So far, Billy has managed to keep his family’s big secret from his three faithful friends. In fact, the only person he has told in confidence is Chloe; and she only told her best friend Bree. But facts are facts; Billy’s parents told him specifically not to tell anyone about their wealth. So in Billy’s mind, that meant that he was not to run all over creation spouting out the news to any stranger who would sit down and listen. He felt that his close friends (or anyone he was trying to impress) were exempt from his parents’ command. Nevertheless, partial obedience is still disobedience. This is almost sure to come back to haunt him. Fortunately perhaps for him, neither of these two girls believe Billy’s earth-shattering confession - - so it looked like it did not even matter.
But it matters.
We know that the boys were having a conversation at lunch and that Billy got up to talk to Chloe. But what was happening elsewhere at that exact time? Let us rewind this story about ten minutes and turn back to the beginning of this lunchtime dialogue. Billy, Curtis, Clay, and Mike were sitting at their usual table in the lunchroom. Clay had just said something that got Billy thinking. Looking across the table at Clay, Billy asked, “Hey, track star, if you had an unlimited amount of money, what would you do with it?”
Clay looked across at him with interested eyes. “Huh? What kind of money? The buy-an-awesome-car kind of money or the buy-a-private-island kind of money?”
Billy smiled. “I mean the buy-a-whole-string-of-islands kind of money.”
But we have already heard this conversation. As the reader of this story, you now have permission to step back away from them just a little bit. Turn around and walk down between the columns of tables. Across the aisle and down about three rows, Berly and Maggie were having their own lunchtime talk. Maggie’s back was turned to the boys, but Berly had a clear view. She was especially watching Billy Harris.
When Billy first visited the Chess Club, Berly thought that he was somewhat cute. Along the way, Berly had managed to develop a strong crush on Mr. Harris’ son. That crush only grew stronger with each meeting. Billy had yet to miss a single Chess Club event that entire week. Completely oblivious to these facts, he passed through her mind constantly. She now spent a great deal of her time looking around and keeping up with his whereabouts whenever possible. She was trying hard to play it cool, but she kept looking at the boys – and Billy in particular.
“Do you think that I should go talk to him?”
Maggie stopped chewing and looked across at Berly with unimpressed eyes. “May I assume that, when you use the word him, you are referring to Billy Harris … again? We never seem to talk about anything else anymore.” She rolled her eyes, took another sip of her drink, and put it back on the table. “I have this dream that I dream all the time. In it, we are back to having normal conversations like we used to, conversations that weren’t centered on the English teacher’s goofy son.”
“Look at him. He is over there talking to those other three guys he is usually with. Do you know any of them?”
Maggie shrugged. “Not really. I know that they are all from the same church.” She had another bite from her salad and then gestured in their direction without looking. “That tall redhead – the one who is talking right now – I hear that he is really amazing at track and field. In fact, they say that he is so fast, his competitors can’t even catch him with a zoom lens. I myself heard Coach Holton say the other day that that guy could take Pecan Falls all the way to State this year. Now that would be kinda cool.” Just because these two girls were in the Chess Club, that did not mean that they were anti-athletics. They had an incredible amount of school spirit and supported their school in whatever way they could. “If Coach Holton can take him to State and redhead can finish well, maybe our school could make the state paper or even the news. We could get some serious exposure. I imagine that most people in our state don’t even know that there is a Pecan Falls. We’re not exactly on the road to Branson, you know.”
“Do you know that guy’s name?”
“I think it is Clayton … something. I don’t know the other two guys.” She took another drink from her soda can.
The noise in the room was considerable, but Berly sat in uncomfortable silence. She could not hear what the boys were saying, but she watched them like a hawk as this Clay character was talking about something serious. She turned back to Maggie and asked, “So do you think that I should go over and introduce myself to his friends?”
Maggie thought that Berly’s behavior was bordering on creepy. “You do what you want to do. I know you well enough to know that you aren’t going to listen to me. And yet, go figure, you keep asking me for my opinion - - all the time. But answer this question for me please: Did you bother to pray over this first? I mean God may not want this for you as much as you want this for yourself.”
Under ordinary circumstances, those words would have probably bothered Berly. But today, it was like water off a duck. Her focus was directed on Billy Harris. Billy Harris. All of a sudden, that name actually sounded pretty to Berly. And through her eyes, everything in the room pointed at him as if he were the vanishing pointing in an art project. The other students, tables and chairs, the lunch trays, nutrition posters – they were all just mere window dressing around the main attraction.
Clay looked quite serious as he spoke. Then one of the others seemed to ask him a question and Clay looked like he was answering. Then the third friend raised his drink in the air and said something as if he were making a toast.
Berly pushed her lunch away and looked directly at her friend. “Well, my timing might be lousy; but if this is not what God wants, then maybe He can find a way to prevent it. In the meantime, I don’t see any harm in simply walking over there and introducing myself. It’s not that big of a deal. It’s just talk.”
“I hope you’re right,” Maggie said as she moved on to her banana pudding. “But I have a feeling that a good I-told-you-so will be in order.”
Berly stood up and stepped away from her seat. She took in a deep breath, clinched her fists, and then shook her fingers out again. Looking at her target, she could see that he was not fully engaged in their talk anymore; instead, he seemed to be staring roughly in her direction. The thought of that affected Berly. Was he staring at her? It looked like it. She felt her back tingle.
One of his friends snapped him out of his trance and Billy seemed to answer a question. He then stood up victoriously. With a pleased look on his face, he actually began walking toward Berly.
Her heart began to race. Both of her knees seemed to lose their strength, so she directed a small portion of her focus on keeping her knees in place. Instinctively, she began to rub the palms of her hands together. Whatever was she going to say? Did she have to say anything? Maybe it did not matter since he was coming over to her. Surely, that meant that he was going to be doing the talking. Just act naturally, she said to herself. At last …
As he got close to her, she took a small step into the aisle to greet him. But when she did, Billy responded by doing some smooth spin move on her. As he went around her, he said, “Step to the side, lady. Man on a mission,” and kept walking.
Huh? Am I seeing his more playful and humorous side? she wondered to herself.
But then he kept walking. In fact, he went right up to that Chloe and her friend. In a moment, he was talking to her alone. Berly now became painfully aware that she was standing up for no reason, waiting to speak to someone who clearly was not going out of his way to speak to her. She retreated back to her seat. Her legs felt weird anyway, as if they had lost all their strength.
This caught Maggie off-guard. “Back so soon?” she asked. “That didn’t take long at all. You scarcely made it away from the table.” She turned and saw what was happening. Billy and Chloe were having a pleasant chat just past them. She returned her gaze back to Berly, who looked like she was about to shatter. At this point, she remained silent. She closed her eyes, shook her head, and inhaled deeply. Her eyes opened again. “Berly, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by that.”
After about thirty seconds of watching them, Berly shrugged. Her sudden nonchalant demeanor was completely faked. With half-closed eyes and a dismissive voice, she admitted, “She’s pretty.” Another ten seconds went by. “You can’t really blame him.” She stopped staring now and focused her attention on keeping the swelling tears from running down her cheeks.
Maggie set her spoon down and looked across at her friend. The youngest in her family and the only girl, she had often wondered what it would be like to have a younger sister of her own. Now she knew.
Berly removed her glasses and laid them on the table. She rubbed her eyes and spoke again. “At least now I know the truth. It is much better this way. Yes. It is better that I know now, before I …” In one glorious motion, she wiped her escaped tears and brushed her hair back behind her ear. “ …before I make a complete fool of myself.” Then she quietly got up and walked briskly to the restroom. Maggie trailed in after her.
After school dismissed that day, both girls went back to Maggie’s house. After entering Maggie’s bedroom, Berly took off her rather stylish glasses and threw herself face down on the bed in a state of embarrassment. “Oh my stars! I can’t believe that just happened.”
Maggie followed her in the room and closed the door. “Are you back to that again? I’ve already told you five thousand times, no one noticed. According to my watch, it is now time to move on.”
“I came so close to making myself look like a scary stalker chick.”
“The term ‘scary stalker chick’ may be inaccurate; I wouldn’t call it that. All you were going to do was introduce yourself. That sounds harmless enough. But then again, God may have just saved you from yourself. Or maybe the timing was just not right. Look, we don’t know what was going on.”
Berly rolled over on her back and looked up at the ceiling fan as it made its hypnotic circles. “Do you remember how the wicked witch would disappear in The Wizard of Oz? A burst of flames, clouds of thick smoke, and then she would be gone. I would give anything to have that ability at times.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Do you realize how much attention you would bring to yourself? Then when the smoke finally cleared, I would be sitting there alone with everyone staring at me as if I set off a smoke bomb. Then I would spend hours in Mrs. Dunbar’s office answering two million questions. Friends don’t do that to each other.”
Berly laughed. “Yeah. How thoughtless of me.”
Maggie walked across the room to her glass tank. “Look, if you can’t keep it together, I’m gonna stop having you over here. And that means no more Sir Lancelot.” Maggie reached in and pulled out her bearded dragon - - with a little overactive tail wagging on the dragon’s part.
Berly had not been crying, but she began to wipe imaginary tears from her face in an overdramatic fashion for comic effect. “Sir Lancelot. I forgot. I can’t let him see me this way.” She reached out her arms to receive him. Sir Lancelot tolerated her gentle petting for a few seconds and then enjoyed the warmth from Berly’s arms – a nice warm place to rest. “I’m just glad I found out that Billy likes Chloe. I guess I did manage to avoid an awkward situation.”
Maggie shook her head. “Stop making such a big deal about this. We are talking about meaningless crushes. For all you know, Billy could lose interest in her overnight. Stranger things have happened, you know.” (Honestly, this was exactly what Maggie was thinking about Berly’s crush on Billy - - but she was not going to share that out loud with her dear friend. Maybe like a bad case of the common cold, this crush just had to run its course.) “And by the way, I am going to warn you right now. If you ever use the term true love when talking about these silly crushes, I’m going to take my beardy from you and throw you out into the hallway with no mercy.”
Berly laughed at the thought. “Well, it won’t come to that, I promise you. After seeing him with Chloe today, I am done worrying about Billy Harris permanently.”
Maggie knew her friend better than that. Berly might have believed her own words, but Maggie was not so easily convinced. Nevertheless, she played along. “Good. Because the Bible tells us three hundred and sixty-five times not to worry. That is once a day for every day of the year.”
“Yeah? What about leap year?”
For the equivalent of two musical beats, Maggie stared off into space with an amused grin. “If you only worry about things one day every four years, I guess that would be an improvement for you.”
Berly looked down at Sir Lancelot, but she was talking to Maggie. “I really wished that I could be more like you. You don’t ever seem to worry about anything.” (Actually, she could have been talking to the beardy.)
“Me? I worry about stuff all the time. In fact, check out this trick.” She reached behind her and grabbed the Bible off of her desk, held it up with the spine facing down, and let it fall open. “See? Cool trick, huh? It automatically opened to Matthew chapter six. Weird, isn’t it? That’s because I go there frequently.”
Berly’s right eyebrow went straight into its curious position. “So what is the big deal about Matthew chapter six? Does it contain some magic potion for worrying?”
Maggie picked up the Bible with one hand and the bearded dragon with the other. “Well, I have pretty much made this chapter my second home. The words to it return to me all the time like the lyric of a song that I have heard over and over. Chew on this while Sir Lancelot and I read: ‘Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? …”
Maggie continued to read and Sir Lancelot occasionally blinked his eyes. She read about how God takes care of the birds and dresses up the flowers. And of course, God places a much higher value on His children than he does on birds and flowers. We are special to Him. God knows exactly what we need and He provides for His own. She only interrupted herself to explain to Berly that, unlike Sir Lancelot, we are not like pets to Him. We are His children, His treasure, His masterpiece. Maggie finished reading with verse 34. “‘ … Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.’ Bottom line: Stop worrying. God is watching over you.” She closed her Bible and placed Sir Lancelot back into his nice warm home on top of his favorite rock.
Berly wanted so badly to listen to what was being said. She truly understood that worrying was a stupid waste of time. In fact, she could easily have made these comments herself to any number of her needy friends. This time, wisdom was being presented to her as if it came giftwrapped. She knew this because Maggie was reading this wisdom from God’s Word, and that was not something that you can argue with and expect to get very far. For countless generations, people have been arguing with the Bible and trying to disprove it; and they always fail. But the truths that are in it are just as relevant today as they were at the time that the Bible was written.
But for whatever reason, this whole Billy thing had made her lose her mind. She was not normally like this. Apparently, her mental stability had gone on vacation. Her head might as well have fallen completely off and rolled down a flight of stairs. To make matters worse, she should have kept her next comment to herself, bless her heart. “I wonder what Billy is doing right now.”
Maggie laughed. “Girl, you are hopeless.”
Actually, it is a really good thing that they could not see what Billy was doing at that precise moment. They would have found him on his hands and knees crawling out on his neighbor’s diving board trying to retrieve his endangered copy of Pride and Prejudice. This time, the book was currently sitting precariously at the end of the board above nine feet of water. His three friends and his neighbors were all laughing at him as he nervously tried to save the book from a watery fate.
How it got there will remain a bit of a mystery to us. But one thing that is no mystery is that this was not going to end well. Midge at the bookstore could prepare herself for another visit from her new best customer.
… as soon as he dried himself off.