A Big Year for Lily (4 page)

C
loverdale was having an Indian summer—unusually warm days. Today was Aaron Yoder's birthday and he had brought in homemade soft pretzels as a treat. Salty pretzels. Under normal conditions, Lily would not accept anything from Aaron Yoder, but she had seen his mother deliver those pretzels, still warm, to Teacher Rhoda during first recess. Soft pretzels topped Lily's list for favorite treats. She tried to save part of her pretzel for lunch but it was too delicious. It made her thirsty, too. In fact, all of the children were thirsty after the pretzels. They lined up for a turn at the water pump and drank and drank to their hearts' content.

During lunch recess, Lily discovered a problem. A very, very serious problem. The girls' bathroom was not working. A small sign taped up to the door read Out of Order. Lily and her friends discussed using the boys' bathroom, but unanimously voted against it. Too many germs.

By the start of afternoon classes, Lily was in trouble. Just
the sound of someone at the water pump made her remember how badly she needed to go to the girls' room. It became a very stressful situation. She crossed her legs. She squeezed her hands. She couldn't think of anything but getting to the bathroom. Fast.

It wasn't until the second recess that Teacher Rhoda went out to use the bathroom and discovered the sign. She pulled it off the wall and went inside. Lily and her friends ran over to wait for her to come out. “We thought the bathroom was broken,” Lily said.

“Girls,” Teacher Rhoda said, “think about it. First, it was a note written in a boy's handwriting. Second, what could possibly be out of order in an outhouse?”

Oh.
Oh!

Out on the front porch, Papa dipped the little paintbrush into the jar of white paint. Now that Mama had finally chosen a name for the farmette, Papa was working on a sign. With careful, elegant strokes, he painted letters on the big green sign that sat on top of two wooden sawhorses. The sign would be posted at the end of their driveway. As he finished the letter
N
, Lily started to giggle. If Papa stopped now, the sign would read Whispering Pin. A whispering pin would be funny. Imagine all the things a pin could tell a person: “Oh my . . . her underwear is a little threadbare!” or “Goodness gracious, she is getting rather plump!”

Papa whistled a happy tune as he painted
E
and
S
to make it Whispering Pines. Then he started on smaller letters underneath the farmette's name. Lily hummed along quietly as she watched him. Joseph and Dannie had wandered off to play in the
sandbox. They had been watching Papa paint but quickly grew bored. Lily was glad. She liked spending time alone with Papa.

As Papa dipped his paintbrush into the jar, a fat bumblebee circled and buzzed around Lily's head. She jerked away, but then the bee landed on a freshly painted letter. Its fuzzy black feet were covered in white paint. It walked across the sign and made tiny bee footprints across the green sign.

Lily wanted to swat it away but was afraid that she would ruin Papa's beautiful sign even more than the bumblebee already had.

“Look, Papa,” she said. “A bumblebee is ruining your sign. It's making little white tracks over the green background.”

Papa tried to shoo the bumblebee away but its feet seemed to be too heavy with paint to be able to fly. He reached into his pocket and got his big red handkerchief and carefully lifted the bumblebee off the sign. “There. Now it can't make any more tracks.”

“But it ruined your sign,” Lily said.

Papa only smiled. “I don't think anyone will notice those tracks unless they look closely.” He dipped his paintbrush back into the jar of paint and started to paint another letter. “You know, Lily, the sign is a lot like the people we meet. If we want to find fault with it, we can look much closer and see things like those little tracks. In fact, by looking too closely, you'll notice that some of the letters aren't exactly perfect. If we focus on those little faults, we'll forget that the sign is actually a pretty good sign.”

Papa put the paintbrush down. “I could brush some more green paint over those little tracks, but I think I'll just leave them. That way whenever you and I see this sign, it can remind us to focus on the good things in the people we meet instead of any little faults they might have.”

Aaron Yoder and Effie Kauffman
, he meant. Each day, Lily had come home from school with new complaints about Aaron and Effie. Perfectly reasonable complaints.

Papa kept on painting and before long, he was satisfied the sign was done. Whispering Pines was on the top in nice big letters, curved like a rainbow. In smaller letters underneath were the words, Solid Oak, Cherry, and Walnut Furniture.

“I'll go get the posts ready for our sign,” Papa said. “Want to come with me?”

Lily quickly put her chair back inside the house and followed Papa to the end of the driveway. Joseph and Dannie dropped their toys in the sandbox and hurried to join them. They watched with interest as Papa used his posthole digger and shovel to dig two deep holes. Digging, apparently, was more interesting to little boys than painting. Once the holes were deep enough, Papa put a long post into each hole. As he held the posts straight, he asked the children to drop stones into the holes around the posts.

Once the posts stood straight without help, Papa threw in big shovelfuls of dirt until the holes were filled all the way to the top. He packed the dirt firmly, then tried to wiggle the posts. They didn't budge. Not an inch. And Papa was satisfied.

The next day, Papa carried the sign to the end of the driveway and nailed it to the posts. Mama planted a nice circle of pretty pink impatiens flowers around the signposts. Lily thought the whole thing looked beautiful.

She couldn't see those little white tracks the bumblebee had made but she knew they were there. She knew the sign would remind her to focus on the good in others. She hoped such thinking might work with Aaron Yoder and Effie Kauffman, but she doubted it.

L
ily's tummy rumbled. She glanced up at the clock. Almost lunchtime. Teacher Rhoda noticed, too. “Put your books away for noon recess.”

The students closed their books, placed them inside their desks, and stood quietly next to their seats. Teacher Rhoda drew out the first note of a song and the children joined in, singing of God's blessings.

Row by row, the children filed to the back of the schoolhouse to wash their hands. Lily splashed cold water over her hands, dried them on a towel, and hurried to get her lunch box. She was especially hungry today. At her desk, she opened her lunch box and was surprised to discover that Mama had made a sandwich with store-bought bread and deli meat. Mama enjoyed putting special treats in Joseph and Lily's lunches. This was the best surprise!

Lily savored every bite until second grader Lavina Schrock pointed to her and said, “Lily Lapp is eating my sandwich!”
Lily paused mid-chew. She looked at Lavina's desk. There was a familiar-looking homemade whole wheat bread and egg sandwich. Lily looked over at Joseph. He was eating one of Mama's egg sandwiches.

Lily offered the half-eaten deli-meat-on-store-bought-bread sandwich back to Lavina but she didn't want it, nor did she want Lily's egg sandwich either. Effie had turned around in her desk and pinched her face up into a knot of exaggerated disgust.

“How did you get my sandwich?” Lavina said.

Effie Kauffman turned around to face them. She had to get involved in everything.
Everything
. “Lily must have stolen it from your lunch box.”

“Effie, turn around in your seat and finish your lunch,” Teacher Rhoda said. She looked at Lily. “After everyone is done eating, I want Lily to stay in for a little while.”

How humiliating! Lily's heart sank. It was terrible to have to stay inside. Only troublemakers, like Aaron and Sam, stayed in during recess. She was sure that all the children assumed she had stolen Lavina's sandwich. She hadn't! Lily wanted to slap that smug smile right off Effie's face, but then she really would be in trouble. She had to bite on her lip to keep her eyes from filling up with tears as the children ran outside to play.

The only two people left in the schoolhouse were Lily and Teacher Rhoda. It felt eerily quiet.

“Tell me about the sandwich,” Teacher Rhoda said in a kind voice. Not accusing, like Effie.

“It was in my lunch box,” Lily said. “I just started eating it. I had no idea that it belonged to Lavina.”

“How did it get into your lunch box?”

“I don't know,” Lily said, her voice quivering. She wished her voice sounded more convincing.

“Have you ever wished you had someone else's lunch?”

“Yes. All the time.” Was that the right answer? Yes? No? It was true that Lily had often wished she could have store-bought bread or some of the other types of food that the children brought to school. But she had never thought about helping herself to it. Not once. That would be stealing.

Teacher Rhoda looked at Lily quietly for a few minutes. It felt like an hour. Finally she said, “We'll get to the bottom of this. For now, go on outside and play.”

Lily went outside, but she didn't feel like joining in the game the others were playing. Effie Kauffman spotted Lily standing by the door of the schoolhouse. “Lily got a spanking. Lily got a spanking,” she chanted.

“I did not!” Lily said.

“You should have,” Effie said. “Teacher Rhoda should always spank thieves.”

“I am not a thief!” Lily said, eyes burning.

“Lily is a thief! Lily is a thief!” Effie chanted.

Teacher Rhoda rang the bell and Lily was relieved. She spun around and hurried to her desk. Recess would be awful if everyone thought she had stolen something.

For the first ten minutes after noon recess, Teacher Rhoda usually read a story. Not today. Instead, she looked at everyone and said, “Someone took Lavina's sandwich out of her lunch box and slipped it into Lily's. Then they took Lily's sandwich and put it in Lavina's. I expect whoever did such a thing to admit to it.”

The children turned to look at Lily. Even Joseph. She wanted to disappear. Why didn't anyone believe her?

After a very long time of utter silence, Teacher Rhoda said, “Seventh grade history class.” Lily was relieved to hear the
shuffle of books as the classroom resumed to normal noise. She took her books out of her desk and worked on her assignments.

Just before school was over for the day, Teacher Rhoda dropped a stapled note on Lily's desk and told her to take it home to her parents. Lily quickly slipped it into her pocket. She hoped no one, especially Effie, had seen it. Only troublemakers were given notes to take home to their parents. Aaron Yoder got them on a regular basis.

As soon as Lily walked into the kitchen, she handed Teacher Rhoda's note to Mama. A serious look came over Mama's face. She went down to the shop to talk to Papa.

When it was time to get ready for bed, Papa said that he and Mama wanted to talk to Lily. Joseph and Dannie, all ears, sat on the sofa until Papa shooed them to bed.

Lily ran the hem of her apron through her fingers while she waited for Mama to tuck Paul into bed. Papa and Mama sat on the sofa, sad looks on their kind faces. Lily felt like shouting, “But I didn't do it!” Instead, she waited quietly to hear what they had to say.

“Explain to us how you happened to end up with Lavina's sandwich in your lunch box today,” Papa said.

“I don't know,” Lily said. “It was in my lunch box and I thought it was mine. And my sandwich was in her lunch box.”

“Those sandwiches didn't change places by themselves,” Papa said.

A tear trickled down Lily's cheek. Papa and Mama didn't seem to believe her. It wasn't fair!

“Don't cry, Lily,” Mama said, wiping away her tear. “Just make sure it doesn't happen again.”

But that was the problem! How could Lily make sure it didn't happen again when she didn't know how it happened in the first place?