrified.
"I think it"s a really good idea," Katie chattered on cheerfully as they entered the main building. They merged into a stream of people who were all yakking and laughing and b.u.mping each other with their backpacks slung over their shoulders. "Hey, Danny, how"s it going?" Katie greeted a guy who pa.s.sed them.
Danny waved back. He had on shorts and a T-shirt, and he wore sungla.s.ses even though he was inside the building.
"Did you see who Danny was with?" Katie grabbed Christy by the wrist.
The two of them looked over their shoulders at Danny and the slim, dark-haired girl he had his arm around. "That"s Lynn! Can you believe they"re together?" Kate said. "Actually, if you ask me. they make a good couple. I"ve known Danny since second grade. We used to get into trouble together when we went to Myers Middle School. I can"t believe even Danny has a girlfriend!"
Christy felt relieved that Katie was by her side, breaking the ice, overshadowing Christy"s timid feelings with her bold, friendly personality. Apparently first days didn"t bother Katie a bit. And with two black eyes, no less!
Christy wished she had the right words at that moment to tell Katie what her friendship meant to her. How much she appreciated having someone beside her who could so easily lighten the brick load in her stomach.
"This is where I get off." Katie stopped in front of a cla.s.sroom and flashed a confident smile. "I"ll see you at lunch? Same old spot?"
"Okay." Christy smiled back, trying to siphon one more burst of self-a.s.surance from Katie before heading down the hallway to her first cla.s.s. "See you!"
At 11:42 the bell rang for lunch, and Christy hurried to their meeting spot under a tree on the gra.s.s. Last year they had decided not to eat at the picnic tables or to rush out to their car and hurry through some drive-through fast-food place like a lot of the other students did. Instead, Christy and Katie met at this remote spot.
But today their routine was interrupted. Sitting under "their" tree was a guy Christy didn"t recognize. His sandaled feet were stretched out in front of him, and he looked a little too comfortable. A little too permanent. Christy stood back and watched. The guy pulled an apple from his brown leather backpack and chomped into it.
How could she tell him he was in their s.p.a.ce?
"Hi!" Katie called out. She stepped up beside Christy and eyed the intruder.
"Who"s that?" Katie said, almost loud enough for the guy to hear.
"I don"t know," Christy whispered, turning back to him and scrunching up her nose at Katie. "Why don"t we find a new spot?"
"Why?" Katie asked. "We can still sit there. There"s more than one side to a tree, you know. Besides, once he overhears the kind of stuff we talk about, he"ll probably leave in a second."
Katie boldly marched over to the tree as the guy watched. She planted herself like a flag of victory. Christy followed her lead, fully aware that the guy was observing their every move.
As if nothing were out of the ordinary, Katie opened a bag of chips. "So how did all your cla.s.ses go?" she asked Christy.
It was a little more difficult for Christy to jump right into their lunch routine and act as if they weren"t being observed by this stranger.
Before Christy could answer, the guy spoke up. "Have you tried vitamin C?"
Christy noticed his accent. She guessed it was British.
"Excuse me?" Katie said, making eye contact with him.
"For the eyes." He motioned to Katie"s obvious bruises. "Vitamin C with bioflavonoids three times a day. Have you tried it?" Katie looked at the guy, then at Christy. She seemed about to burst out laughing.
"Cabbage is a good source. Potatoes and tomatoes are as well."
He said *potatoes" and *tomatoes" funny, and Katie did start to laugh.
"Where did you come from?" she asked.
"Belfast."
Katie looked at Christy blankly. "Belfast. That"s in Ireland, right?"
"Northern," the guy said quickly. "Northern Ireland. There"s a vast difference, you know."
Apparently Katie and Christy didn"t know. At the moment they were both captivated by this fair-skinned, dark-haired, green-eyed stranger.
"The name is Michael," the guy said, introducing himself with a smile. "And who might you be?"
"I"m Christy."
"Katie." The minute Katie said her name, Michael burst out laughing.
"What?" Katie wanted to know. "What"s so funny about *Katie"?"
"Nothing"s wrong with being a Katie. It"s a daft thing that I should leave a school br.i.m.m.i.n.g with Katies in Belfast, and the first person I meet in this California school is a Katie!"
"A *daft thing"?" Katie repeated. The previous summer, she had started using an original expression, a "G.o.d-thing," and every now and then Katie would inform Christy that Todd was doing a "Todd-thing," but Katie had never heard of a "daft thing."
"*Daft." You know, *daft." You don"t say that here?"
Christy and Katie both shook their heads.
"It means crazy or silly."
"Oh," both the girls said.
"So, Mike-" Katie began.
"Michael," he corrected her. "It"s Michael."
"So, Michael," she continued, "you"re giving vitamin prescriptions to a complete stranger, and you think we"re daft? Perhaps I should tell you right up front that you"re quoting vitamins to the wrong person. Unless your vitamin C with whatever-noids is found as a natural source in Twinkies, there"s a pretty good chance it won"t find its way into my blood system."
Michael smiled. Christy noticed that his whole face lit up when he did. He seemed harmless enough. A new guy looking to meet some people. A foreign exchange student, perhaps. Still, this friendly flirting didn"t come as easily to Christy as it did to Katie.
The rest of their lunchtime, Christy sat back, quietly eating her sandwich and listening to Michael and Katie"s playful banter about junk food versus health food. It appeared that Michael was winning, which was a first with Katie. Christy had rarely seen a guy overpower her in any category.
"Saved by the bell." Katie said as the loud buzzer echoed across the school yard. "I haven"t given up though. I"ll prove to you why my way of eating is just as good as yours."
"We"ll see," Michael said with a twinkle in his eye. Pulling a piece of paper from his backpack and scanning the computer printout, he asked. "Do you happen to know where I might find room 145?"
"You"re kidding!" Katie said. "That"s my next cla.s.s. Government with Mr. Jacobs, right?"
"I suppose I should thank my lucky stars. I"ll be needing some friendly a.s.sistance when it comes to your American government." Michael slung his backpack over his arm and offered a hand to Katie to help her stand up.
"Shouldn"t that be your *Lucky Charms"? You know, that leprechaun cereal with the little colored marsh mallows? Never mind," Katie said, responding to the blank look on Michael"s face. "You obviously need an education in more than just American government. American breakfast cereal is a very important subject too, I hope you know."
"Oh, is it now?"
"See you later, Christy." Katie called over her shoulder as she and Michael took off together for their cla.s.s, walking close, deeply involved in their conversation.
Christy watched them for a minute before heading to her yearbook cla.s.s. Michael was about the same height as Katie, and from the back, Christy could see that his thick. dark hair had reddish highlights enhanced by the sun. The back of his T-shirt had a whale on it and some kind of slogan about saving the whales. He seemed like a decent sort of guy, even though he was so different.
What am I thinking? He"s a complete stranger, and he"s totally captivated by Katie. This all happened too quickly. She"s too eager for a boyfriend right now. How do we even know if this guy is a Christian?
Christy entered her yearbook cla.s.s and felt even more uneasy. Not just about Katie, but about being with this close-knit group of students. She hadn"t worked on the yearbook staff the way most of them had last year. When she sat down at a desk in the back of the room, no one even seemed to notice she was there.
Why did I even take this cla.s.s?
"Hi, Christy," a guy said, coming through the door as the bell rang.
It was Fred, the school photographer who had caught her in several embarra.s.sing poses last year and made sure those shots made it into the yearbook. Part of her reason for signing up for yearbook was to prevent any more embarra.s.sing photos this year, although she would never admit that to anyone.
Fred plopped down on top of the desk next to her. Reaching for the camera hanging around his neck, he pointed it at Christy. "Nice big smile for your ol" pal Freddy."
Christy did not smile. Calmly she said, "I don"t want you to take my picture, Fred. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever. Okay?"
Snap! The bright flash went off in Christy"s face.
"I don"t think you"re listening to me, Fred. I said no pictures."
Fred"s face appeared from behind the camera. His front two teeth were crooked, and his complexion wasn"t the best. His hair clung to the top of his head like the skin on a pear. Katie had once said Fred was the kind of guy who should be arrested for using hair spray without a license.
"I had a dream about you last night, Christy. You were a famous model on location in Greece, and I was your photographer. You do believe that dreams can come true, don"t you?"
I can"t believe this is happening!
"I"ve already asked Miss Wallace if she"d make you my a.s.sistant this year so we can spend lots of time together. We"ll have to go out on lots of photo a.s.signments. Like every weekend for football games." Fred smiled, and she noticed a piece of something orange leftover from lunch wedged between his two crooked teeth.
"Fred. I have a boyfriend." Christy never would have guessed how relieved she felt to be able to say those words aloud.
"Not that slime Rick Doyle, I hope!"
"No. His name is Todd. Todd Spencer. He"s in college. and I"m sure I"ll be spending all my weekends with him. So you see, I won"t be able to go on any photo shoots with you."
Fred"s enthusiasm seemed only slightly dampened. "Not a problem. I"ll be with you every weekday, and Schmoddy-Toddy will only have you on weekends. We"ll see what happens by the end of the school year. As I always say, *May the best man win!""
"Oh that wasn"t the worst of it." Christy leaned against the kitchen counter that evening while her mom washed a head of lettuce. "He took at least five pictures of me while I was sitting there listening to the teacher, and then Miss Wallace said I was a.s.signed to take pictures with him at the football game Friday night."
"So what did you tell Fred?" Mom asked, her round face looking soft and interested.