9780310742944_conten_0009_002.jpg

Chapter 10

Brady’s been wearing the “Armor of God” that we’ve been making out of aluminum foil in children’s church. The pieces all look good, but no other kid wears them to church each week. (And no one else has to rename himself. He’s only answered to “Knight Knute” for a couple of weeks now.) So far, we’ve made the Helmet of Salvation, the Shield of Faith, the Belt of Truth, and the Sword of the Spirit. I wasn’t sure what we were going to make this week.

Mrs. O’Reilly (Sean’s mom) is the children’s church teacher. She’s pretty calm considering we have a bunch of crazy, overactive kids in children’s church. Sometimes I just sit in the back of the room and pray for them to calm down so I can concentrate on the lesson.

“By the time I count down to zero, I want everyone to be in their seat and listening.”

Mrs. O. began to count down from ten. She got to three, and no one had calmed down yet. If I were her, I’d just walk out the door and never come back. By zero, half the room was calm. By negative five (she goes below zero if she has to), one of the older girls yelled “SHUT UP,” which was totally inappropriate, but it worked. Everyone was silent. Mrs. O. just grinned and held up a roll of aluminum foil.

“Boys and girls, today we’re going to make the Shoes of Peace that come from the Good News. When we get dressed every day, the shoes we choose to wear are very important. If you’re going hiking, you need hiking boots to climb on rocks and rugged terrain. If you’re going to run, you need shoes that cushion the soles and heels so they don’t get injured from all the pounding. If you’re going river rafting, you need sandals that attach to your feet so they don’t fall off when you go in the water.”

TJ elbowed me in the side. “Sounds like a Riley Mae shoe commercial.”

Mrs. O. continued. “For a Christian, our shoes are the Gospel of Peace. Whenever we go out, we need to take Jesus with us. Having Jesus in our hearts is the only way we can experience true peace. We need to walk in his peace every day, and then we need to share that peace with others.”

Right then, Ben Matlock sneezed and a booger flew out of his nose onto his chair.

“Gross, Ben! Get away from me.” Emily Fremont is always grossed out about something, so I’m not sure why she was sitting by Ben, since he tends to be gross a lot. Everyone else started laughing. Mrs. O. walked over to the craft table, picked up a tissue, walked over to the chair, and snatched the booger up. She continued talking like nothing happened.

“How many of you have friends or neighbors who don’t know Jesus?”

Lots of kids raised their hands.

“Then you need the shoes of Good News! Let’s all remember to be ready to share Christ with the people he brings into our lives.”

Mrs. O. unrolled a big piece of foil and showed the kids how to shape it to their foot and then how to use a hole punch to make openings for lacings. I knew right away that Sean, TJ, and I would have to punch all the holes for the kids since their hands were too weak. It turns out we had to lace them all up too, since they had a hard time concentrating enough to thread the yarn through all the holes.

It took the whole hour to finish sixty shoes — thirty kids times two. I was so tired, I never wanted to see another foil shoe again.

Erin Fremont — Emily’s five-year-old sister — asked me to make her shoes look like my hikers. “I like those, they’re pretty!”

I got a pink marker and colored the foil. She loved that. Then I signed my name on the sides.

“Does that say Jesus?” she asked. “Cause that’s what I want it to say.”

Oops. She was right. That’s what it should say. Why didn’t I write that?

“I’m sorry, Erin. I made a big mistake. Let me make you a new pair of shoes, okay?”

“Sean, can you get me some more foil?” If only he wouldn’t have been hogging the roll, I could have snuck a new piece.

“What for?” He looked down and noticed Erin’s first pair of crumpled-up shoes.

“She spelled Jesus wrong.” Erin’s cute, but I wish she would have kept her mouth shut.

“Jesus?” Sean raised his eyebrows. “J-E-S-U-S? How could you get that wrong?”

“Just a little misunderstanding. Now hand it over.” I grabbed the foil from him.

“You don’t have to get nasty.” Sean shook his head and walked away.

I felt terrible, but I didn’t have time to apologize. I had one more pair of foil shoes to punch and lace. Ugh.

TJ came up behind me and breathed down my neck.

“Okay — so you wanna come over to my house after church? We could have lunch and figure out the softball stuff.” She was still mad at me. I could tell by the way she had pulled her hair to one side and was twisting it tight. But the fact that she was inviting me over was a good sign. I just didn’t know what I was going to do to fix our problem.

“Sure. But only if we can make brownies.”

“Okay.” TJ smiled a little. “Let’s go check with your mom.”

Sean stopped us on our way out the door. “Riley, I forgive you for being nasty.” He smiled and brushed his blond bangs out of his eyes. “See you next week with your donut.” It’s nice that I never have to fix things with Sean. And it’s cute when his hair gets too long and hangs over his blue, sparkly eyes. But I’m still not marrying him.