by Karen Rispin
"I guess our family has two down now, huh, Anika?" That was Daddy! I looked around wildly, and there he was, in another bed right across from me.
"I'm sorry, Daddy. I'm so sorry," I said. "I didn't mean to make you worry."
"It's just good to have you back," he said.
"Yes, and now we'd better see about getting her back to health." That was Dr. Bishop. "Now you take this pill, Anika. It will make things stop hurting so much and let me get those cuts cleaned up."
It felt so good to be at home, lying down, that even when Dr. Bishop cleaned out the cuts on my legs and head I didn't care. That pill must have been really strong, because I hardly even noticed when he stitched the cut on my head. Mom helped me out of my bathing suit and into pajamas. A second later I was fast asleep. Even the ice they put on my head couldn't keep me awake.
I kind of half remembered Dr. Bishop waking me up a bunch of times during the night and making me look at a light. It must have been OK because he let me go back to sleep again. Actually, I don't think I would have stayed awake no matter what they did. I could have slept on the back of a galloping camel.
Nothing mattered except that the whole crazy adventure was over, and everything was OK now.
What I didn't know as I drifted off to sleep was that I was wrong—the adventure wasn't through with me yet.
I guess I slept all day and the next night, too. When I finally woke up, it was just starting to get light outside and the birds were singing, I looked over at Daddy. He was still asleep, and there was nobody else in the room. My head and legs were aching, but not near as badly as before. I lay there feeling warm, sleepy, and happy.
I thought about going back to the States, and it didn't scare me as much as before. If God could keep us from dying in the ocean and get us safely away from that fisherman, he'd take care of me in the States. It wasn't like I wanted to go, but it was really OK now.
I wondered if that's how Lisa felt about staying in Kenya now, and I decided to ask her when I got the chance.
A movement caught the corner of my eye, and I turned my head just in time to see Mom looking in. She saw me and came to lay her hand on my forehead. Her hand felt really good, cool and comfortable, when she ran it over my forehead, below the cut.
"Feeling better?" she asked.
I nodded and said, "My head and legs still kind of hurt, though."
She went out for a minute and came back with a glass of water and some Tylenol, then helped me sit up to take it. I didn't really need help, but I liked her arm behind me.
"I'm glad you're feeling better, Anika, because you've got some decisions to make today," Mom said.
"I already decided that it's really OK with me if we go back to the States," I said, adding, "even if we have to stay there."
"That's super, Anika, but that's not what I'm talking about. Lisa has said that she doesn't want to press charges against the fisherman who brought you in from the reef. Since you were hurt the most, we've agreed to let you decide."
"She wants to let him just go free?" I said. I could hardly believe my ears. "Why?"
"You'll have to talk to her about that. You pray about it. I'll go get you some breakfast."
When she said that I suddenly realized I was practically starving to death. I called, "Pancakes, OK?" just as she disappeared through the door.
I'd said it loud without thinking, and that woke Daddy up.
"Good morning, sheep," he said.
"Sheep?" I asked. "Why sheep?"
"Rejoice for the lost has been found," he said and grinned at me.
He meant that I was like the lost sheep in Jesus' story. That sheep had gotten lost because it had been stubborn and silly. It wandered away from the other sheep and didn't come when the good shepherd called it.
"Shouldn't I have gone after Lisa?" I blurted. "Was that wrong?"
"Idon't think so, Anika," Daddy said. "I didn't mean you were disobedient, just that we were very glad to find you."
It was kind of embarrassing to talk about me, so I changed the subject. "Are we going back to the States right away?" I really wanted to know.
"As soon as we can get packed and book a flight," Daddy said. "But I'm hoping we won't have to stay long. If the tests for complications are clear, we should be able to come back so your mom can teach next term at the Bible school. I'll have to rest," he said, making a silly, sad face. Then he added, "I think I'll have the discipline to do it now."
"Discipline to rest? I don't get it," I said. "Resting is easy."
He just laughed and said, "Not for me, it isn't, but I think I've learned that sometimes God has harder things for me to do than running around and getting work done." He paused and added, "'They also serve who only stand and wait.' I've known that all my life, but never understood it. I guess it's my turn to wait on God and to rest."
All of a sudden a verse came into my head, and as usual I blurted it right out. "They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint." I smiled. It was almost like a promise that God would make Daddy better. Daddy smiled, too, so for once, talking without thinking didn't get me in trouble.
Just then Mom came in to ask me if I wanted to get up for breakfast. "Dr. Bishop said it would be all right if you wanted to get up."
I looked over at Daddy, but he just shrugged and said, "I'll be staying in bed to practice my waiting, but I don't think that's your job right now."
Mom said, "Waiting?" and looked real puzzled. When Daddy laughed and said, "Just something Anika helped me to see," I felt great all over, even if a few parts did hurt.
"I feel great," I said. "Sure, I'll get up."
A few minutes later, I wasn't so sure. Ow! Was I ever sore, and my head hurt when I stood up. I put my hand on my head, and my hand hit this horrible, stiff, yukky, stringy stuff. My hair! gross! Suddenly I realized that I was sticky with itchy salt.
"Mom, can I take a shower first? Yuk! I'm filthy."
Mom checked with Dr. Bishop, and he said it would be OK, but not to soap the scraped and cut places or the stitches. In the shower, a bunch of old blood came out of my hair, and a bunch of hair, too. I didn't know what all the hair was from until I looked in the mirror.
Dr. Bishop had shaved a patch of my hair off right above my forehead when he put in the stitches. The bare spot had three gross black stitches in it. It was all green and purple and blotchy, and so was my forehead.
I looked like Frankenstein.
I just stared for a second and said, "I want to go lie down."
"OK, Anika, come on out for breakfast when you feel like it. It's not quite ready yet, anyway," Mom said as she helped me back to bed.
"Can't you bring it to me?" I asked. "I mean, I look really gross."
"It won't do you a bit of good to hide, Anika," she answered and left.
I sat on the bed and looked at my legs sticking out from my shorts. The whole front of my shins were covered with big scabs and bruises from the coral. I pulled the sheet over them so I couldn't see them.
"Anika, for someone who had enough sense to get two people out of Mida Creek, you're acting very silly," Daddy said quietly.
"You don't understand!" I said and huddled under the sheet to pretend to be sleeping.
The smell of breakfast floated through the door, and my mouth watered like mad. I was starving. Mom brought Daddy a plate of pancakes. I pretended to be sleeping, but I could hardly stand it.
I thought I might get my way when Mom said softly, "Maybe I was too hard on her. Look, she's sleeping again."
Daddy's chuckle ruined everything. "I wouldn't give up on her just yet," he said. He knew I wasn't sleeping.
I finally had to get up and go out. It was either that or starve.
It was just as bad as I thought. Everybody stared at me like I was from Mars. I had just sat down at the table when it hit me. I was going to have to go to the States looking like this! Dad said
we were going right away. I would look like a cross between a zombie and a victim of the chain-saw massacre.
That fisherman, Juma, or whatever his name was, would pay for this!
My pancakes didn't even taste all that good after that horrible revelation. Watch out U.S.A., here comes Frankenstein Anika Scott, I thought and put my head down. I was not going to cry! Everybody was already staring at me. I swallowed hard, lifted my head, and put a fork full of pancake into my mouth.
David and Alex were really staring at me, almost as if they were scared. They were sitting together, and whenever I looked at them it was like looking at two bug-eyed lizards. I made a face at them, and David giggled. I frowned. I feel like a freak show! I thought in disgust.
"How come that fisherman hit you so hard?" asked Sandy.
"Shh!" said Traci, "maybe she doesn't want to talk about it."
"Well, I want to know," Sandy insisted. "I'm sick of people not talking about what happened at the village, or how they got to the police station. Anika isn't paranoid like Lisa. She's not the one whose fault it was that they got swept out to sea. I'm tired of people not wanting to talk about it."
So Lisa hasn't told them anything about the fisherman, I thought, just as Mom interrupted Sandy. "That's enough of that!" she said.
I glanced at Lisa to see how she felt, but she was looking down so I couldn't see her eyes. It seemed really weird to think that only a couple of days ago I'd have agreed with Sandy about Lisa being paranoid. Now I knew different. Lisa was great, but I still wondered why she hadn't told. Maybe it had something to do with not wanting to charge the fisherman. Well, I wanted him to get everything that was coming to him and even more. Just look what he did to me! Also, I didn't want to be called paranoid for not telling.
"Is it OK if I tell?" I asked Lisa. She just kind of shrugged and looked at me like she wanted to say something. But she didn't.
I guessed that didn't mean no, so I started, "You know we got swept out to sea and landed on the reef?" I asked. They nodded. "Well, this fisherman picked us up, but he was drunk. I hate him! He stared at Lisa and wouldn't listen when I tried to tell him where we lived. Then he said I didn't know my place and hit me with the huge pole he was using to push the canoe along. I hope he ends up in jail forever!"
"But Anika…" That was Lisa. She had never talked at the table before unless somebody made her, so I was surprised. Besides, I thought she shouldn't like that fisherman any more than I did. Wasn't she my friend now?
"But what?" I demanded.
She just looked down again and said, "Oh, nothing."
"I think Lisa would like to talk to you by yourself after lunch," said Lisa's dad, talking too loud. It didn't bug me as much as usual. He'd been great last night. "Uncle Joey?" I thought. It sounded odd, but kind of nice. Uncle Joey.
Nobody wanted to talk about the fisherman anymore, but Sandy and Traci kept asking me about getting out to the reef. I guess Lisa had told them I was a hero because I knew to paddle to the edge of the current. That made me feel good, but kind of silly, too.
By the time breakfast was over, I was getting dizzy again and wanted to go lie down. Mom got me to lie down on my bed in my old room this time. I guess that was so Lisa could talk to me, because she came in a few minutes later.
She sat down on her bed and looked at me. Then she looked down and twisted her hands together. She looked nervous.
"Are you all sore still? I mean do you have a bunch of bruises and stuff from that night?" I asked just to say something.
"Not like you, but some. See?" She pulled up her T-shirt sleeve and showed me a bruise that looked like finger marks on the top of her arm. "That's where that fisherman grabbed me, and I've got some scrapes on the back of my legs from where I kept falling down in the coral."
"I hate that fisherman!" I blurted.
"But—but…" she said again like she did at breakfast, and then she kind of blurted, "What if those people get to be bitter against Christians if we make him go to jail? What if it gets Lydia and her husband in trouble with the whole village for helping us?"
"So?" I demanded, "What if it does? God said an eye for an eye, and that man hurt us."
"But we read about Jesus on the cross last night at devotions when you were still asleep. Jesus even forgave the people who killed him. Dad said he even took the punishment for their sins, too. I just thought—"
"Lisa! I thought you were my friend," I interrupted, practically yelling. It made my head hurt. "Look what that horrible man did to me, and you want to let him go free? I have to go to the States looking like Frankenstein because of him, and you want me to just say that's OK?"
Getting really mad nearly always makes me start to cry, and it did then. It wasn't fair! I turned over and ignored Lisa, hoping she'd go away and not notice I was crying.
She didn't go away, and she knew I was crying, too, because she patted my back, which I hate. When she started talking, I stuffed my pillow over my head, so I didn't hear the first bit when I was moving, but the rest came through anyway, "…inner tube we prayed to obey God, and he did keep us safe and stuff," she was saying. "I mean, Jesus loved me even though I was hating Kenya. It's hard to say it right, but doesn't God love that fisherman, too? I mean, shouldn't we forgive him, too—turn the other cheek and all that? I thought maybe we could not make charges. Then we could tell him it was because we're Christians and Jesus loves him."
She sat there a minute more, then when I wouldn't come out she finally left.
That's when I really did cry. Every sob hurt the stitches on my head and reminded me what I looked like. I knew Lisa was probably right, and that made me even madder. I stuffed the pillow over my face so nobody would hear, and it got all gooey. My mouth tasted of salt, and I was so, so mad. I must have gone to sleep, because the next thing I remember is waking up with my eyes all sticky and my head hurting.
There were tiny spots of bright sun on the walls where the light came through the thatch, and it was hot. I rubbed my eyes and remembered that I had a decision to make. Just remembering made me mad all over again, but I couldn't quit thinking about what Lisa said about Jesus forgiving the people who killed him.
That doesn't count, I argued in my head. He knew he was going to come alive again. It was almost like Jesus was in the room just looking at me like he was sad. I didn't want to, but I remembered the verse, Isaiah 53:5, that we had learned for the Easter musical: "He was wounded and bruised for our sins. He was beaten that we might have peace; he was lashed—and we were healed!"
I was still lying on my back, looking at the thatch. Tears ran down over my cheeks and into my ears. "OK, OK," I said right out loud, "I'll do what Lisa said."
It was just like a big stone lifted off my chest. I guess Mom had heard me talking, because a second later the door opened and Mom asked, "Did you call me, Anika?"
"No," I said, "but I need to talk to Lisa."
Mom looked back into the big room behind her and called Lisa, then went out. A second later Lisa came in. She sat on the bed and just looked at me.
"I decided," I said. "We can do like you said. I didn't want to, but I kept remembering what you said about Jesus loving us even when we were bad. I guess he even loves that fisherman."
Lisa smiled this huge smile and hugged me. Just then we heard the flap-slap of running thongs on the porch and David giggling.
"I guess everybody is back from the beach," said Lisa. "We can tell them."
Mr. Barnes's voice boomed, "Lisa! Lisa! Come here!"
Uncle Joey, I thought, and I grinned. He sure was noisy, but he was OK.
Lisa wrinkled up her nose and started to get up.
I just had time to ask really quick, "Is it OK for you about staying in Kenya now?"
She nodded just before she went out the door.
I'd just sat up and was getting ready to go out, too, when Mom came in and sat down by me. "Are you feeling better?"
"Uh huh, I guess," I said. "We decided not to charge that fisherm
an with anything, but I'm still scared about going to the States—especially looking like this." I touched my green and yellow bald spot.
"Oh, honey," Mom said and squeezed my hand. "I'm sorry. We should be able to do something with your hair to cover most of it."
That made me feel better. Not great, mind you, but better. When I went out with Mom, Uncle Joey didn't help much by booming out, "Well, look who's here! Our little Anika, and she carries the honorable wounds of a hero. They're pretty colors, too!"
He bellowed with laughter, but nobody else laughed, and I saw Aunt Elsie kick him under the table. He took another look and said, "I'm sorry, Anika. I guess that was uncalled for."
He looked so sorry I just had to smile. He really was OK. "I'll survive, Uncle Joey," I answered. And I knew I would, too.
"'Uncle Joey,' is it? That sounds good," he said, and he looked so happy it made me happy, too.
Later on, I was outside sitting on the porch. I looked all around, trying to memorize everything I saw. My heart sank as I wondered what it would be like in the States.
"It's a good thing you're going with us, God," I said, right out loud. "At least there will be someone there to help me get used to things."
I looked around again. It wasn't going to be easy. I knew that. But at least I wasn't alone.
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