Point of No Return (42 page)

“Good for you. What do you think Jesus would do?”

As with so many situations they'd already encountered, Karen gave the standard answer: “I don't know. Would Jesus play for an orchestra? Would He use His talents like that? Y'know, we keep running into this same brick wall. ‘What would Jesus do?' ‘I don't know.' It's enough to drive me crazy. I didn't realize how ignorant I was about Jesus until now.”

Lucy took her glasses off and cleaned them with a napkin. “There's something else to consider. What if Mr. Laker is doing this to cover himself.”

Karen said she didn't understand.

“What if he's afraid you looked through the file? What if he's doing this to sort of bribe you to keep your mouth shut?” Lucy asked.

Karen's face fell. “I hadn't thought of that.”

Lucy said, “Just because he got you a place on the orchestra doesn't mean you should forget what you saw.”

Karen blushed. Whether she meant to or not, she
had
put the file out of her mind. She was ready to drop it. “Oh, Lucy,” she said in despair, “what
are
we going to do? If I blow the whistle now, I'll never get to play with the orchestra.”

“If you blow the whistle, some people will call you a tattletale,” Lucy added. “You could lose your position as president of the student council, too.”

Karen put her face in her hands. “What am I going to do?”

Lucy gently touched her arm. “Maybe it's time we went back to Mr. Whittaker and asked him about some of this stuff. He's the one who started this situation in the first place. He might have some answers.”

Karen agreed. “Let's go after school.”

Heather Carr caught Karen just as she was headed out the door after school.

“I've been looking for you,” Heather said. They were best friends, though Karen hadn't seen her since the “pledge.”

“Hi, Heather. Sorry, but I have to go. I'm late.” Karen was in a rush to get to Whit's End. She was meeting Lucy there. She had also bumped into Jack, Oscar, and Matt earlier in the hall and they agreed they'd go to Whit's End for a few answers of their own.

“A bunch of us are going to the mall,” Heather said. She sounded annoyed. “Do you want to come with us?”

Karen replied, “I can't. I have a meeting.”

“With who?
Lucy
?” The accusation was unmistakable.

“Yeah, with Lucy. Why?”

“It just seems like you've been hanging out with her a lot. You don't have time left for your
old
friends—like me,” Heather said testily.

“Cut it out, Heather.” Karen didn't have the patience for this encounter, but she wanted to explain anyway. “Weren't you in church last Sunday?”

“No. I was out of town, remember? I told you we were going to my grandmother's.”

“I forgot. Sorry. Anyway, some of us made a commitment to do everything the way Jesus would do it and it's…complicated things.”

“I heard all about your complications,” Heather countered. “And I heard that you were offered to play oboe for the orchestra. Thanks for telling me yourself. Do you know how embarrassing it is to learn that your
best friend
had something exciting happen and didn't tell you? But now that you're part of this holier-than-thou club, I guess it's too much to expect.”

Karen grimaced. “I'm sorry, Heather. I was going to tell you myself, but I haven't seen you. Besides, I don't know that I'm going to do it.”

“Too good for the orchestra now?” Heather asked sharply.

“Give me a break. That's not it. Look, why don't you come with me to Whit's End? Then you can see what we're talking about.”

“No, thanks. I already told the rest of the girls I'd meet them at the mall. Jesus would want me to keep my commitments, wouldn't He?” She grinned sarcastically, turned away, and walked off.

“Heather, wait!” Karen called out. “You don't understand.”

Heather didn't look back or respond.

Karen grumbled under her breath, then remembered the many friends and family members that Jesus had lost due to misunderstanding. She made her way toward Whit's End.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

“S
O, WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE
to talk about?” Whit asked as he turned the sign on the front door of Whit's End so the “Closed—Be Back In Thirty Minutes” faced outside. He didn't want this meeting to be disturbed. “Well? Things aren't going the way you thought?”

The five of them—Lucy, Karen, Jack, Matt, and Oscar—looked at each other across the table where they had gathered. No one knew who should speak first.

Lucy cleared her throat, then said, “One of the biggest problems is that we don't know Jesus well enough to figure out what He'd do.”

Whit sat down at the table with them. “We said from the start that that might be a problem. We have to know Him to follow Him. But He didn't leave us high and dry. We have the Bible and the Holy Spirit.”

“It's not helping,” Matt complained. “We spent hours looking through the Bible last night and Oscar still got robbed by Joe Devlin.”

Whit turned to Oscar. “Do you want me to talk to Joe's parents?” he asked.

“No,” Oscar said. “It won't help. Unless you give me police protection 24 hours a day, Joe will get to me somehow.”

“Mr. Whittaker,” Karen said. “It might sound a little weird, but we don't want you to do
anything
about what we have to say. We just need you to listen and…give us some advice.”

He looked into the faces of the five kids, then nodded. “Okay. But I reserve the right to
advise
you to talk to your parents. Now, let's take this one at a time. Joe Devlin keeps picking on Oscar. What would Jesus do about that?”

“Hit Joe with lightning bolts from heaven,” Matt suggested.

“Hardly.”

Jack chimed in: “Jesus said to turn the other cheek and now Oscar's got some whacko idea to—” He hooked his thumb at Oscar. “You tell him, Oscar, and see what he thinks.”

Oscar explained to Whit that he should act like Jesus did before they crucified Him. “He didn't argue, He didn't fight back, so that's what I'm going to do with Joe. I'll keep my mouth shut and won't do anything.”

Whit stroked his mustache as if he was considering the idea. “For two thousand years people have tried to decide what Jesus meant by ‘turn the other cheek.' And for that same amount of time, kids have been dealing with bullies and wondering if what Jesus said applied to their situation. I've talked to some parents who say that the only way to lick a bully is to knock him flat.”

“Yeah!” Matt said.

“Other people think that fighting only begets more fighting until someone gets
really
hurt.” Whit gazed at Oscar. “Chances are, you couldn't knock Joe flat, right?”

“Nope,” Oscar replied.

“Then you should try your plan to see if it works. What have you got to lose?” Whit concluded.

“Is that it?” Jack asked. “
That's
how you figure out what Jesus would do?”

“Following Jesus doesn't mean you throw away your good sense, Jack,” said Whit. “You've studied your Bibles, you've explored what Jesus said, and now you're putting it into action. This is what Oscar believes he should do. It's
his
decision—not yours, or Matt's. God will honor what's in his heart.”

Both Jack and Matt slid down in their chairs and folded their arms. They didn't agree, but they kept their mouths shut.

Whit looked at Lucy. “How are you doing, Lucy?”

Lucy shrugged. “Okay, I guess. I didn't realize that this little experiment would make me feel so…so
alone
. I've got everybody on the
Owl'
s staff against me.”

“But you've got
God
for you,” Whit said. “And we're with you in this, too. To listen, to pray…”

“Yeah, I know. And I appreciate it.” Lucy hesitated, then asked, “Do you think Jesus ever felt alone?”

The kindness in Whit's eyes seemed to sparkle as he looked at Lucy. “I'm sure He did sometimes. In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus was probably the loneliest person in all of history. But He still said, ‘Thy will be done.' ”

Somewhere a clock ticked and one of the ice-cream freezers rattled and hummed.

“Karen?” Whit asked.

“It's lonely,” she said. “And people don't understand why we're doing this. They think we're trying to be better than everyone else.”

“Misunderstanding is part of it,” Whit said. “They misunderstood Jesus and they've misunderstood His followers for two thousand years. More often than not, we're perfectly understood and they
still
don't like what we stand for.”

“Isn't there something else you want to say, Karen?” asked Lucy.

“No. I don't have anything else right now,” she said.

Lucy looked surprised. “You don't?”

“No,” Karen said simply, then glanced away.

Whit observed the unspoken argument going on between the girls, then said as if to change the subject, “Would it help if we met like this more often? I get together with some of the adults who made the pledge every couple of days. Mostly we pray. Would you like to do that?”

Each of them mumbled their assent.

Whit chuckled to himself.
Their enthusiasm is breathtaking
, he thought.

“Let's spend a little bit of time in prayer, and then I need to open the shop again.”

They bowed their heads.

“What happened?” Lucy asked as they walked down the sidewalk away from Whit's End. “Why didn't you tell Mr. Whittaker about Mr. Laker?”

“I didn't need to. I know what I have to do,” Karen said.

“What?”

“The thing I was supposed to do all along.”

Lucy navigated a step in front of Karen and stood directly in her way. “
What
are you going to do?”

Karen spoke on the verge of tears. “Did you hear what he said about Jesus? He was all alone in the Garden of Gethsemane. He gave up everything He had—even His life—to do God's will. Why am I worried about playing for an orchestra? Why should I care if I'm president of the student council? ‘Thy will be done,' He said. Those words burned inside me.” Karen fought to hold back a sob. “I've known all along what I was supposed to do, but I was being a coward. I won't be one anymore.”

The dam of tears broke. Karen pushed past Lucy and ran down the sidewalk.

CHAPTER TWELVE

F
IRST THING THE NEXT MORNING
, Karen found herself pacing back and forth in front of Mr. Laker's office door. He walked in through the main door, dressed in a heavy coat and furry hat. He stopped suddenly when he saw her. “Hi, Karen. What are you doing here?”

“I need to talk to you, Mr. Laker.”

“About the orchestra,” he said as he shoved his key into the door lock. He pushed the door open. “Come in.”

She followed him in, her stomach churning nervously. Did Jesus feel this way when He confronted the Pharisees? Did He want to throw up when He stood before Pilate?

Mr. Laker hung his coat and hat on the coatrack. “Did you talk to your parents?”

“No, sir. Not yet,” she said and swallowed hard. Oh
why
didn't she talk to her parents first? She was afraid to, that's why. She thought her dad would make a federal case out of it. She imagined him calling the police and making her go to court and sit on the witness stand. This way, she could talk to Mr. Laker alone and maybe he'd confess and promise to make amends and then she could forget about the whole thing.

Mr. Laker watched Karen for a moment. “Why not?”

“Because I wanted to talk to you again first,” she said.

“Oh?”

“Yes, sir.” She paused, wishing she had a glass of water. “I'm sorry but I have to say no about the orchestra.”