A Hole in the Fence - Christian Fiction for Kids

by Diane Adams

"How come your grandparents are letting you go?" Alex asked Neal.

  Neal had expected them to say 'no.' "Maybe they're glad to get rid of me for a couple of hours," he guessed uneasily. He was wearing navy slacks, a white shirt, and a real tie. Alex and Rose wore blue jeans and short-sleeved cotton sweaters. Rose's hair was curly on both sides.

  "Did she get a new perm?" Neal tried to whisper to Alex.

  "Meemaw did it with a curling iron," Rose said. "Please don't talk about me like I'm not here."

  "Sorry," Neal muttered, making a face. "Isn't your grandpa going along?" he wondered, when Meemaw came out of the house alone.

  "They never both leave at the same time," Alex explained. "One of them always has to stay home and watch over the house."

  Neal glanced at the house as he climbed into the car. The porch roof was sagging, the paint was peeling, and some of the windows were crisscrossed with duct tape. He didn't think it would tempt very many burglars.

  "Neal wants to know why you and Pops can't both go to church at the same time," Rose told her grandmother. She watched while Meemaw put the key into the ignition and started the engine, then hesitated, as though she didn't remember how to drive.

  "We only have four seat belts," Meemaw explained. "We'd have to strap Pops onto the luggage rack and he'd get an earache from the wind. What did your mom have to say?" She turned her head to smile at Neal. "I take it she arrived safely?"

  "Are you talking to me?" Neal asked, glancing at Alex. His mother had called a few moments before he left the house, but there was no way Mrs. Cameron could know about it.

  "I didn't talk to my mom," Alex said.

  "Neither did I," Rose said, looking out the window with her face pressed against the glass.

  "She said she made good time," Neal answered. "She said she's probably going to stay out there for a couple of weeks. But how did you know she called me?"

  "You just mentioned it, didn't you? Are you going to attend school while you're here?"

  "Oh, yeah. She said that too," Neal remembered. It bothered him, the way Mrs. Cameron answered a question with a question. She seemed like the sort of little old lady who wasn't really very bright, and yet somehow she knew things she couldn't possibly know. It was like a mystery, but for some reason, he wasn't trying very hard to solve it.

  "Oh, good!" Meemaw said happily. "Rose will have someone to sit with on that long bus ride."

  Neal opened his mouth to protest, but he couldn't think of a good reason to refuse. If he was only going to go to Rose's school for a couple of weeks, it wouldn't matter if he hung around with Rose. But if he was going to be stuck in David City much longer than that, he thought he'd like to choose his own friends and he doubted he would choose Rose. He wouldn't mind hanging around with her outside of school, since she was sort of interesting. But he felt certain Rose was kind of girl who wouldn't be friends with him at home if he wouldn't be friends with her at school.

  The choir was already singing by time Mrs. Cameron and the three children entered the church. Meemaw didn't seem embarrassed, though a lot of people turned their heads to stare at her. She marched past several empty pews and went all the way to the front, where they would have to tip their heads to stare up at the preacher.

  A moment later, Pastor Goode climbed up to the pulpit and smiled at the three children. Then he instructed the congregation to turn to Ecclesiastes 7:14 in their Bibles.

  Neal didn't have any idea where to find any of the books of the Bible. He and his parents hadn't gone to church very often, and when they did, Neal spent the hour in Sunday school. There had always been a time of worship, even for the children, but it had consisted of a teacher telling them a Bible story, then helping them make a simple craft. He watched Rose and Alex from the corner of his eye and noted that they both found the passage without any trouble. He sighed and opened his Bible on his knees, to somewhere in Psalms.

  "'When times are good, be happy; but when times are bad, consider: God has made the one as well as the other,'" the preacher recited the verse aloud.

  So! Neal thought, with an angry toss of his head. God was the one behind the bombing of the World Trade Center! He and his mother had argued about it until she was 'blue in the face,' as she put it. God doesn't do bad things to people, she had insisted. She couldn't explain why those things happened, or tell him who was responsible, but she refused to blame God for his father's death.

  He thought back to the memorial service at their church, and all the things people had said to try to make him feel better. It's God's will ... That seemed to be the most popular thing to say after a tragedy took place. What kind of God was He, if His will included the death of so many innocent people in a single day? That reminded Neal of another thing people liked to say - Your father is in Heaven now, with the angels. 'I don't see what's so bad about dying,' one of his friends had tried to comfort him. 'Just imagine - the streets are paved with real gold!' So what? Neal wanted to shout. What's wrong with asphalt and concrete? Who cares about golden streets when everyone you love is in a different world altogether?

  "Keeping that in mind," the preacher said, "let's turn to Psalm 44, verse 17. 'All this happened to us, though we had not forgotten you or been false to your covenant. Our hearts had not turned back; our feet had not strayed from your path. But you crushed us and made us a haunt for jackals and covered us over with deep darkness.'"

  The words struck Neal's heart like a sword. His dad had been 'covered over with deep darkness.' He had been buried beneath tons of concrete and glass and metal. The urge to cry was so powerful, Neal was afraid he would give in to it. If only they weren't sitting in the very front of the church, where he would be a spectacle for everyone to see! He inhaled slowly, trying to erase all thoughts of his father. He must not listen to anything else the preacher said, unless he wanted to make a complete fool of himself in front of several hundred people.

  "Now let's go to the New Testament," the preacher said with enthusiasm. "Beginning with James 1:2. 'Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds.' Are we beginning to get the picture?"

  Neal was beginning to get a picture he didn't want to see. A picture of his father, buried beneath a fallen sky scraper. He wondered, not for the first time, whether his father had thought about him before he died. Pure joy? Neal felt certain he would never suffer more than he had since the first plane crashed into the World Trade Center.

  He sat up straight and turned his head to look out the window, but he couldn't see anything because it was stained with color. The various pieces of glass formed a picture of a man kneeling beside a huge rock, his face turned up to the sky. It was probably Jesus, Neal realized. He remembered coloring a picture of Jesus one Sunday. He was angry with the people who were selling things just outside the temple. He turned their tables over, swinging some kind of whip to chase them away.

  Neal was angry too. He wished Jesus would use that whip on the person who ordered those men to fly an airplane into the side of a building, killing a lot of innocent people. It was such a stupid thing to do! To end someone else's life, just because they didn't agree with your opinion about something. The men who flew the airplanes probably didn't even know any of the people they killed that day. Neal decided he would never believe in anything that required him to kill innocent people.

  The organ began to play, and he heaved a deep sigh of relief. Four men began to pass the collection plates, and Neal dug in his pocket for the five dollar bill his grandfather had given him. He watched as Rose opened a tattered denim purse and pulled out several wadded up bills. She added them to the offering, then folded her hands neatly in her lap. On the other side of Neal, Alex was busy pushing back the cuticles of her fingernails with the cap from a BIC pen. Beside Alex, Mrs. Cameron was swaying in time to the music.

  The urge to cry came again, and Neal had to blink hard to keep his tears from falling. He tried to remember why he had wanted to come to church with them.

  Because of the wh
ite thing. The weird creature that seemed to have human arms.

  He wondered what his mother would say if he called her back this afternoon and begged her to come and get him. She would say 'no.' Hadn't he begged her not to leave him behind in the first place? But she had done it anyway.

  Everyone stood up and Neal felt a surge of relief. The church service was almost over. When they got home, he was going to tell Alex and Rose he had something else to do today. He would dig a book out of his suitcase and spend the afternoon in his bedroom, reading and eating cookies and drinking soda. That was one good thing about staying with his father's parents - they didn't nag him about eating too many sweets.

  Because they don't care if you get sick, he thought, angry with himself for thinking it.

  (( 14 ))