I’m in trouble, Diary.
I made a really big fool of myself in church on Sunday. But I don’t care. Somebody had to say something, so I did, and I’m never going back there, no matter what Mom says.
I usually don’t pay any attention to what Reverend Davis is preaching about, except this time he was going on about why people are different from animals, so I listened for a change. He said that the Bible is right about God creating the whole world and everything in it, including all the animals that are on the earth, and that evolution is a bunch of crap. Okay, he didn’t say “crap” ’cause he never swears, being a pastor and all, but that was the gist of it, only I’m not sure what evolution is so I don’t know whether he’s right or wrong about that. But I do know that if there was really a big flood way back then, like it says in the Bible, there’s so many different kinds of animals in the world that you couldn’t fit two of each of them on even a hundred boats like the Ark that Noah was supposed to have built. Besides, they’d eat each other up, right?
Anyway, it was what he said next that made me so mad. He said that the biggest difference between people and animals is that people have souls and animals don’t. That didn’t bother me much, on account of I’m not really sure what a soul is, but then he said that it’s only people who go to Heaven when they die, and not animals. I couldn’t believe he’d say that! He went on and on like that, about how people are special and not like anything else on earth, and I thought about Jimmy’s little tiny guppies, and about how they’ve got bones and a heart and eyes and stuff just like me, so why couldn’t they have a soul too?
I got to thinking about Maggie being killed and buried under the maple tree, and how that’s what happens to people too, they get buried in the ground when they die, and why is that so different? And if I get to go to Heaven when I die, provided I don’t commit any really big sins and have to go to Hell, why doesn’t Maggie, who never did anything bad in her whole life and took such good care of her kittens?
And that’s when I did it. I stood up right there in church, and I guess I looked mad because Reverend Davis stopped preaching, and he said, “Is something wrong, Hanna?” and I said in a real loud voice, “You’re wrong!” and I pushed out of the pew and accidentally stepped on old Mrs. Beaton’s feet and ran out the door.
Mom followed me out, and she was really mad. I tried to explain, only she said it was no excuse, that I had no right to be rude like that and disrupt the church service, and that I had to go back inside when the service was over and apologize. I didn’t think I should have to, ’cause after all, he was wrong about animals not having souls or whatever and being different from us, only Mom said I had to, so we sat in the car for another twenty minutes, and after all the other people left she made me go back inside the church and we found Reverend Davis in his little room back behind the choir loft. He invited us in, and Mom said, “Hanna has something to say to you.”
“I’m sorry I walked out,” I told him. I had on what Dad calls my sullen face.
“Thank you, Hanna,” he said. “But I don’t understand why you did.”
“Because you said animals don’t go to Heaven.”
“Hanna’s pet cat was killed a couple of weeks ago,” Mom said.
“I’m sorry, dear,” he said. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“So it isn’t true, is it?” I said. “Maggie’s in Heaven, right?”
He didn’t answer right away, so I knew I wasn’t going to like what he said next, and I felt myself getting mad again.
“The Bible says that people have dominion over the earth, and everything that lives in it,” he said, and I said, “What’s that mean?”
“That we’re unique,” he told me. “Different. That’s what I was explaining to the congregation, that human beings are made in the image of God, and that’s why when we die we go to be with Him.” I tried to interrupt, but he kept on talking. “That’s the glorious promise made to us by our Lord Jesus Christ, and it’s nothing to be sad about. Animals don’t go to Heaven because they don’t have souls like we do.”
“Whatever that means,” I said, and Mom looked at me as if to say, “Watch yourself, young lady,” but I kept on going. “The Bible says all that, does it?”
“That’s right,” Reverend Davis said.
“So everything in the Bible is true, right?”
“That’s what we Christians believe.”
I figured I had him there. “Then how did Noah get all the animals on the ark when it was only forty cubits long or something” - I didn’t know what a cubit was, and I didn’t care - “and how come he didn’t take the dinosaurs too? Did he let them all drown because they were too big to fit?”
“That’s one of the mysteries we aren’t meant to know. God is all-powerful, and he can do anything, even make room for all the animals in the world in a single boat.”
“What is he, magic?” I said.
“In a way, yes.”
“My Dad says there’s no such thing as magic, only tricks.” This time he tried to interrupt me, but I was on a roll. “And how about those dinosaurs, anyway? How come the Bible doesn’t even mention them?”
“There were giants in the earth in those days,” Reverend Davis said, and it sounded like a quote, and this time Mom interrupted, which she always told me never to do.
“Hanna, we have to go home now,” she said, but she didn’t sound as angry as when she was yelling at me in the car. “I want you to apologize again, and nicely this time.”
I was so mad, and what I wanted to say was that everything he was talking about was a load of crap, only I wasn’t thinking “crap” exactly, but something worse. But I knew I wasn’t going to win this one, so I said in a really polite voice, “I’m sorry that I made a fuss in church,” and Reverend Davis said, “That’s all right, dear,” and I said, just as quick as I could, “And I’m sorry that you’re wrong about animals not going to Heaven.”
Mom was really quiet all the way home, and even when we went inside the house. After lunch, while I was feeding Veronica, she sat down on my bed.
“Hanna,” she said, “do you know why I was upset with you this morning?”
“Because I believe that animals go to Heaven just like us?”
“No, that’s not it,” she said. “In fact, I’m very proud of you, that you think for yourself and don’t just accept what other people say without asking questions. But you went about it in the wrong way.”
“I couldn’t help it. He made me mad.”
“I know. But people have the right to believe what they think is right, and when it comes to religion, nobody has all the answers.”
“Reverend Davis thinks he does.”
“But I don’t think he does, and you have the right to disagree too, except there’s a right way to go about it and a wrong way. You picked the wrong way.”
Veronica stopped eating and was just playing with the nipple, so I put her down and picked Smudgie up instead and stuck a different bottle in her mouth.
“What was the right way, then?” I asked, and Mom didn’t answer right away.
“You have to remember that you’re still very young,” she said, “and that adults have a lot more experience than you do. They know a lot more.”
“Are you saying that adults are always right?”
“No. But children shouldn’t contradict them.”
“Even when they’re wrong?”
“Even when they’re wrong, unless they ask for your opinion.”
“That’s pretty stupid. So just because somebody’s grown up, I’m supposed to believe everything they say?”
“I didn’t say you have to believe them.”
“That’s what it sounded like. And I’m never going back to church again if I can’t express an opinion when somebody tells lies like he did.”
Mom looked tired. “You can find out many important things in church. You can learn a lot about the world from the Bible, and from Reverend Davis, too.”
“Not if I can’t tell when what he says is right, or when it’s wrong,” I said. “I won’t go!”
And that’s when Mom finally lost her temper. “You will if I say so!” she said, and her eyes were really mad, kind of squinty, and she clamped her mouth shut so tight that her lips practically disappeared. So I shut up, only I’m really not going to go, even if she tries to drag me there next week. If she thinks I made a fuss this time, just wait!
I hate it when I’m mad like this.