Honor thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.

— EXODUS 20:12

This was on the blackboard in Mrs. Prescott’s room a couple of weeks later. In her Sunday school class, we’d been working through the Ten Commandments one by one. We’d already covered one through four — no other gods before me, no graven images, no taking the Lord’s name in vain, and remembering the Sabbath day to keep it holy — and I was just waiting for number seven, because I was looking forward to watching Mrs. Prescott grapple with adultery. I’d noticed that the Redeemers were a little squeegy when it came to sex education.

The theme today was number five and obedience, which has never been a strong point of mine, having been raised by Boone and Ray, both of whom — at least until recently — were into encouraging kids to suspect propaganda, consider the issues objectively, and think for themselves. This got me into trouble back when it was time for me to fly up from Brownies to Girl Scouts, because of the Girl Scout Laws.

The Girl Scout Laws are to be honest and fair, friendly and helpful, considerate and caring, courageous and strong, and responsible for what you do and say, all of which I thought were fine. But then you have to promise to respect authority, which I thought wasn’t fine at all. I mean, what if the authority is wrong? Like the Nazis or the Ku Klux Klan or even those advertisements on TV that are always telling little kids to eat those cereals that are made out of nothing but sugar and Red Dye No. 2.

I would probably still be stuck in Brownies if it hadn’t been for Polly Pelletier’s mother, who was the Girl Scout troop leader, and said I could skip that part as long as I promised to use resources wisely, make the world a better place, and be a sister to every other Girl Scout.

Boone was relieved, because he has a passion for Thin Mints.

“God tells us that we owe our parents unquestioning obedience because fathers and mothers know best,” Mrs. Prescott said. “That’s God’s plan for the family. As the apostle Paul wrote in his Letter to the Colossians, ‘Children, obey thy parents in all things.’ Does anyone here have a story about a time when you obeyed your father and mother?”

I sat there looking at the clock. It had one of those minute hands that jumped with a click from minute to minute and I was practicing holding my breath between clicks.

“What about a time when you obeyed even though you didn’t want to?” Mrs. Prescott encouraged. “But you did it because you knew that was God’s commandment? Do you have a story, Marie?”

Marie said that last Friday she stayed home and babysat for her little brother.

“I really wanted to go over to my friend’s house. But my parents were going out to dinner and they told me I had to stay home and babysit.”

“How did you feel about that?” Mrs. Prescott said.

“Mad,” Marie said.

“Obedience isn’t easy,” Mrs. Prescott said. “But you did the right thing. You did God’s will and that brings great rewards. Does anyone else have a story to share? What about you, Octavia?”

I thought about how all I did just then was bounce back and forth like a tennis ball between Ray and Boone.

“What happens if your parents don’t agree?” I said. “How do you know which one to obey?”

“Yeah,” Wesley said. “My mom doesn’t want me to ride on my cousin Ricky’s snowmobile. But my dad says it’s fine. My mom sure doesn’t like it though.”

Marjean shot me a look from under her braids, and I waited to hear about a woman’s place. Instead she bit her lip.

Then she said, “My dad wants Bud and Grover to go to college. But not me, even if I get straight As. A girl doesn’t need college, he says. Not if she’s going to be a good Christian wife and mother.”

“Education is always valuable, Marjean,” Mrs. Prescott said. “Perhaps if you spoke to Pastor Bruno . . .”

Pastor Bruno was the head of the Fellowship of the Redeemer. Ray liked him, but he reminded me of a rubber ball, the way he was always springing around and pumping his fist in the air.

“That’s what my mother says,” Marjean said. “She says what if someday I get left in the lurch like her sister Caroline, with four kids and no skills for anything but to be a maid in some rinky-dink motel. But my dad doesn’t care. College costs money, he says. He doesn’t even want me to have guitar lessons.”

I looked at Marjean, who was breathing hard through her nose and glaring at her shoes. It occurred to me that maybe she wasn’t as set on being Adam’s Help Meet as she said she was.

“When I get out of high school, my father wants me to come work for him in the garage,” Matt said. “But I don’t want to work in the garage. I want to go to MIT.”

“My mom won’t let us buy a computer,” Todd said. “She says all kids do with computers is look up porn sites and get themselves in trouble. How does she think I’m going to learn computer programming without a computer?”

I was going to ask if he had one at school. Then I remembered that Todd went to the Redeemer school.

“I think if God hadn’t wanted us to have computers, he wouldn’t have let us invent them,” Todd said.

“Pastor Bruno has a computer,” Ashley said. “He has it in his office.”

“My parents wouldn’t let me read the Harry Potter books,” Kristin said. “But I read them anyway, at my friend’s house. I didn’t think there was anything wrong with them. I thought they were good books.”

I waited for Marjean to say something about the glorification of Satan, but she didn’t.

“He wouldn’t have to pay for my guitar lessons,” she said. “I was going to pay for them myself, with my babysitting money.”

You could tell that Mrs. Prescott felt that things were beginning to get away from her. She had the look of a person who is out walking a very large dog when suddenly the dog sees a squirrel.

“We’re talking about obedience, class,” she said. “We’re talking about how important it is to obey your parents even though you may not want to, because that’s what God tells you to do. What about you, Ronnie? I’m sure you have a story about a time you obeyed your father and mother.”

Ronnie was wearing another of his clip-on ties, this one with a pattern of motorcycles. In a few years, I thought maybe Frank and Frank of Frank and Frank’s Tattoos might like one of those for Harley.

I sat there waiting for Ronnie to tell a story about how he’d minded his parents and God had rewarded him by giving him a five-dollar bill.

But Ronnie got quiet and red, and under his clip-on tie his Adam’s apple started going up and down.

“Ronnie?” Mrs. Prescott said encouragingly.

Ronnie gulped as if he had a hard-boiled egg caught in his throat.

“My father hits my mother,” he said, all in a rush. “Once he gave her a black eye.”

Everybody looked at Ronnie.

Mrs. Prescott froze. You could tell she’d been expecting some story about taking out the garbage or feeding the dog.

“I don’t think that’s right,” Ronnie said. “I don’t think people should hit people like that, no matter who they are.”

“No,” Mrs. Prescott said faintly. “No, Ronnie, that’s not right. That’s something to pray about, Ronnie, and to see Pastor Bruno.”

“He hit me too, when I tried to make him stop,” Ronnie said. “But my mom yelled and told me to go in the bedroom with my little brother and shut the door.”

There was a pause while everyone looked at Ronnie.

“Why don’t we all say a prayer for Ronnie?” Mrs. Prescott said.

“I don’t want a prayer,” Ronnie said. “I just want to make him stop.”

“God will do that if you have enough faith,” Mrs. Prescott said.

I thought that was a lousy thing to say. After Ray having been a lawyer, I knew how to spot loopholes.

“What if his father doesn’t stop?” I said. “Then will it be all Ronnie’s fault because he didn’t have enough faith? I think that’s stupid. I think he should call the police.”

“Yeah,” Ronnie said.

“That’s a big step, Ronnie,” Mrs. Prescott said. “Pastor Bruno —”

“My sister Irene, before she got married, used to date this guy who punched holes in the walls when he got mad,” Cathy Ann said. “He tried to punch Irene too. My dad didn’t pray on it. He went out with a baseball bat and said to leave his girl alone and that bat was what he’d get if he ever showed his face at our house again.”

“Did he ever?” somebody said. Maybe Marie.

“He sure didn’t,” Cathy Ann said. “We heard later that he got put in jail. And my dad told me when I’m sixteen if any boy ever gets mean like that with me, I’m to just let him know.”

“Our session for today is almost over,” Mrs. Prescott said. “Let’s all join in saying a little prayer now, thanking God for our fathers and mothers and asking him to grant us the gift of obedience.”

I poked Marjean in the arm.

“If you’ve already got the money, why don’t you just take lessons anyway?” I whispered.

Marjean pursed up her lips and threw a furtive glance at Mrs. Prescott, who had her eyes closed. But she didn’t say no.

I had a lot to think about. Like how maybe the Redeemer kids weren’t so bad after all. Not like I’d thought they were.

“So what was class about today?” Ray asked.

“Obedience,” I said. Which should have been the O word for the day.

But it wasn’t.

Here were the words I picked instead: Oppose, Outflank, Overturn, and Overcome.