Once they had all put their papers into the bowl, Katie drew them out one by one and mercilessly read them aloud to the group. Everyone tried to guess to whom the incident happened.
Janelle laughed the longest and hardest of anyone, especially about her own. Hers was from junior high when she dressed in a hurry after P.E. one day and forgot to put on her skirt. She felt as though she were dressed because of her half-slip. Hurrying out of the girls’ locker room, she ran past the entire guys’ P.E. class, and got all the way to her English class and into her seat before the guy next to her said, “Hey, did you forget something?” Then she had to run all the way back to the girls’ gym to get her skirt.
Christy turned several shades of red when hers came up. “It has to be Christy’s,” Brittany said. “Look how embarrassed she is just listening to Katie read it.”
“That must’ve been awful,” Katie said, “ending up on the beach in front of all those guys!”
“It was!” Christy agreed. “But the good part was that’s how I met Todd.”
“Ooooh!” the girls all teased. “Tell us about Todd!”
“First let’s finish this game,” one of the girls urged.
The next one Katie read was her own. Everyone guessed it before she finished reading. Her most embarrassing moment was when she tried out for mascot the year before. Her shorts ripped in the back, right in front of the judges. She didn’t know it and kept right on going, finishing the whole routine with her bright pink underwear flapping in the breeze.
“I need a new most embarrassing moment,” Katie moaned. “You guys already know my life story!”
Of all the stories, Christy thought Brittany’s was the most embarrassing. She wrote that at a pool party last summer at her house she dove into the pool, and her bikini top came off. She treaded water in the corner of the deep end while Janelle tried to get it. But the strings got tangled in the pool filter, and Brittany’s dad had to retrieve the top.
“It was the worst!” Janelle said.
“Were there any guys at the party?” someone asked.
“Yes!” Brittany said. “Only about eight of the cutest guys in the whole world!”
“Was Kurt there?” Katie asked.
“Please don’t ever mention that name around me again!” Brittany said dramatically. “Kurt is a jerk,” Janelle added.
“Wait a minute,” Katie said. “I thought you two were still together.”
“No way! We broke up before school even started.”
“Okay, okay! So I’m a bit behind on the latest romance scandals around here. I’ll have to renew my subscription to the Kelley High Tattler.”
The girls all laughed, and the game seemed to have officially ended. For the next hour or so they munched on the snack food as half a dozen conversations whirled around Christy. She sat quietly sucking the sugar coating off the peanut M&M in her mouth.
Had these girls really accepted her? Was she part of their group now? She felt like it, even though the things they talked about were more intense than what she and Paula would talk about. A few of these girls dressed as though they were twenty instead of fifteen. Several of them had fashionable, mature-looking hairstyles and wore excessively wild makeup. Christy’s parents had agreed to let Christy use some of the makeup Aunt Marti bought her last summer. Their only rule was, “If we can tell you have makeup on, you’re wearing too much.” So far there had been no problems.
“Come here, you guys,” Katie called from the kitchen. “Janelle’s calling Rick!”
“Is your refrigerator running?” Janelle disguised her voice over the phone. “Then you’d better go catch it!”
She clicked the receiver down and broke into a burst of her wild laughter. “He’s home all right! He asked if I was on drugs.”
“Janelle, you’re so crazy,” Katie said. “I can’t believe you did that! That has to be the oldest phone prank around.”
“Oh, come on, Katie. You just wish you were the one who called him instead of me.”
Who is this Rick, and why are they so crazy about him? Christy thought.
Shortly after midnight, Janelle announced they were ready to go. Christy followed the others as they piled into the back of Janelle’s parents’ motor home.
“I can’t believe your mom agreed to drive us,” Christy whispered to Janelle.
“She loves this. My mom did much worse stuff when she was a teenager. She thinks this is great.”
The motor home slowly drove past a big, Spanish-style house with a red tile roof and a long front yard with bushes to the side and two birch trees by the street.
“That’s it,” Janelle whispered. “Park down the street, Mom.”
Christy followed the rest of the girls as they quietly hopped out of the side door of the motor home. They ran like timid deer to Rick’s front yard, with the rolls of toilet paper stashed under their shirts. She watched the other girls unwind their t.p., draping it over the bushes, throwing it into the big tree, and waiting for it to come down on the other side.
Slowly, cautiously, Christy unrolled her t.p. in a long line over the top of the bushes along the side of the yard. She spotted Janelle in the shadows, tiptoeing to the front of the house, where she bravely zigzagged the paper across the front door.
Another girl tied a precarious bow onto the mailbox. With hushed whispers the girls completed their task. Then Katie and Janelle slipped around the side of the house to what Janelle insisted was Rick’s bedroom window. They tried to weave the t.p. across his window. It wasn’t working very well, and they hoarsely squabbled over what they were doing wrong.
All of a sudden the bedroom light flicked on. Katie screamed. Then Janelle screamed. Then they ran. Their terror set off a chain reaction among the group waiting in the front yard. Girls started running in every direction. In her panic, Christy ran behind some bushes and hid.
Then two things happened. First, the porch light snapped on, and a tall man in pajamas swung the door open, sliced through a spider web of toilet paper, and charged into the darkness with a baseball bat.
At the same time, to Christy’s horror, she saw the motor home zooming past the house with all the shrieking girls inside.
They left me! No one told me to run instead of hide. What am I going to do? Christy thought hysterically.
“Rick!” the tall man bellowed from the front door. “Come see what your fan club left you.”
A tall, broad-shouldered guy with thick, curly brown hair appeared in the doorway wearing flannel shorts and a T-shirt.
“Not again!” he moaned.
“They’re getting pretty brash, Rick. Your mother woke me up and said she heard a burglar outside our bedroom window.”
“Can I clean it up in the morning, Dad?”
“Nope. Do it now,” the man said.
Then they both disappeared into the house.
What am I going to do? Christy panted behind the bushes. Should I run? Where would I go? I don’t know where I am. Should I try to find a phone? Who would I call? I don’t know Janelle’s number. And right now I’d rather die than call my mother to come get me.
Christy rose from her crouched position to see if the noise she heard could possibly be the motor home returning. It wasn’t. It was the automatic garage door opener on Rick’s garage door. He was coming out!
Christy ducked back in her hiding spot. What am I going to do? What am I going to do?
Rick began pulling the long strands of toilet paper from the tree and stuffing them into a garbage bag. He made his way all around the tree and then started for the bushes.
He’s heading this way! What am I going to do? Christy’s teeth chattered. She shivered uncontrollably, not from the cool night but from sheer terror. Rick now stood directly over her, briskly pulling the t.p. from the bushes.
She couldn’t stand the suspense any longer. Without thinking, she gave in to the adrenaline pumping through her veins and popped up like a jack-in-the-box.
“Hi!” she squeaked.
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“Ahhhhhh!” Rick dropped the bag of trash and stumbled backward. Quickly gaining his composure, he strained to see Christy’s face, “Hey, who are you? What are you doing in there?”
Christy felt numbed by the bizarreness of the situation.
“Bye!” she squealed and took off running. She ran and ran and kept on running as fast as she could, with absolutely no idea where she was or where she was going.
The worst part was, Rick ran after her. “Wait! Stop! Come back!” he called.
But Christy kept running down the middle of the dark street. A car turned the corner and headed toward her. She moved closer to the sidewalk and kept running.
“Stop, will you!” Rick yelled. But his voice was drowned by the persistent honking of the car coming toward them. The lights began to flash, and Christy realized it was the motor home.
It slowed down, and Katie threw open the front passenger door. “Get in!”
In one awkward, flying leap, Christy threw herself into the front seat. As the motor home sped up, all the girls in the back pressed their faces against the windows, yelling and whistling at Rick.
Katie and Janelle shrieked with laughter in the front seat. “What in the world happened, Christy? Why was he chasing you?”
“Are you all right?” Janelle’s mom asked.
Christy panted and rolled down the window for some air. The sweat dripped from her forehead and down the back of her neck. She had never felt so out of control. All she could do was laugh. A frantic, relieved, deep-chested laugh.
“Yes,” she panted, “I’m all right.”
The girls in the back all pushed into the opening to the cab and fired questions at her nonstop. “What happened?”
“Why was Rick chasing you?”
“What did you do?”
“I can’t believe this!” Janelle squawked. “What happened, Christy? We didn’t even know you were missing until we almost got all the way home. Everybody was talking and laughing, and then Katie said, ‘Where’s Christy?’ and everybody freaked! Then, before we even got back to Rick’s block …”
Katie finished the sentence. “… there you were running down the middle of the street at one o’clock in the morning with Rick Doyle chasing you!”
Christy took another gulp of air and began to explain. “I didn’t know you were supposed to run! When the light went on, I hid in the bushes. Then you guys left, and I couldn’t move because Rick and his dad were standing right there.”
“You’re kidding! Then what happened?”
“I was going to try to sneak away, but Rick started cleaning up the toilet paper. When he came over to the bushes where I was hiding, I panicked.”
“What did you do?”
“I-I …” Christy paused. “I can’t believe I did this! It was so stupid!”
“What?” they all yelled.
“I stood up and said, ‘Hi!’ ”
The whole group broke into uncontrollable laughter.
“I really scared him too,” Christy went on. “And then I got so scared I started to run. He ran after me, and that’s when you guys showed up.”
“Did he know who you were?”
“No, it was too dark. Besides, he’s never seen me before. When he was running after me he kept yelling, ‘Stop! Who are you?’ ”
“Does this sound like Cinderella or what?” Katie teased. They all fell into another round of riotous laughter.
“I can see him at school on Monday,” Katie joked. “Rick will be trying the cardboard toilet paper tube on the foot of every maiden in the kingdom!”
Christy felt herself blushing as they teased. She wasn’t used to being the center of attention, but she loved it. They treated her as though she were some kind of heroine. Her escapade served as the highlight for the rest of the night. Katie said it was a tale that would probably be passed on for generations.
By three o’clock in the morning all conversation had subsided on the living room floor. Katie and Janelle were stealing one of the girls’ underwear from her overnight bag and giggling at their plans to freeze the bra.
In the darkness, Christy crept to the bathroom and opened the unlocked door. Only a night-light was on, but in the dim light, to her surprise, she saw Brittany kneeling over the toilet, throwing up.
“Brittany?” Christy whispered. “Are you okay?”
“Oh, yeah. I’m okay.” Brittany rose to her feet and flushed the toilet, but the vile smell lingered in the air.
“Do you want me to see if Janelle has something for upset stomachs?” Christy asked, holding her breath. It always made her feel like throwing up whenever she heard someone else doing it or when she smelled it.
“No! No!” Brittany whispered urgently. “I’m fine.”
“I’ll go use the other bathroom,” Christy offered and slipped down the hallway to the kitchen, where Janelle and Katie stood by the freezer. “I think Brittany might need some 7-Up or something. She was throwing up in the bathroom.”
“See! I told you,” Katie whispered to Janelle. “She’s anorexic.”
“Anorexics starve themselves. I see her eating all the time. Didn’t you see her eating all those brownies tonight?”
“Then she’s the other thing,” Katie accused. “Bohemia, or whatever—when they eat everything and then throw it all up.”
“It’s bulimia, Katie, and you can’t prove that.”
“I just think it’s strange that she lost, like, twenty pounds this summer.”
“She had a boyfriend,” Janelle countered. “Kurt told her when they started going out that he liked skinny girls, so she shed a few pounds. What’s strange about that? Now that they broke up, she’ll probably gain it all back.”
Christy felt completely left out of their conversation. When Katie and Janelle talked, their sentences almost overlapped each other because they were both so quick to answer the other.
“Well, I thought I should tell you in case she needs something later,” Christy said.
“Okay, thanks,” Janelle said.
Christy quickly used the other bathroom and returned to her sleeping bag. Brittany had moved her bag next to Christy’s and lay stretched out, still awake. “So, tell me about your boyfriend, Todd.”
Christy slipped her legs into her sleeping bag and asked softly, “Are you okay?”
“Of course. I’m fine. Are you and Todd still going together?”
“We never were really going together or anything,” Christy explained. “We just spent a lot of time together this summer and got to know each other pretty well.”
“Were you guys, you know, really close?” Brittany asked.
“Yes,” Christy said with a sigh. “I really miss him.”
“How involved were you?”
“Involved? What do you mean?”
“You know, like kissing and stuff.”
“Well, he kissed me good-bye the day I left and gave me a bouquet of carnations,” Christy said proudly.
“That’s it? One kiss? I thought you said you were really close.” Brittany fluffed up her pillow and rolled onto her stomach.
“We were close. At least I felt close to him—sometimes.” Christy thought back on their roller-coaster relationship. “I guess I felt so close to Todd because he’s the one who really helped me become a Christian.”
“You’re a Christian?” Katie asked, overhearing them and pulling her sleeping bag over to join them.
“Yes,” Christy said. “Are you?”
“Yes! So is Janelle.” Katie called out softly across the room. “Hey, Janelle. You still awake?”
“Yeah.” Janelle sat up in her sleeping bag across the living room floor. “What is it?”
“Christy just said she’s a Christian! Isn’t that great?”
Janelle flopped her head back down onto her pillow. “That’s great,” she mumbled.
Christy felt a little embarrassed that Katie had just announced to the whole room that she was a Christian.
“This summer I
went to Hume Lake with Janelle and her church youth group,” Katie said. “Hume is a fantastic camp. You’ll have to go with us next summer. I loved it! On Wednesday night the speaker talked about how God loves us and wants us to be part of His family. I told my counselor that my life was too messed up, and I could never be good enough to be a Christian. She told me how it wasn’t based on anything I could do; it was a matter of whether or not I wanted to accept God’s free gift.”
Christy enjoyed watching Katie’s animation as she talked. It was as if her mouth wouldn’t be able to move unless her hands were somehow in motion.
“That night I prayed and asked the Lord to come into my heart and make me into a brand-new person. And He did! I feel as though I’ve started my life all over again. I can’t believe how great it is being a Christian!”
“It’s pretty great,” Christy agreed. “But I don’t know if my life has really changed all that much.”
“Oh, mine has. My life was a mess. It still is—I mean my family is all messed up. But I don’t feel all that agony inside anymore. I feel as though I’m part of God’s family. He really, truly is like a father to me. For me, it was as if my heart melted when I asked Christ to come inside and pick up the pieces. I don’t think I’d want my life to continue if God wasn’t in it.”
“Wow,” Christy said softly. “I wish I felt that close to God. I know He’s in my life, and I know He’s interested and everything, but I don’t really feel as if He’s that involved. Do you know what I mean?”
“I’m not sure.” Katie thought for a minute and then said, “You know, a couple of Sundays ago the pastor at church said that if you want to grow as a Christian, you have to let the Lord into every area of your life. Otherwise, it’s like inviting someone into your house and making him stand in the corner the whole time. If you never invite him to sit down or eat with you or do any of the things you’d do with a real friend, then you’ll never get to know him.”
Hmm. I wonder if Jesus is just standing inside my life, or if He’s really free to move into every area? Everything is going pretty well right now. I guess He must be in there doing something to make everything work out so well.