Читать книгу Queen Esther & the Second Graders of Doom - Allie Pleiter - Страница 13

“I’d never eat fish for lunch. Yuck.” Decker made a face as the Doom Room pondered the Bible story of the loaves and the fishes.

“Not even fish sticks?” Essie ventured. She fondly remembered the special days of fish stick and French fry frozen dinners on folding trays in front of the television. They were one of the great treats of childhood to her. She and Mark-o would usually have a competition of sorts as to who could glob more ketchup on a fish stick. Essie usually won.

“Fish sticks are gross,” Decker replied. “Besides, Mom says they’re fattening. She makes me eat Sam Man—you know, the pink fish—every Tuesday for dinner, but I hide it in my napkin and give it to Sparky. What’s ‘brain food’ anyway? I’m not eating that Sam Man’s brains, am I?”

Essie guessed that either Decker’s dog or cat was eating very well on Tuesdays lately. Salmon versus fish sticks. It sounded like a bad country song—

I’m just a fish stick gal,

Caught in a salmon fillet world…

“Salmon, Decker, is a fish, you’re right. But, no, it’s not brains. It’s good for your brain like lots of other kinds of protein—those are the types of foods that give your brain the energy it needs to do its job.”

“I think better eating cookies,” Dexter proclaimed, clearly unswayed.

Essie dragged the discussion back to the topic at hand. “Well, then, it’s a good thing you’ve all had a cookie or two, because we have lots of thinking to do today.” She clasped her hands. “Now, we’ve already read the story about this boy and how he brought his bread and fish to Jesus.” Decker opened his mouth, presumably to start up again about the grossness of fish for lunch, but Essie held up a silencing finger. “Almost everyone’s dad was a fisherman there, so bread and fish would have been like…like peanut butter and jelly to us. Everybody ate it.”

“I’m yullergic to peanut products,” pronounced Peter with a resigned voice. Just as Essie knew he would. Peter, it seemed, was “yullergic” to just about everything. Some days all Peter could add to a conversation was a list of relevant items to which he was allergic. On those days he would sigh, speak without enthusiasm and generally look as if the entire world was gunning for his immune system. How he reconciled such an outlook with his love of bugs and other slimy creatures, she couldn’t really say. An image of Peter, foraging under a rock with latex gloves on, flashed uninvited in her brain. Focus, Essie, focus.

“Okay,” she continued, “what he ate isn’t really the point here. The point is that he gave what he had for Jesus to use, even though it didn’t seem like much at the time. “David,” Essie said, turning to Cece’s son in an attempt to get things on the right track, “do you think five loaves and two fishes is enough to feed thousands of people?”

David scrunched up his forehead in thought. “You’d have to break it into really tiny pieces.”

Essie had to laugh at that one. “Even then, what that boy had just wasn’t enough to go around. Remember, it said that there were baskets of leftovers even after everyone had eaten. That’s why it was a miracle. Jesus took that food and made it able to do something very special. Something only God could make happen.” She looked around the room, trying to catch each boy’s eyes. “Sometimes the stuff we have to do in life feels like more than we can handle. Like we don’t have what it will take to do what needs to be done. Does anyone have an example?”

Justin’s arm shot in the air. “My baby sister. Sometimes she cries so much, I think I’m gonna explode.”

Essie thought about Josh’s most recent teething episode and could only nod in sympathy. “Babies are a handful, aren’t they?”

“I heard Mom telling Dad she thought she’d never, ever get to sleep again. When I told Dad we ought to make baby Megan sleep in the garage, he told me not to say that in front of Mom, but he was smiling when he said it, so I know he thinks we oughta try it.”

Essie could only imagine.

“My dad has a new job this month, and it’s making him really nervous,” offered Steven Bendenfogle. “He gets grumpy a lot. And sometimes he doesn’t come home till way after my bedtime. And he brings home lots of homework, besides. I think he feels like it’s too hard.”

“New jobs feel too hard lots of times. You could really help cheer him up, Steven.”

“I don’t know.” Steven shook his head. “He’s really grumpy some nights.”

“Well, now you’ve got something that feels too hard now, too, don’t you? It feels like it may be too hard to cheer up someone who’s really grumpy, doesn’t it? That’ll take Jesus’ help, too.”

Steven thought about that for a while, but then nodded.

“It’d be too hard,” said Stanton loudly, “to beat Jesus in a jumping contest, ’cuz He’s God and He’s got superpowers and stuff. He’d beat you at anything!”

Well now, superpower was an odd definition of deity, but it must have rung true to the average eight-year-old, because the other boys all immediately agreed. Instantly, boys began shouting examples such as “I bet He could spit a watermelon seed around the world,” or “He could kick a soccer ball through a brick wall,” and even several instances of X-ray vision.

“Or,” interjected Essie in a voice loud enough to cut through the din, “transform one little boy’s lunch into enough food to feed thousands of hungry people.”

Everyone had to think about that for a moment. Then, very quietly, Stanton said, “Yeah. Cool.”

Was it okay to think of Jesus’ miracles as superpowers? She hoped God didn’t mind a little creativity, because clearly Jesus just went up a couple of notches in the “cool” department for a few of these boys. And that was the whole point, wasn’t it?

“Superpowers aren’t real,” she said, because she felt it ought to be said. “But Jesus, and the things He can do with us when we believe in Him, those are real. And yeah, Stanton, they are cool. The older you get, the more you believe, the cooler it gets.” Nods and a few amazed faces.

Zing. It sunk in. Score one for the crazy mom from New Jersey.

And the very cool God who brought her here.

As she put away the workbooks after class, Essie pondered how overwhelmed she had felt about this “Doom Room” class. Hadn’t she felt like it was way too much to handle?

Suddenly, it wasn’t exactly clear who was teaching whom.

Cool.

Oh, it was cool all right, right up until Mark-o’s phone call that evening.

“Congratulations, Essie, you made it four whole weeks before the first call. That may be a record.”

Essie put down the stain stick she was using to try and get the Baby Tylenol stains out of a batch of Josh’s onesies. “What?”

“I was just congratulating you on going a full four weeks before some parent found something to gripe about it. That’s a pretty neat trick in my book.”

Essie sunk to the couch, deflated even before she heard the details. “Yippee. What is it?”

“Do you want the pastor version, or the brother version?”

Essie found the sheer fact that he had versions to be mildly annoying. “Which one’s more amusing? I gather this isn’t exactly good news.”

“Well, I admit to some level of bias, but I think the brother version has a bit more humor to it.”

“Ooo, I can hardly wait. Okay, let’s hear it.”

“Steven Bendenfogle’s mom is concerned that her son now accredits our Lord and Savior with the powers of X-ray vision.” He was laughing when he said it.

“That’s the brother version? And no, I did not say that Jesus has X-ray vision. As a matter of fact, I went out of my way to point out just the opposite.”

“I believe you, relax. How did the subject of X-ray vision come up, anyhow?”

Essie wanted to hold her head in her hands. Here she’d been spending the afternoon in a glowing joy about how the kids had really grasped the truth of miracles, and it was all coming undone in the space of one disgruntled mother’s phone call. “We were talking about the miracle of the loaves and fishes. They were really getting into it—you know, trying to figure out how that little bit of food fed all those people. We talked about God’s power, and what miracles are. They saw Jesus’ power as a sort of superpower. I think that’s a pretty good grasp for kids of that age. Oh, Mark-o, you should have seen their faces. They began to think of Jesus as cool. As someone to help them when they felt overwhelmed. It was great. And now this. I could just scream.”

“Look, Essie, don’t get worked up about this. You need to remember that we’re working on thirdhand information here, with one of those hands being eight years old. Things are bound to get twisted. You can’t let it get to you.”

“Then why am I suddenly envisioning ‘This session may be recorded for quality control purposes’? She doesn’t really think I told them Jesus has X-ray vision, does she? It’s…she can’t…”

“It’s no big deal. Actually, I think it’s rather funny.”

“You would, but…”

“What it does tell me, is that you have these kids thinking. Engaged. Working through ideas in their own terms. Surely the educator in you can see what a good thing that is. I’d much rather have this than a group of kids who can recite the books of the Bible in bored voices.”

“But…”

“It’s an imperfect system. We’re imperfect teachers. You’re not going to get perfect scores on this, Essie, ever. You’re going to miss the target lots of times. But it seems to me you’re going to hit the mark lots more times, and in the end these kids will be the better for it. Will you believe me if I tell you that this phone call just reinforces for me that I got the right person for the job?”

“Oh, yeah? Then why’d you call me to tell me Mrs. Bendenfogle believes I’m bordering on blasphemy? Why didn’t you just keep your satisfaction to yourself?”

Mark-o’s reply was a frustrated groan. “Be-cause, Mrs. Extreme Drama, I need you to tell Steven Jesus doesn’t have X-ray vision so he can go home and put his mother’s mind at ease next week.”

“I already told Steven Bendenfogle that superpowers aren’t real.”

“Then be more specific. Something along the lines of ‘Steven, Jesus does not have X-ray vision’ ought to do just fine.”

“Mark-o…”

“One kid got his information twisted. Now stop getting all worked up, simply set him straight and get on with it, no matter how ridiculous it seems. You missed one shot, Essie, not the whole track meet. And it’s not a competition. Look, if you knew how many calls like this I get a week, you’d see this for the minor detail it is. I get notes about how I don’t comb my hair, or how I don’t use the Bible translation they like, how the organ’s too loud or the praise band isn’t loud enough, or that we should be using white bread instead of wheat bread for communion—all kinds of tiny grievances.”

Essie moaned. “How do you stand it?”

“I try to remember that if they care enough to make a comment, then I’m at least getting them to care at all. In my business, opinion isn’t the enemy, apathy is.” He paused for a moment before adding on a sigh, “And some Sunday afternoons, you hit the golf ball really, really hard.”

“Okay. Young Master Bendenfogle will get his X-ray vision thing straightened next week, count on it.”

“I knew I could. And promise me you’re not going to get all worked up about this. It’s one detail in a whole stack of successes. Got it?”

Essie sighed. “Got it. Hey, wait a minute! Doesn’t seeing into our hearts, seeing past our actions into our intentions count as a spiritual sort of X-ray vision?”

The Pastor Taylor tone came back into his voice. “Essie…”

“Okay, okay, point taken. I’ll be crystal clear next week. By the way, what did Dr. Einhart say about Pop’s latest blood work?”

“The appointment got moved to this week. I…uh…meant to talk to you about that.”

In Mark-o’s world, “I meant to talk to you about that” translated directly to “I need you to take care of this for me.” Esther didn’t even have to guess what was coming next.

“The appointment was moved to this week on Wednesday at eleven o’clock, and I had to book a counseling session for that time. You can take Pop, can’t you?”

Essie fisted her hands around an unsuspecting bath towel. “We agreed to split these. I’ve done the last two. I’ve got something going on Wednesday.”

The silence on the other end of the phone spoke volumes about how much Mark-o thought Essie might actually “have going.” He didn’t even have to say “can’t you move it?” His pause said it for him.

She beat him to the punch. “And no, I don’t want to move it. It’s an appointment, by the way, that I’ve had to bail on twice because you called me to pick up your end with Pop.” She stood up off the couch, pacing the room now, her agitation growing. “You keep saying ‘it’s just this once,’ but it never is. Both of us need to deal with this, whether you’re off saving the world or not.”

“I thought you came out here to help with Pop.”

“Hold on there. I came out here to help, not to take over so you could get back to your oh-so-busy life. I know you did lots of this before, and I know you’re an important man, but don’t go dumping all of this in my lap just because I showed up on the West Coast.”

“So you want me to tell this woman that I have to put off her counseling session—with a depressed daughter who has resisted counseling for six months and has finally relented—because I have to drive my Pop for a checkup?”

Oh, she hated it when Mark-o played the emergency card. Yes, lots of what he did was urgent, but it was always urgent. She hated how he made her life feel mundane and insignificant. How he made her feel selfish for wanting to keep a much-needed lunch with Cece. She’d already had to cancel twice on Cece in order to cover for him. He was a lifeline to lots of people, but did that mean she had to go without her own lifelines? “I want,” she said slowly, “for you not to have said ‘yes’ in the first place. To have found another time because you had a prior commitment. What about Peggy? Can’t she help you out?”

“Peggy’s got a sales meeting in L.A. for two days. I just thought…” His voice was so annoyed that he didn’t even finish the sentence.

“I know exactly what you ‘just thought.’ It starts with ‘since you’re not working anymore and babies are so marvelously portable.’ Taking Pop to the doctor’s is a pain, but when will you to realize it’s just as much a pain for me as it is for you?”

His silence told her he didn’t exactly see it that way. After a long pause he said, “So will you do it or not?”

Essie rolled her eyes in exasperation. “Were you listening at all?”

“Look, Essie, I just need you to cover for me…”

“Don’t you dare say ‘just this once’!” she yelled into the phone. Loudly enough, unfortunately, to wake up Josh, who was napping in the swing beside her. “Oh, great. Thanks, Mark-o, this is really how I wanted to end my afternoon.” Josh wailed, angry at having had his late afternoon nap cut short. “I’ll talk to you at adults’ Bible study if I see you. I’ve got to go take care of Josh.” With a growl, she stabbed her finger onto the off button of the cordless phone.