After supper Dad brought my suitcase to the farm. I hid behind the azalea bushes until he was driving away, and when it was too late, I jumped out and hollered, “Come back!” as loud as I could. I was glad he couldn’t hear. My ancestors had faced sword, rope, fire, and water. I could face a few nights without my sleeping bag and cat.
When I was lying on the hard cot listening to the scrabbling of dogs’ claws on the boards above me, though, I had to pretend I was in my cozy Colorado tent.
The truth was this basement was a very safe place with its Screamer and all.
The truth was it was way better than a pink bedroom.
The truth was . . . I missed my cat.
When I got to the kitchen the next morning, Morgan and Cousin Caroline were already eating. “Cracked wheat hot cereal,” Cousin Caroline said, spooning some into a bowl for me. “You’ll need a sweater today. About time we had normal April weather.”
I glanced at the calendar on her wall.
April 27.
One month until my birthday.
As I ate, I wondered how fast Grandpa might get well. What was Mom learning in her latest research? Were Grandma hugs making Isabella feel better?
Before school, Cousin Caroline sent us over to the great-aunts’ side of the farm to check on the lavender plants. We stood on the hillside with TJ and Bob-Silver crowding around us for ear rubs, and I imagined snow blotting out the sun. “Do you think the teacher of Hope and Faith and Charity hated that she let them go?” I asked Morgan.
“She thought they’d freeze if they stayed in the school.”
“I know.” Shiverydee. “Some people have terrible choices.”
“Would you rather be boiled in oil or pulled apart by wild animals?” Morgan asked. She picked a bud to take back for Cousin Caroline’s inspection.
“What about neither?”
“Our martyr ancestors had to choose,” Morgan said. “What if the king said you had to be a martyr or renounce God?”
Pretty unsavory. What happened if you renounced God but had your fingers crossed behind your back?
I dodged away from a bee that floated crazily up. My fingertips were full of lavender oil, and my brain was all curiosity. When your mom was a girl, did she pretend sticks were guns and did our peacemaker ancestors grab them away? Are your mom and dad divorced?
I kept the words from flapping out because sometimes Morgan was like the salamander that hid in leaf litter and preferred a secretive life.
We made our way down the hill and back through the trees. I put my game face on and asked, “Do you think cicadas bite?”
“They don’t attack people.” Even in this shady, spottled place, I could see Morgan’s expression wasn’t mocking. “If you held one for a long time and it thought you were a tree branch, it might try to feed, but Mom said that would feel like a pin stuck you.”
So. I predicted Morgan had asked Cousin Caroline the same thing. It made me wish I were brave enough to show her the Safety Notebook. “I know what you should do if you’re being persecuted for your faith and you got thrown to the lions,” I said.
“You do?”
Her voice was sincerely interested, so I told her the plan:
1. Don’t quail.
2. Take off any animal skin your captors put on you because it’s supposed to make you look and smell like prey.
3. Grab a whip or shield from the weakest-looking handler.
4. If a lion charges, yell as loud as you can.
“Why?” Morgan asked.
“Lions hate loud noises. But don’t try to hide.” Jericho had said in Safety Club that people were tempted to dive for the wooden doors around the floor of the arena. Unluckily, those led to more wild animals. And you’d give up your chance to be seen as a hero. “Heroes sometimes won a pardon,” I told Morgan.
“Our ancestors didn’t want a pardon. They wanted to be martyrs for their faith.”
Maybe that was the problem. Dad couldn’t be his funny, guitar-playing self here where he could feel his ancestors in his bones.
I kept thinking all the way to the house. “Thanks for taking in this stray,” Dad would say at Christmas, flinging his arms around Grandpa and Grandma Campbell. I thought he felt perfectly scooped in to Mom’s family. But maybe he always missed his true family.
Maybe he liked a place where everybody knew everything about him.
I didn’t.
“I don’t actually want to go back to Sunday School,” I said. “The boys will be full of comments about how I ran away and got everyone in an uproar.”
“I don’t blame you,” Morgan said. “We’ll think of something. It can’t be that hard.”
Morgan + Anna = team! Score!