Point of No Return

by Paul McCusker

  And then the Imagination Station wound down.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Matt wraps it up.

  THE IMAGINATION STATION door whooshed open. Mr. Whittaker stood just outside with his hands on his hips. “Well?”

  Jack crawled out. “What an adventure!” he said.

  I got out behind him and realized right away that I didn’t feel stiff or sore. I reached up and touched my back where I’d been whipped. It felt fine. “That’s weird. I wasn’t hurt.”

  “I hope not,” Mr. Whittaker said with concern. “Whatever you experienced in the Imagination Station should never come out with you—except what you learned, of course.”

  “So…was it all just in our imaginations?” Jack asked.

  “Yes…and no,” Mr. Whittaker smiled. “The stories you went through are based on the truth, on history. It was your imaginations that let you take part in them.”

  “What happened after we left?” I asked. “What became of Reverend Andrew and Clarence and Eveline and—”

  Mr. Whittaker held up his hand. “One thing at a time. Let’s talk about Odyssey.”

  “Yeah, we left in the middle of a riot. I didn’t know we had riots in Odyssey,” Jack said.

  Mr. Whittaker pointed to the old newspaper on the workbench. “The Odyssey Riots of November 1858 are well known to anyone who’s studied our local history. They caused several things to happen…some good, some not so good. The town finally made up its mind about how it felt toward the slavery issue—and became the first in the state to refuse to cooperate with slave hunters.”

  “That’s good,” I said. “What’s not so good?”

  “The church burned down.”

  “No!” Jack cried out.

  “Everything except for the church tower. It was the only thing left standing. You can still see it.”

  “Where?” I asked.

  “Right upstairs,” Mr. Whittaker answered. “It’s the tower you see on the side of Whit’s End.”

  “What? ” Jack and I said together.

  His white mustache spread out in a broad smile. “Uh-huh. This building was built on the site of the church. The tunnel leading into this very workroom was used by Reverend Andrew and the Underground Railroad.”

  “What happened to Reverend Andrew?” Jack asked.

  “Reverend Andrew Jamison later became a leading light in the fight against slavery. He later lost his life while ministering to Union soldiers during the Civil War.”

  This made Jack and me go quiet for a moment. Somehow I think we had hoped that he lived on for years and years.

  “It shouldn’t surprise you that he would sacrifice himself that way,” Mr. Whittaker observed. “He said he was God’s servant and believed it through to death.”

  “How about Clarence and Eveline?” I asked.

  Mr. Whittaker smiled again. “You’ll like this part. Clarence and Eveline took the Underground Railroad all the way to Canada, where they were reunited with Lucy—Clarence’s wife and Eveline’s mother. They lived there until Clarence died, then Lucy and Eveline moved to Chicago. Eveline got married to a fine gentleman named William Teller, and they had children of their own.”

  I thought about it quietly for a minute and had a strange feeling. “Maybe one day we’ll bump into someone who was related to them. Maybe they don’t know all that their ancestors went through to be free.”

  “Maybe so,” Mr. Whittaker said. “But now you know, right? You’ve seen what it’s like to be in a time when you couldn’t take freedom for granted.”

  We nodded.

  He said, “I hope that makes you appreciate your freedom even more now—that it’s something to be treasured.”

  As a kid who never thought much of being black, I realized I had a lot to be thankful for.

  When I got home, I asked my mom and dad if we had any books or papers about the history of our family. They were surprised that I would ask, but then said they did. Dad took me into our little family library and pulled out a book with “Our Family Record” stamped in gold on the front.

  “Because our ancestors were slaves, the records don’t go back very far,” my dad explained.

  “How far back does it go?” I asked.

  He pointed to the top of a page where a tree had names filled in on various branches. “Right there.”

  Clarence and Lucille, it said on one side.

  He traced his finger down to the next line. William & Eveline Teller it said.

  I followed the lines down the page until the names came to my grandfather, then my father and his family. “No way,” I said in complete and absolute disbelief. “You mean, I’m related to Clarence and Eveline?”

  Dad looked at me, puzzled. “Sure. Why? Do you know something about them?”

  “Oh, Dad,” I said with a laugh, “have I got a story for you!”

  Note: In 1897, Charles Sheldon wondered what would happen if an entire town decided to “do as Jesus would do” throughout their homes and workplaces. The answer was the classic novel In His Steps. It is this author’s hope that our Odysseyized-adaptation of the same concept will inspire readers to go back to the original book and take to heart its simple yet powerful message.

  CHAPTER ONE

  “LORD, HELP ME,” John Avery Whittaker said under his breath as he sat down once again at the oak desk in his study. His plea for help had an uncharacteristic edge to it. He had been trying to assemble the questions for a Bible contest he was hosting at his shop, Whit’s End, later that evening, but one interruption after another conspired to keep him from his work. Three phone calls, a door-to-door salesman, the postman, and a pesky fly that kept dive-bombing for his nose pushed the normally affable man to the limits of his patience.

  He glanced around his study suspiciously, wondering what would interrupt him next. Maybe one of the many bookshelves would suddenly collapse, or the window shade would violently flap upward, or a leg on the desk chair would break. It felt to him as if the very silence of the room might scream, if only to ruin his concentration. He stroked his bushy white mustache and waited. Nothing happened.

  Satisfied that he could resume his work, Whit (as he was best known) opened his Bible to find a verse in the book of James. He accidentally opened a couple of pages past it and found himself looking at a verse in the first letter of Peter, chapter two, verse 21. It said simply:

  To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps.

  He stared at the verse with an unexplainable feeling that the words there were significant. After a moment he dismissed the feeling then turned to the book of James.

  The doorbell rang.

  “I knew it,” Whit groaned. He sat still as if afraid that if he moved, the bell might ring again. He secretly hoped whoever it was would go away. The doorbell rang again. Whit sighed, stood up, and gently moved the curtain aside on a window that gave him a clear view of the front porch. A man stood on the steps, dressed in worn, dirty clothing. He had greasy, matted hair that looked as if it hadn’t been washed or combed in a long time. Frowning at the work yet to be done on his desk, Whit went down the stairs to the door. It was the last straw—the last interruption he would tolerate—and he yanked the door open as if to warn whoever it was that he wasn’t in a mood to be trifled with.

  The stranger looked at Whit with a startled expression, as if he didn’t expect anyone to answer the door. Whit gazed at him, not sure what to make of someone who looked so bad, then asked, “Can I help you?”

  The stranger coughed nervously. “I’m out of work, sir, and thought you might know of someone who’s hiring. Maybe to do some odd jobs…”

  “I’m really sorry,” Whit replied, “but I don’t know of anything offhand. Try the shops downtown.” He slowly began to close the door.

  “Anything at all,” the man said as he struggled to smile. “Just point me in the right direction.” His teeth appeared yellow behind the gray stubble on his face.
The lines around his eyes seemed to point like arrows at their redness.

  Whit tried to imagine who he’d send a man in this condition to, but he couldn’t think of anyone. “I wish I could help you,” he said. “I really don’t know of anyone who’s hiring. And I don’t have anything around here that needs done. I’m sorry. I hope you find something.”

  “Thanks anyway,” the man said as he turned to leave. Whit closed the door and went back up to his study. He was about to start working again but first yielded to the temptation to look out the window. The man had walked down the sidewalk to the street and now stood as if he couldn’t decide which way to turn.

  Whit let the curtain fall back into place. He felt a pang of guilt. He could have offered the man something temporary at Whit’s End, he knew. There were floors to be swept, windows to be washed, dishes to be cleaned. Even around the house, Whit could have paid the man a few dollars to rake the leaves. A list formed in Whit’s mind of all the things he could have done for the stranger but didn’t think about at the time because he had to get the questions for the Bible contest finished.

  It’s not too late, Whit thought and leapt to his feet. He tossed aside the curtains and reached for the window, preparing to throw it open and call for the man to come back. His fingers were clasped around the latch when he saw the sidewalk and street were empty. The man was gone.

  With a heavy heart, Whit sat down at his desk and slowly returned to the Bible contest questions. There were no other interruptions that afternoon.

  Tom Riley, Whit’s best friend, arrived as planned at 5:30 to pick Whit up for the evening’s activities at Whit’s End.

  “Ready?” Tom asked in his gentle, folksy accent as Whit climbed into the passenger side of the car.

  “I think so,” Whit answered. “How did it go at the shop this afternoon?”

  Tom pulled the car out of the driveway and into the street. “No particular problems,” he said. “Except you might want to take a look at the train set. The Baltimore and Ohio keeps coming off the tracks. It won’t be too long before they all come apart.”

  “I’ll look at it later tonight,” Whit said, knowing his friend was trying to make a point. You need help, is what Tom Riley was really saying behind his comment about the train set. Whit knew it was true. Apart from sporting the county’s largest running train set, Whit’s End also had an ice-cream parlor, a library, a theater, and dozens of rooms filled with interactive displays. It was little wonder that Whit’s End had become one of the most popular places for the children in Odyssey to play. But the success of the shop made it hard for Whit to keep up with all the things needing taken care of, and harder still for him to find the right kind of people to work there.

  Employees came and went quickly. Whit was never satisfied with any of their work. He figured he could do it all better himself. Tom had said just the other day that Whit was being “too picky.” Maybe he was right, Whit thought. In all of Odyssey, Tom was the only one Whit trusted in the shop. Earlier in the afternoon Tom had kept an eye on things while Whit worked on the Bible contest questions.

  “You can’t do it all,” Tom said. “And I can’t keep helping you. I have a farm to run.”

  “I know, Tom, and I’m grateful.” Whit watched the evening light explode blues, yellows, and oranges behind the houses and, in the distance, the larger buildings of downtown Odyssey. They were approaching the edge of McAlister Park, where the autumn leaves spread like a carpet over the playing fields and under large collections of trees. Tom would have to drive around the edge of the park for another mile before reaching the Victorian-style building housing Whit’s End.

  Tom adjusted the shoulder strap on his overalls. “There was one peculiar thing that happened today,” Tom said.

  “Oh?” Whit’s thick white eyebrows lifted and nearly blended with the wild, white hair on the top of his head.

  Tom nodded. “A man I’d never seen before came in to Whit’s End. He was a little shabby-looking, like he hadn’t had a bath or changed his clothes in a long time.”

  Whit thought of the man who had come to his door that afternoon. “Did he say anything?”

  “That’s what was so odd. I thought he was going to ask for a handout, but he didn’t. He just sat in one of the booths for a while and drank some water. He showed an interest in the posters for the Bible contest tonight, but didn’t say anything else. After a while, he left.”

  Whit scrubbed his chin thoughtfully and felt the pang of guilt again. He should have done something for the man. “Sounds like the same man who came to my door this afternoon. I’m ashamed to say I was so preoccupied with the Bible contest, I didn’t offer to help him. I feel bad about it now.”

  Tom shook his head. “Funny you should mention it,” he said. “I kept thinking to myself that I should give the man some food, but I got so busy with the kids that I never did it. He was gone before I realized.”

  “So much for good intentions,” Whit said.

  They reached the front of Whit’s End where kids were already lined up to take part in the Bible contest. Whit grabbed his Bible and stack of questions from the front seat and didn’t think again about the stranger—until later that evening when the stranger would be all he’d think about.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “WHAT DID JAMES SAY was like the small rudder of a ship?” Whit asked from his podium on the Little Theatre stage in Whit’s End.

  The remaining group of contestants, sitting in a semicircle, wiggled in their chairs and scratched their heads. Only five players remained. The rest had been eliminated throughout the evening by not knowing the answers to where specific Bible verses were found, or who wrote what books, or which person did what and where it was done.

  The Bible contest was one of the many ways Whit used to help bring the Bible to life for kids. He believed the more fun they had with Scripture, the more they’d get out of it. This evening’s contest proved the point: The kids cheered for the various contestants, calling out answers and groaning when an obvious answer escaped them. They didn’t do it for the prize (which, in this case, was a week’s worth of ice cream at Whit’s End). They did it for the fun.

  “The tongue!” Karen Crosby exclaimed in a burst of excitement and nearly fell out of her chair.

  “You’re right,” Whit said. The crowd applauded as Whit turned over his question card. He picked up another. “Which three disciples went with Jesus to a high mountain where they saw Him speak with Elijah and Moses?”

  Oscar’s hand shot up. “Peter, John, and Matthew!” he shouted.

  Whit smiled at the round-faced boy. “Sorry, Oscar. It wasn’t,” he said.

  “Oh, man.” Oscar frowned and gave up his seat on the stage. Whit was sorry to see the boy leave, since he was often teased for not being very bright. He had surprised everyone by making it so far into the contest.

  “It was Peter, John, and James!” Lucy Cunningham-Schultz cried out in her mousy voice.

  “You’re correct!” Whit announced.

  Lucy giggled and Karen said graciously, “Good going, Lucy.”

  “All right, Lucy!” Jack Davis cheered from the audience. Then he and Matt Booker began to chant, “Looo-seee! Looo-seee! Looo-seee!” until Whit waved his arms to quiet them down.

  It was down to Lucy, Karen, Mike Henderson (a pastor’s son), and Jamie Peck, a boy of 10 who was extremely smart for his age. Whit couldn’t imagine who the winner would be since they were all so evenly matched.

  He continued, “In the Gospel of Mark, chapter 10, a young man asks Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life. In verse 21, Jesus gave the young man specific instructions. What did He say to do?”

  The contestants squirmed awkwardly as they each tried to think of the answer.

  “Sell what you own and give the money to the poor and follow Me,” an adult voice said from the back of the auditorium.

  It was such a surprise that Whit almost said “Right!” before he realized the wrong person spoke. Heads turn
ed and necks craned to see who had spoken. Whit shielded his eyes from the stage lights. He barely made out the form as it moved forward to the center of the audience.

  “I’m sorry, but we don’t allow answers from the audience,” Whit said, still unable to see who had spoken.

  “But that’s the right answer,” the man said. “Sell what you own and give the money to the poor and follow Me.”

  The auditorium was completely silent as the kids and some of the few attending parents watched the stranger with wide, worried eyes. Tom, who’d been standing in the wings, now took a few steps onto the stage just to show that another adult was present—just in case the man meant to cause trouble.

  The man walked closer to the stage and Whit finally recognized him. It was the same one who had come to his door earlier in the afternoon. He was in the same drab, dirty clothes with matted hair and scratchy stubble. Whit found nothing dangerous in the man’s tone or in how he moved. In fact, Whit thought he looked like a man who might be walking and talking in his sleep. There was an unreal calm, even sadness, in his demeanor.

  He rubbed a hand over his greasy hair and said, “I’m sorry to interrupt. I really am. But I was watching this contest—watching how good these kids are with their Bibles—and I thought I oughtta say something. You see, I’ve been out of work for about 10 months. I was a printer in Connellsville, and the new computers took away my job. I don’t have anything against computers or the folks who use them, but they put me out of work. What could I do? Printing is all I know—”

  Whit held up a hand. “Look, sir, maybe we should talk about this somewhere else.”

  The stranger shook his head. “Please,” he said. “I won’t take much of your time. I just thought you Bible-believing people might be interested in what I have to say. I’m not complaining. I was just sitting in the back thinking that knowing about the Bible is one thing, while doing what the Bible says is another.

  “You folks seem to have it all worked out about what Jesus said in the Bible, and that’s a good thing. Even the young man in the chapter you read seemed to have it all worked out. He kept the Ten Commandments. But Jesus said to follow Him and, well, the young man went away sad. I just wonder if we understand what it means when Jesus says to follow Him. Do we?”