Storm (7 page)

“Well … when you put it like that … yeah!”

“Best idea I’ve heard in a long time,” Tim added, and Bethany laughed.

Sarah suddenly appeared on the beach with sunglasses, a huge straw hat, and a stack of forms on her clipboard. She called everyone together.

“Okay you guys! Here is the objective—should you choose to take it—ride as many waves as you can in an hour’s time. You will have to count the waves yourselves, so be honest. When you are done, report the number to me. I will fill out your sponsor sheets, and you can collect your money. I know that some of you were given pledges already, and we have all that tracked. So go on out and have a great time!”

With that, she blew a whistle, and Bethany, the Hanalei girls, and the rest of their youth group grabbed up their inflatables and ran into the surf.

It was a sight to see. And that’s putting it mildly.

Visitors and locals alike cracked up over the comic menagerie of inflatable animals hurtling down the face of the waves, and in some cases they were so out of control that they mowed down anyone in their path.

Air mattresses—not meant for dropping down the face of a wave—pitched many of their laughing riders off into the cushion of white water.

Wave after wave, the white water washed in a bizarre array of floating pool toys with teenagers barely hanging on. At the shore, the riders picked up their beasts and ran back for another round.

At the end of the hour Sarah blew her whistle, and the crowd came in laughing and telling stories of wipeouts, crashes, and mow downs.

After the students reported to Sarah the number of waves caught, they attacked their ice chests and waited for the results.

A few minutes later, Sarah gathered the group around her. “Okay, great job, guys! We had people sponsor rides for a quarter a ride up to five bucks a ride. But we had one sponsor in particular”—and here she glanced over at Bethany and Holly — “who has made it possible for us to go on our trip without any more fundraisers.”

Bethany and Holly high-fived each other as the youth group hooted and cheered around them.

“It’s like a miracle,” Monica said to no one in particular.

“These folks sponsored Bethany and Holly for one ride only,” Sarah went on with a big smile. The noise died down as everyone, especially Bethany and Holly, suddenly looked at Sarah in confusion.

“They put down $2,500 for each girl’s first wave! We made it gang! We’re going to Mexico!”

Cheers broke out again, and kids slapped each other on the back—all except for Bethany and Holly, who were looking at each other dumbfounded.

“You know something I don’t know?” Bethany asked, and Holly shook her head.

“I know I didn’t have sponsorship like
that!”

“Me either. Something’s gotta be wrong,” Bethany said. And they both turned to see Sarah’s beaming face.

“You two were sponsored by someone who feels like they owe you a lot more than that for what you did for them.”

The girls looked at each other, still puzzled.

“Forgotten your little Hanakapiai adventure so soon?” Sarah prodded.

“I don’t get it,” Bethany said. Holly’s look mirrored hers.

“The folks you helped off the mountain wanted to say thank you,” Sarah explained finally. “They had to go home already, but they left a couple letters for you.”

With that, Sarah handed the girls two thank-you notes from Andrea and Susan.

“No way!” Bethany said, looking down at the thick envelope in her hand. She thought of the winding trail that had led her to this moment. She was overwhelmed; no way could she have mapped out something like this. She glanced up at Holly, tears in her eyes.

“You never know how God is going to work it all out,” Bethany said softly, almost to herself, and then shook her head in wonder.

“And sometimes you don’t see the clues he left until the end of the mystery,” Holly said with a smile. “We sure didn’t see this coming!”

“But you were both faithful and listened to him lead you,” Sarah added.

“It makes me wonder where he is going to lead us next!” Bethany exclaimed. “I have a feeling our ‘mystery’ isn’t over yet!”

Bethany dug her toes into the sand as she and Holly watched the small waves roll onto the beach. The forecasted swell hadn’t materialized to nearly the size that was promised, but it had been a fun day of surfing anyway, and neither of them felt like packing it in just yet. At least Bethany didn’t. She took in a deep breath, smelling sun and salt.

There was something about the ocean, the sound of the crashing waves, the breeze—no matter where she was, it always drew her back. Kind of like a favorite song she never got tired of hearing.

Bethany smiled.

Like that Switchfoot song she and Holly sang at the top of their lungs along Hanakapiai Trail. They had totally wrecked the song, but at least it had caught Andrea’s attention. She shook her head at the memory, and then an idea suddenly hit her.

“Wanna try something new?” she asked out of the blue, and then grinned as Holly narrowed her green eyes at her, already suspicious.

“Like what? You’ve almost killed me twice now with those new ideas of yours.”

Bethany laughed.

“All right, so what’s your idea of fun today?” Holly asked in spite of herself.

“Switch foot,” Bethany said as she grabbed up her board and headed for the water.

“The band?” Holly asked, grabbing her own board as she hurried to catch up.

“No, silly! Doing what the band is named for; switching feet. We’ll surf the opposite of our normal way.” As if to make her point, she quickly bent over and strapped her leash onto her right ankle.

“I’m probably going to regret this,” Holly said, strapping her leash onto her left ankle.

“Maybe, but no switching back,” Bethany grinned. “Deal?”

“Deal!”

The girls plunged into the warm water and paddled through the foam, past the impact zone, to the deep, clear water.

“Seems like a long wait between set waves,” Bethany said as they bobbed on their surfboards, looking for a discolored line in the horizon.

“There it is!” Holly said, gearing up for the approaching wave.

Digging in with her powerful right arm, Bethany was first out, easily catching the small wave. Then she found herself wobbling a little as she got to her feet and tried to plant her right foot over the
tail of the surfboard. The micro-second delay in timing caused her to flounder behind a cascade of white water, and the section of the wave she would have normally conquered broke in front of her.

Bethany laughed and kicked her board away as she tossed herself backwards into the white water.

Holly caught the next wave and immediately fumbled at the takeoff point as she tried to get her footing. The nose of the board dug under the water and flipped her headfirst off the board. Bethany could hear Holly laughing as she paddled towards her at the lineup.

“I couldn’t even make the section!” Bethany grinned as she swiped her hair out of her eyes.

“I pearled up to my neck and went over the falls!” Holly laughed breathlessly. “It’s a good thing we’re leaving for Mexico soon, so I can hide out there with my wounded ego.”

“Oh, there’s not gonna be any hiding—we have houses to build!” Bethany wagged her finger at Holly and then paddled back out to catch another wave.

Wave after wave, the pair struggled to master surfing with a switch-foot stance. They took more than their fair share of drubbings in the white water, but by the end of the session, both Bethany and Holly had become fairly good at charging waves wrong foot forward. And both stuck to their agreement not to change back—even though
they drooled over some beautiful little tubes that popped up while they practiced their new stance.

“One more and we’ve gotta go!” Bethany called out finally. “Tim will be here soon, and you know how he loves to wait!”

Both girls quickly grabbed the first small waves that came along and rode them all the way to the beach.

“Whose crazy idea was that?” Bethany laughed breathlessly.

“Actually, it was kind of fun after a while,” Holly admitted. “But the first few waves were
brutal!”

“I wouldn’t have suggested it if the waves were good,” Bethany said.

“I wouldn’t have agreed if the waves were good!” Holly countered, and they both laughed.

Bethany let the cool water wash away the salt from her hair as she stood under the outdoor shower at the beach park and listened to Holly slaughter another favorite song of theirs in the stall next to her.

No way am I joining in on that, she thought with a grin. My luck, Tim would show up and have a tape recorder on him.

The singing suddenly stopped, and she heard Holly turn the water off in her stall.

“Bethany?”

“Um, yeah?”

“I was just thinking. Surfing switch foot … is that how you felt right after the shark attack? Like
your body was used to one way and then had to learn another entirely different way?”

Bethany glanced at the wall between them, caught off guard by Holly’s question. “You know, I never really thought about it like that, but yeah, that is kind of how I felt.”

They both dressed quickly and met each other outside. Holly smiled shyly at Bethany. “Sorry for being nosy, but I was just wondering if you ever felt that way now?”

“You’re not nosy, you’re Holly!” Bethany joked, trying to make light of the question, and — if she was going to be honest — kind of avoiding the answer. Truth was, Holly had asked something that had been in the back of her mind a lot lately.

God guiding her and giving her strength like he did on Hanakapiai Trail had made her feel a lot better about things. God seemed to give her what she needed when she needed it. But there were times when something would come up to painfully remind her that she had lost her arm … and she would wonder again why it had to happen.

Bethany raised her eyes to meet Holly’s. “Yeah, I guess there are times when I still feel that way,” she admitted a little reluctantly. The understanding and friendship she saw in Holly’s eyes helped her to go on. “I guess I’ve thought about it even more since we found out we’re going to Mexico soon.”

“But I thought you couldn’t wait to go!”

“I started thinking about how cool it would be to go on a mission trip with Sarah and the youth group way before I lost my arm,” Bethany said as they walked over to a park bench and sat down.

Holly looked at her, confused.

Bethany managed a small smile. “So, it hits me right after the surf-a-thon that we’re really going to Mexico … and I start thinking of how much more I could do down there if I hadn’t lost my arm.”

Holly nodded and then frowned. “It’s kind of weird that you would be thinking this stuff right after all the cool stuff God did through you on Hanakapiai Trail, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, I thought about that too.”

“I know it’s got to be hard,” Holly said. “I mean, I don’t get why it happened to you. I see lots of people that are real jerks and they get good jobs, lots of money, handsome boyfriends—all that stuff. Then I think about you, and I wonder why.”

“Are you saying I’m not a jerk?” Bethany laughed and then sobered a little. “I wondered why too. But my dad helped me with that.”

“What did he say?”

“He said I might not understand the answer even if God gave it to me.”

“I don’t get it.”

“He said it’s kind of like when parents take their baby to the doctor to get a shot. The baby is totally freaked out and doesn’t understand why her mom or dad is holding her down for the scary
doctor to put a sharp needle in her leg or arm. Because the baby is too little to understand, she can’t see the love in her parents’ actions. She wonders why they are putting her through it. And even if they told her about viruses, bacteria, and all that, she still wouldn’t understand.”

“That makes sense,” Holly nodded. “I guess you just gotta have faith and trust God. Kind of like what you did on the trail; letting him be strong when you felt weak.”

“Exactly.”

“But that doesn’t mean it’s easy.”

“You got it.”

“Do you think life is always going to be this hard?” Holly said dramatically.

“Probably,” Bethany said.

Sleep didn’t come for awhile that night as Bethany lay in her bed thinking about her conversation with Holly—thinking about
all
that had happened in such a short period of time.

In spite of all her worries and insecurities, her stubbornness at times, and even her doubts, God had still spoken to her — used her to touch another life — and that amazed her more than anything she had ever known or seen. She glanced over at Andrea’s letter lying open next to her and smiled at the words that stood out like a beacon from the page:

Bethany curled her toes under Ginger’s warm body snuggled at the foot of the bed and looked around her room. Funny how after the dust had settled from the Hanakapiai Trail rescue and the surf-a-thon, she felt God was still talking to her through Sarah, Holly, and now this letter from Andrea …

The door of her bedroom suddenly opened, and Bethany sat up to see her mom and dad peeking in. Not their usual deal, but
okay
…