Misdirected (3 page)

 

 

Chapter 4

Lying is Apparently a Godly Thing To Do

The first day in a new school pretty much sucks no matter what. All the kids are a combination of excited about seeing their old friends and nervous about the school year. No one is really interested in making a new friend. They're too busy seeing who got taller, who grew boobs, and who got their braces off.

At least, that's what would have happened at my old school. In this place, about ten kids come right up to me and introduce themselves before classes even start. Nine out of ten of them ask me what church I'll be attending. I shake off the question by saying, “Oh, I'm not sure yet.”

I was able to throw most of them off the scent but this group of guys, Kenny, Stan, and Arty, asked me if I wanted to try out their church. And I said, “Sure. Thanks!” putting on my best
Jesus is great
face. I figure it's a good idea not to totally alienate myself. Church is boring but if that's what people are into here, then maybe I can suck it up. On the upside I have plans for the weekend.

Wow. My big weekend plans have become church. Back home I'd have had a movie marathon with Seth and Margaret.

I choose a seat in the back of class for homeroom. We go through the normal routine. We say the Pledge of Allegiance. I stop speaking when the “under god” part comes around. We talk about rules. They go through the morning prayer. I sort of mumble my way through it all, pretending. If I went to a public school, I wouldn't have to pretend. I'd get to go about my day without having to grovel in thanks every five minutes. I mean, my mom and dad gave me life. I don't high five them every half hour for that.

As I go from class to class, I start noticing all the differences between my old school and this one. School uniforms are required in both. In Massachusetts a bunch of the girls would roll their skirts up to show as much leg as possible without getting in trouble. Here, still skirts but no extra leg. Kind of a bummer. Also, I haven't heard a single curse word. Instead of saying,
Oh my god
, they say
Oh my gosh
. And
dang
instead of
damn
. Thinking on it, I say
goddamn
,
Jesus Christ
, and
oh my god
all the time.

By lunchtime, things change. People stop coming up to me to say hi. In fact, people are now looking at me as if I'm kind of weird. Angela sits a few tables over and when I wave hello, she gives a little wave back, and then proceeds to talk to her friends with great enthusiasm. Each of them turns to look back at me. Although they try to be sneaky about it, they totally fail.

Tess keeps her promise. She sees me sitting alone in the cafeteria, and instead of joining the group of friends waiting for her, she waves them off and takes a seat next to me.

“How is your first day going?”

“Not too bad. Everyone was oddly nice.”

“Was?”

“Well, this morning people seemed really into meeting me. Now people are just kind of looking at me strangely.”

“That's because everyone in school knows you're an atheist by now.”

“How?!”

“My big-mouthed sister.”

“Isn't gossip a sin or something?”

“Just because something is a sin doesn't mean people don't do it.”

“Great,” I say, sarcastically. “Well, I'm going to church with Kenny, Stan and Arty on Sunday. Maybe that will make people think I'm less sketchy.”

“That's the church almost all of us go to. It's going to be different than what you're used to.”

“I went to a Catholic school, remember?”

“People here pretty much think Catholics are full of it.”

“What's the difference? They all believe in Jesus.”

“There is a big difference.”

I'm not a big fan of how she's talking to me. Like there's a joke I'm not in on and she's just waiting to laugh at me. Maybe she feels my frustration, because then she says quickly, “So what's your family like? What are you into?”

“I've got an older sister at Sarah Lawrence College and an older brother stationed in Iraq.”

“You like magic,” she adds.

“Can't get enough of it. Would do it all day if I could.”

“Leave a girlfriend back home?” she asks point-blank.

“Just friends who are girls,” I say, smiling and a little embarrassed.

“Why are you an atheist?”

“Why are you religious?”

“How do you know I am?”

“Because your family seems to like you and you told me they don't talk to your brother because he isn't religious.”

“I could be faking.”

“Are you?”

“No, but I don't believe a lot of the same stuff as my family and friends.”

“You're Christian?”

“Of course.”

“Well, that's not an
of course
. There are lots of religions a person could be.”

“Not around here,” she mutters.

“And by the way, I don't go around calling myself an atheist. It's not like this big label I wear. It's not important.”

“It's important here.”

“All the more reason for me not to call myself one, right?”

“Are you ashamed of it?”

I think for a minute and then say, “My grandma was Hungarian.”

“What?” says Tess, looking at me strangely.

“On my dad's side, I'm Hungarian. I don't go around telling people I'm Hungarian. That doesn't mean I'm ashamed, does it?”

“Point taken.”

Tess looks at me with her head kind of turned, like she's thinking about something but she's not sure she wants to tell me. “Is it ever scary?” she asks, finally.

“What?”

“Being out there alone. I mean, I'm never alone. It's impossible for me to be alone. But you, if you don't believe in God, then no one is watching out for you.”

“My parents and my brother and sister and my friends back home. They care.”

“They don't know your every thought. They didn't create you.”

“I find it more comforting that my parents don't know my every thought. As for creating me, my fifth grade Sex Ed class says that they did.”

Tess's face goes red. “That's not what I meant,” she says, smiling.

She takes out a sandwich and some carrot sticks. She offers me some and I grab a few carrots and dip them in the extra peanut butter globbed on my sandwich.

“That's gross,” she says.

“Try it.”

She takes a carrot and rubs it across the bread and eats it.

“Not bad actually.”

She takes a few more bites and asks me about Boston, about Catholic school and about magic. She talks a lot more than I'm used to. Even Margaret usually just listened to Seth and me BS most of the time.

I can't really figure out if Tess is just being nice or if she's flirting with me. I'm not even really sure what I would do if she were flirting. How does a guy flirt back?

Wow. I'm pretty sure asking that question makes me pathetic.

Before I have time to figure out what's happening, a cute girl with huge, curly, red hair walks over, stands a few feet away and points to her watch. Tess waves for her to come closer.

“Beth, this is Ben. He's new here.”

“Hi,” I say.

“Nice to meet you,” she says. “Tess, I need to talk to you.”

Tess looks at me.

“It's cool,” I say. “I'll look for you later.”

“I bet you will,” Tess says, laughing. But it wasn't a flirty laugh. It sounded more like a
you're royally screwed and you don't even know it yet
kind of laugh.

Tess and Beth walk away whispering to each other. When they get about fifteen feet from my table, Beth looks back at me and giggles. I'm pretty sure it's a bad sign when girls just look at you and laugh.

I sit in the cafeteria for the rest of the lunch period by myself. If I were at my old school, Seth and Margaret and I would all be trading food and laughing about some stupid thing that happened the night before. I wouldn't be alone watching everyone stare at me. I'd have friends. Plural.

I go through the next few periods smiling at everyone who looks at me to show that I'm not Satan. By the end of the day my face hurts. Now that I've got a plan to go to church with the guys on Sunday, I have an answer to the inevitable church question, and maybe people will stop looking at me and whispering. I've met a lot of people, but the only real conversation I've had is with Tess.

The last period of the day is a welcome assembly. The teacher doesn't even say what it's for. She just tells us to go to the auditorium. I sit toward the back in an empty row of seats. Nearly everyone else is as close to the stage as they can get. All except me and one other kid who sits in the row behind me and a few seats to the left. I feel him looking at me. He doesn't say anything so I ignore him.

This guy in jeans and a button-down shirt goes on stage with a microphone and all the students cheer. Clapping, whooping, big loud cheering.

“Welcome back Christian Heritage Academy!”

A louder cheer blasts from every mouth around me. It's like a pep rally, only there's no football team.

“For those of you who don't know, I'm Frank Howard, your school voice to spread the word of our Lord Jesus Christ. I hope you all had a great summer. I heard some of you were counselors at your church Bible camps. Good for you. Helping spread the word to younger kids and setting a good example. Seriously, clap for yourselves!”

The students clap again, and I can't help but think that kids in my town would be laughed at for going to church camp. I always thought that was kind of stupid, making fun of kids just for going to camp, but clapping like it's the coolest thing in the world makes me laugh a little. This Frank guy looks at me, smiles, and carries on.

“Today, I want to talk about the summer, and about something all of us faced. Temptation. The desire to do bad things even though we know those things go against the teachings of Jesus Christ. Who here has been tempted? That's it. Raise your hands.”

Hands go up everywhere. Even Frank's hand goes in the air.

“If you didn't raise your hand, you're lying. That's right. All of us face temptation. And sometimes we fail. We choose the wrong thing. We're human. Not a single one of us is righteous. Now, I'm guessing that all of you, yes I said all, have sinned during your time away this summer. You may not do it in front of your parents, or your friends, but when you turn your eye inward, and look at yourself, you know. You don't have to tell me about it. You know. And God knows. Whether it's indulging in lustful thoughts, greed, swearing, or any other sin, God knows what you did. And you know what? He loves you anyway. He knows that humanity is diseased and He died so that we might rise from our sins and be saved. Now, was anyone here saved this summer?”

A few hands go up.

“That's right!” he says to those hands. “You may fail sometimes, but now that you're saved, God is here to catch you. Anyone want to come up and tell us about it?”

A girl toward the back stands and approaches the stage. The other students cheer her on. I think I'm the only person in the room who has no idea what's going on.
Saved
?

The girl walks up to Frank and he hands her the microphone.

“Hey everyone. For my entire life I've wanted to feel the Holy Spirit and be saved. All of my friends had gone through it and I could tell my family was getting nervous that it hadn't happened yet. I loved church, but I had questions and doubts. That was until July when my family and I went to church and the preacher was speaking words that felt like they were coming from God himself. I opened myself and let the words in and then it happened. I found Him.”

Students all around stand up and cheer.

“It felt like I was connected to the world, to Jesus and all the reasons He died to save us. All my doubts were gone. I just felt so thankful. I thought my heart was going to explode. And I knew the Holy Spirit had come to me.”

She smiles while the other students continue to cheer, and hands the microphone back to Frank.

“Thank you, Laura,” says Frank. “That's what I'm talking about, people. Letting Christ's love into your heart. You can't just expect it to show up. If you have a party and don't invite anyone, do you think anyone is going to come? No! You have to send the invitations, ask people to visit. Same with Christ. He needs to know you're ready for Him. That you know He died so that you might be saved and then, only then, will you feel the wondrous feeling that Laura described. Only then will you truly be saved. Let's all pray to God that those of us who may not have been saved yet will be able to open themselves to the Holy Spirit soon.”

I'll admit, at this point, I'm freaking out. I want to raise my hand and ask,
What the hell does getting saved mean?
But that would point out that I don't fit in here at all. I have that awful feeling in my stomach, like when you're at a party and no one talks to you. As Emily would say,
it's like being the only vegan at a pig roast.

Frank talks for a while more about being saved and about the importance of loving Jesus. I clap when other people clap, but all I want to do is go home. Catholic school was nothing like this. Kids there barely talked about god.

“Now a bit of housekeeping,” says Frank. “I want us to do some brainstorming. It's day one and everyone is excited to be here with their friends. It would be so easy to go about our daily lives, enjoying all that we have. Of course, we have to recognize that not everyone has all the joy we have. Not everyone is as fortunate as we are. That's right. It's time to start throwing out ideas for our fall service projects. Let's help people and spread the word of the Lord. I know you've all been thinking about it, so who wants to come up here first and share their ideas?”