I wasn’t sure what we were going to do once Pastor Ennis arrived, but HE knew.
“We’re going to see Mr. Wylie,” he said when I met him at the front entrance of the school.
His face was grim, and he had Miss Prim rapping on the principal’s door in about two seconds. With Pastor standing beside me, being so sure of himself, I definitely felt less like a rabbit jumping back into a foxhole. But that was also the thing that had my teeth chattering.
What if Mr. Wylie gets MORE ticked off because I dragged a minister in here? I thought.
All I could do was pray. I couldn’t even hope to get to my peaceful place right now. I just silently screamed.
Mr. Wylie didn’t look quite so much like a trained attack dog this time. He smiled at Pastor Ennis and shook his hand before offering him a place to sit on one of the couches. Me he all but ignored.
“I understand you met with Laura already this afternoon,” Pastor Ennis said. He looked from me to Mr. Wylie until the man had to acknowledge my presence with a nod.
“She doesn’t feel she had the opportunity to say what she needed to say,” Pastor went on. “I’m here to be sure she gets that chance.”
“I heard everything,” Mr. Wylie said. “And I told her I would keep it in mind.”
Pastor leaned forward over his thighs. “You might want to talk to HER. I’m just the third party witness.”
Mr. Wylie had no choice but to look at me again. This time there was a threat lurking behind the resentful expression on his face.
But I straightened my spine and looked right back at him.
“I was a little out of control when I was in your office before,” I said. “I’d been hearing ridiculous rumors about Mrs. Isaccsen all day, and I was afraid you believed them. I’m sorry about that.”
If Mr. Wylie nodded, I missed it.
“It just seems to me,” I said, “that people don’t understand Mrs. Isaacsen. She isn’t proselytizing. She just lives a Christ-centered life, and most of the time she does that without saying a word.”
“Most of the time?” Mr. Wylie said. I could have sworn his ears went up into Doberman points.
“The only time she talks about it is with those of us who are ALREADY Christians. I know the law. She’s allowed to do that.”
Mr. Wylie smiled at me, but in the way a kindergarten teacher smiles when a five-year-old says something cute. I was sure that small gesture was for Pastor Ennis’s benefit alone.
“You’re right,” he said, “but that isn’t what this is about.”
“So what IS it about?” I said.
He pulled back, the smile frozen in place. “I am not at liberty to discuss that with you. Nor do you need to know. What I’m asking you to do is trust me.”
I turned to Pastor Ennis. His jaw muscles were twitching.
“There’s the issue, sir,” he said. He looked down at me. “You’re not certain you CAN trust him—isn’t that it, Laura?”
“Right,” I said. I honed in on Mr. Wylie again. His smile had melted into a line. “And that isn’t disrespect. That comes from the way you talked to us that day after the demonstration. You said I’m a troublemaker. I don’t think it’s making trouble to stand up for the truth.”
Mr. Wylie folded his arms across his chest, which was looking smaller by the minute compared to Pastor Ennis.
“What can I say to convince you that I will be completely fair?” he said.
“Respect our rights,” I said. “SCHOOL-sponsored religious activities are prohibited by the constitution, but STUDENT-sponsored religious activities are protected by the constitution under free speech.”
“I know the law—”
“But I think you’ve been more concerned about being politically correct,” Pastor Ennis said. “I certainly don’t envy the position you’re in, but I believe you have an obligation to protect everyone’s rights.” He pulled a folded piece of paper out of his pocket. “This is a copy of a letter sent to every public school principal by the American Center for Law and Justice, just in case you didn’t get yours. It explains the free speech rights of students in more detail.”
“I’ll certainly read it,” Mr. Wylie said. “But let me make it clear that what I am concerned with are TEACHERS overstepping their rights, not students.”
He suddenly smiled cheerily, as if it were time to break out the refreshments. “Anything else I can help you with?”
I was so distracted at rehearsal that night, Eve had to tell me what to do.
And it wasn’t just the meeting with Mr. Wylie that had me chewing on the ends of my braids. I was also concerned about the two official-looking women who came in during our intermission break and pulled K.J. into a corner of the green room. It drove me up the wall during the whole next scene—but I didn’t have to wait long to find out what was going on. The minute she came offstage for the last time, K.J. grabbed my arm in a vicious grip and dragged me into the stairwell.
“You know who those two chicks were?” she hissed. “They were from Social Services.”
“Not good,” I said.
K.J.’s eyes were narrowed, snake-like, striking right at mine. “They told me that if Mrs. I. gets fired, I’m going to be put into a foster home—unless I want to go back to my dad.”
She didn’t have to add that she would rather live with a family of Bengal tigers.
“I don’t think she’s going to get fired, K.J.,” I said. “She hasn’t done anything wrong.”
“What difference does that make? Somebody’s out to get her. And you—” She poked her index finger hard against my sternum. “You have to find out who it is and stop them. I already told you that if I find out anything, I’ll tell you—and you better use it.”
I couldn’t say a word. What does a person say when she has pure hatred staring her in the face?
“Are you going to sit around and pray about it?” she said. “Or are you going to DO something?”
“I’ll do whatever God tells me,” I said.
She hissed again, a derisive sound that rendered God useless, at least to her.
“You just better be listening then,” she said. “Mrs. I. has a hearing on MONDAY.”
“Do you know what it’s about?” I said.
“Like anybody’s gonna tell me,” K.J. said.
And as she walked away, I knew she was going to hate me for the rest of my life if I didn’t start fixing things. She and everybody else I cared about.
I never did do my postshow tasks. I just sat on the stairs and sobbed—completely unaware of anything going on around me. At one point Deirdre stopped and quizzed me from what felt like several miles away. And Eve put her arms around me and rocked me until I told her to please leave me alone.
The only person who got my attention was Mr. Howitch, long after the cast and crew had vacated.
“Do you think you can drive, Laura?” he said.
I didn’t, but I nodded anyway.
“Okay—I’m going to follow you home. You and I need to have a talk—and I want your parents there to hear it.”
At home Mom took one look at me, got Dad out of bed, and put on a pot of coffee. The mugs stood untouched as Mr. Howitch told us everything.
“When Gigi Palmer returned to school after her suspension, she was still suspended from activities, but the administration also made her go see Mrs. Isaacsen twice a week to try to find out the root cause of her hatefulness.”
“It didn’t do any good,” I said.
“Gigi made it seem like it did. She snowed Mrs. Isaacsen like a New England blizzard, trying to convince her that she was reformed.” Mr. Howitch smiled wryly. “You know our Mrs. I. She saw right through that, and she advised the faculty and the administration to keep an eye on Gigi. She, of course, did the same.”
I was having a hard time imagining Gigi in Mrs. I.’s office. I was pretty sure they hadn’t shared Earl Grey.
“It wasn’t long,” Mr. Howitch said, “before one of the teachers suspected that Gigi was trying to intimidate some poor child into dropping out of cheerleading tryouts just so someone from Gigi’s group would have a better chance of being chosen for the team.”
“She needs to come up with some new material,” Mom said. “They were doing that when I was in high school.”
“The teacher couldn’t prove it, but Mrs. Isaacsen told Gigi that if it turned out to be the truth, she was going to blackball her if she tried to run for student body president.” Mr. Howitch looked at my parents. “Any teacher can do that.”
“Thank heaven,” Dad said.
“But she didn’t get the proof,” I said. “Gigi’s running against Stevie.”
Mom shook her head. “Now that’s just not right.”
“This is where it gets ugly,” Mr. Howitch said. “Gigi looked for a way to get back at her. And Mrs. Isaacsen’s Group—you girls—became the perfect target.”
“Because that would take down me and Stevie and Celeste and Joy Beth, too.”
“And Trent. Don’t forget how he was essential in getting her friends convicted for what they did to you.”
Dad was looking more pinched by the second. He squeezed the bridge of his nose between his fingers. “I take it the mess didn’t stop there.”
“No. The initial results weren’t good enough. Gigi got to run for president, but so did Stevie.”
“She’ll win, won’t she?” Mom said. You would have thought Stevie was her kid. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that Stevie and I were barely friends now.
“Gigi took matters into her own hands and evidently got some student to say that Mrs. Isaacsen had threatened the kid with eternal fire if they didn’t get down on their hands and knees right there in her office and come to Jesus.”
“That didn’t happen!” I said. “Don’t they see it was all Gigi?”
“That’s the problem. It’s impossible to link this student to Gigi, and it’s basically the kid’s word against Mrs. I.’s. And then at the demonstration, when you—one of Mrs. I.’s prize pupils—stirred things up, the administration thought they had reason to doubt Mrs. Isaacsen.”
“But it didn’t have anything to do with her!” I said. “That was all me—and I tried to tell Mr. Wylie that—and so did Pastor Ennis.”
My parents both looked at me as if I were speaking in tongues. I realized, guiltily, that there was a lot I hadn’t told them.
“My heart breaks for her,” Mr. Howitch said.
“Can’t you do something?” I said.
He ran his finger back and forth under his nose. “I’m supporting her. I’m quashing rumors in the faculty lounge, much as I hate going into that den of iniquity. I’ve been to see Mr. Wylie and the superintendent—but I don’t have anything more solid than the fact that I know Mrs. Isaacsen and can’t see her doing something like that.”
“I’m going to make some calls myself,” Dad said.
Mom picked up the coffeepot and made a move to warm up their cups, but nobody had even taken a sip.
At least now I knew what was going on. But that only took me so far. I needed the name of the kid who was doing this to Mrs. I. Mr. Howitch had been careful not to even reveal whether the little liar was a boy or a girl.
And there was no way I was asking him. He’d already told me more than he should have, I knew that. In fact, I didn’t even feel like I could tell K.J. what he’d said to us. Not K.J. or any of the BFFs. Even if it meant they’d never help me unless I did.
I’m alone in this, aren’t I, God? I thought later as I climbed into bed. There was no answer, and I couldn’t keep my eyes open to wait for one.
All night I kept dreaming that someone was whispering the word One to me.