I couldn’t sleep much that night. I was just getting comfortable with the thought that no bad guys were after us, and now this email made me wonder again. Worse yet was the fact that I couldn’t tell anybody about it. Not Rusty, since she wasn’t supposed to know about the whole Swiftriver “secret.” Not Flip, because I was sneaking in his room. Not Mom. Wait . . . should I tell Mom? Hmm. Definitely not Fawn. She’d been in such a good mood lately, probably because of Matt, and I didn’t want to be the one to cause her to worry again.
My heart raced, and I had to wipe my sweaty palms on my pillow. Gross. After a couple of hours of staring at the ceiling, I found myself wishing for the new peace that Rusty seemed to have. But, I was supposed to have that peace, wasn’t I? Mrs. O’Reilly, my teacher at church, who also happens to be Sean’s mom, says that God’s kind of peace is with you even when things are going wrong all around you. Well, things had definitely been going wrong lately. First, the Swiftriver nonsense. I sure got myself into a mess with that. Then, the Half Dome accident, which almost killed Flip. Images of that day still haunted my dreams. And now, just when I thought we had determined there were no bad people after us, this Drew guy shows up.
I rolled over to see Rusty sleeping, holding that locket in her hand.
God, where is Rusty’s mom?
And then there was Sunday, and his leukemia coming back. I flipped over on my stomach and turned my pillow to the cool side. Burying my face in the pillow, I prayed as hard as I could:
Lord, please don’t let Sunday die. Please . . . please . . . please . . . please. I don’t know what else to say. Please.
“Are you okay?” Rusty startled me.
My head shot up from the pillow.
“Huh? I guess so. Why?”
Rusty sat up in her bed and rubbed her eyes. “You were hitting the bed with your fist. Were you killing a spider?”
“What? Oh, sorry. No. I was praying for Sunday.”
“Does punching make it a stronger prayer?”
“Um . . . I dunno. I didn’t realize I was doing it. Sorry I woke you up.”
“It’s okay. It’s been fun sharing a room with you this week. Kinda like a never-ending slumber party. Too bad I have to go home.”
“Yeah. Hey, you wanna go bake some cookies right now?”
Rusty looked over at the clock. “It’s four o’clock!”
I flung off my covers. “They’ll be done in time for breakfast.”
“Okay.” Rusty slid out of bed, shaking her head. “Let’s go.”
For the next few hours, we messed up the kitchen with flour, sugar, nuts, and chocolate. The aroma brought Flip and Brady out of their beds at five thirty.
“Girls are weird,” Brady said, as he gobbled down a stack of warm chocolate chunk cookies. “Who else would make cookies for breakfast?”
“I can cook something else for you if you want,” Flip said.
“No, thanks,” Brady said. Yep, he’s smart all right.
“Hey,” Flip said, “Since we’re up and filled with sugar, do you guys want to go for a morning ride in the ski boat?”
None of us had done that yet.
“Yeah!” Brady said. But then his smile changed to a frown. “But isn’t that down by the lake?”
Flip seemed to know what that frown was all about. “It’ll be okay. No bears this time, I promise.”
That seemed to be enough for Brady. “I’ll go get my jacket,” he said. He took off toward our room. Rusty went to get hers too. I figured I might need one too, but as I got up to leave Flip caught me by the arm.
“Hold on there, squirt. We need to talk.”
“We do?” I fidgeted and looked up at the ceiling.
“Yep. I know my room’s a mess, but I also know when someone’s been messing with my mess. If you wanted to use my computer, all you had to do was ask.”
“Umm . . . sorry.” When you’re guilty, there’s not much more you can say than that.
Brady yelled from the front entryway. “Are you guys coming?”
“On our way,” Flip yelled back. He put his hands on his hips. “And WHAT did you do to my Bible?”
I cleared my throat and looked down. “I kicked it. I’m sorry.”
Flip’s mouth dropped open.
“I didn’t mean to! I tried to run out of the room without getting caught and I didn’t see it. Plus, why do you have a Bible in your room, anyway? Are you a Christian?”
Flip smiled. “Well . . . yeah.” He threw his hands up in the air. “Okay, you got me. I’m a Jesus follower. Does that surprise you?”
I stared at him for a minute as I thought about that.
“I dunno. Maybe. You do a lot of good things, but you’re pretty goofy. And when we first met, you told me that you didn’t like church.”
“That was my cover story. I couldn’t go to church for a while or people might recognize me. And goofy people need forgiveness too.”
“Fawn’s not goofy at all.”
I punched Flip in the arm. “Haha, you know what I mean. Is she a Christian too?”
Just then Brady charged into the kitchen. “Flip, can I drive the boat?”
“Uh, sure buddy. But first, I need to get your sister here to wrap my cast in some plastic bags so I don’t get it wet. We’ll meet you out front in just one minute.”
Brady ran out, and Flip held up his stinky cast and wiggled his toes at me while I wrapped it in plastic.
“That’s gross,” I said.
“Yeah, well it’s payback for kicking my Bible.”
I finished wrapping his cast, and then we stared at each other. I wasn’t going anywhere without an answer about Fawn.
Finally Flip spoke. “My sister is complicated. All I know is she used to come to church with our family all the time when she was a kid. Then one day — I think when she was about your age — she just stopped.”
“Why?”
Flip shrugged. “Don’t know. We’ve never talked about it.”
“HEY!” Brady ran in again and pulled Flip off the barstool.
We walked out the door and toward the lake, and as Brady ran ahead to meet Rusty, Flip grabbed my arm one more time. “By the way,” he whispered, “I saw that email, and I’ll look into it. So you don’t need to worry, okay? We’ll figure it out, I promise.”
I felt a weight lift off my shoulders.
Wow, thanks God. You sure took care of that Drew thing quickly!