throughout the sixth grade and into seventh, although I kept quiet about the letter to Miss Meyner. Looking back, I should've confessed to that too, but it would've made little difference. The outcome of my interactions with Nick and Aaron would've been the same.
School had just ended for the day when the Chronopod dropped us off. In one of the few entertaining moments of this whole time-traveling experience, the capsule appeared, disguised as a large tree, right in front of a solitary schoolboy that was wandering through the woods beyond the soccer field. His notebook dropped to the ground as he watched two grown men seemingly climb out of the trunk of some kind of magical tree. I've never before seen a child with eyes that large.
I activated my invisibility belt immediately; better to let the kid think he was just imagining things. But Doc actually walked over to the boy and crouched down beside him.
"No one will believe what you've seen here today," he said through his usual warm smile. "But let this be a lesson to you that just because no one witnesses an event does not mean that the event never occurred." He activated his belt as he finished the sentence, disappearing before the boy. The little guy nodded and ran off, clearly spooked by the whole thing.
"What was that about?" I asked. "I thought the Chronopod was designed to appear in areas where there were no people around."
Doc didn't seem bothered. "No technology is perfect."
"But what about that boy? What did you mean by that stuff you said?"
"He will understand when the time is right. Come, let's go."
We caught up with Herbie at his locker. He was stuffing books into his knapsack as fast as he could. When Nick and Aaron passed behind him in a cluster of students, he snatched his jacket, slammed his locker, and chased after them. He had to reach them before they separated to go to their respective buses. "Guys, wait up!" he called, struggling to catch up. They either didn't hear or ignored him. I can still remember the pain of those books banging against my back as I ran. "Aaron! Nick! Wait!"
Aaron looked over his shoulder and rolled his eyes when he saw Herbie. "Go away!" he shouted. "Or I'll beat the tar out of you!"
"No! Listen! I need to talk to you! I want to apologize!" There was a very specific place that he was told to shove his apologies. Outside, just as they reached Aaron's bus, Herbie jumped in front of them. "Stop!" he exclaimed. "I want to be friends again. I'm sorry that I've been a jerk. I want to fix it!"
Aaron stood toe to toe with him. "There's no fixing it, Herbert. Don't you get it? We don't want to be friends with you. We don't like you. We have better friends now. You're not even in our league anymore!"
"But . . . " Herbie trailed off. "But we had so much fun together."
Aaron looked at him like he had three heads. "Fun? We never had fun with you! You never did anything we were interested in! You always wanted to invent stupid games like tagball when we just wanted to play kickball!" For a moment, I swore I saw a flash of recognition in Nick's face. It was as though he had just figured out the answer to some grand mystery. Perhaps one involving a math teacher. But then it was gone, just as quickly as it had appeared.
Herbie wanted to argue, but that wouldn't have been in the spirit of humility or forgiveness. "You're right," he said. "I'm sorry. I treated you both poorly and I admit it. Would you please forgive me?"
"How is it possible that you're not understanding this?" Aaron screamed. A crowd was beginning to form. It was an uncomfortably familiar scene. Herbie started backing away, but Aaron gave no space between them. "Are you really going to make me beat some sense into you?"
Nick was grinning. Both of his little hands were balled into fists. "We won't go easy on you, Herbert. Just get out of here, now!"
I'd be a big fat liar if I said there wasn't a part of Herbie that wanted to give them both bloody noses. Or give it his best shot, anyway. But he didn't. And I remember why. I couldn't let go of the hope that one day things might get better. If I punched either of those boys, not only would I wind up beaten and broken yet again, but I'd also be without God's love because I disobeyed his commandments. I had to be good, otherwise that hope for a better future that the message of Jesus Christ had instilled in me would be snuffed out.
Again, I now know that's not true. We aren't expected to be perfect. God is faithful to forgive our sins if we confess and repent. That's why Jesus was sent to die on the cross to begin with. The Bible says that the wages of sin is death. But since we're all sinners, if we all were made to pay that penalty, humanity would be extinct by now. So Jesus, the Son of God, the one man who never sinned, paid that penalty for us. The debt of death that should've fallen on us was lifted from our shoulders, paid for by Christ's blood. All we needed to do was accept that sacrifice, and in turn, accept Jesus.
Back then, however, I didn't understand that. I thought that if I screwed up again, God would leave me on my own. So, as difficult as it was, Herbie turned and walked away. He didn't want to give up. He didn't want to back down. But he didn't want to do something he would regret later.
"Did you hear that?" Doc's voice whispered in my ear.
"Hear what?"
"They're talking about you." He took my arm and pulled me toward the sidewalk across from the buses. A group of kids had gathered there expecting to see Herbie get beaten. Now, as they began to disperse, a conversation started to emerge from the rest of the chatter.
"No he's not!"
"Yes, he is."
"No! He's not! He tried to steal Ronnie's money today!"
"That didn't look like the kind of kid who'd steal someone's money."
With Doc guiding me, we followed the voices to three girls at the rear of the pack. Sarah Renard and Lucy Benham were arguing with Samantha Keiler. Sarah and Lucy were both in my math class, but Samantha didn't share any classes with me. Why would she be defending me against those two?
"I saw it happen," Lucy said, pointing in Herbie's general direction. "Ronnie accidentally dropped his lunch money this morning, and Herbie ran and snatched it up. He only gave it back when he saw that I was watching him!"
That was a bold-faced lie. But even if Herbie had been there to dispute it, he had no witnesses of his own to back up the story.
It didn't matter. Samantha wasn't buying it. "How do you know he would've kept it if you hadn't seen him?" she said, shaking her head. "Besides, even if he did try to steal it—which I still don't believe—it doesn't change the fact that he just did a brave thing. Don't you remember how those three used to be together all the time?"
"Yeah, but they kicked him out of their group when he took Henry to Disney World instead of them," Sarah replied.
It amazes and disgusts me how stories can get so twisted. For the record, I still have not been to Disney World.
Samantha shook her head. "Regardless of what happened, he just tried his best to fix it, and they threatened to beat him up because they're a couple of punks. I'm telling you, Herbert did the right thing today."
Lucy threw up her hands. "Whatever, I have to get to the bus. You coming, Sarah?"
The two girls ran off without allowing Samantha another word. She shook her head and headed in the other direction. I won't lie; it was heart-warming to see someone standing up for me. For little Herbie.
"I have a hunch," Doc murmured. "Would you mind if we followed her?"
"Who, Samantha?"
"If that's her name, yes."
"I suppose it's alright," I said. "Any reason why?"
We began following her at a safe distance. Even though we weren't visible, we didn't want her hearing our footsteps. "She seemed very emphatic about her support for you. I have a feeling there's a deeper reason behind it."
"How long are we going to follow her?"
"Not long," he assured me. "I just want to see what she does."
Samantha followed the path around the school and crossed the baseball field in the back. Two blocks bey
ond the school grounds, she opened the fence around a mint-green colored house and knocked on the front door. After a moment, she knocked again. "Aunt Peggy?"
"In the back, dear!"
Samantha hopped down the steps and followed the little cement path that led around the house. A middle-aged woman wearing an apron and gloves was on all fours in the middle of a small flower garden. She looked up when Samantha came around the corner, but she didn't smile. "Yes, Samantha? Is there something I can do for you?"
For some reason, Samantha suddenly seemed nervous. "Um, Aunt Peggy, can we talk for a minute?"
The woman nodded and pushed herself up, removing her gloves as she did. "What is it, dear?"
Samantha opened her mouth, then hesitated. She wrung her hands for a moment and then opened her mouth once more. Still nothing. Finally, she groaned and said, "Why is it so hard to do the right thing?"
Peggy let out a chuckle. "What's that, honey?"
"Like, I know why I came here just now, and I know what I want to say," Samantha began, stammering between words, "but that doesn't make it any easier to say it."
The older woman's face finally softened a bit. "Take your time, Sam."
Again, Samantha groaned and rolled her eyes. "I don't know what's wrong with me. I just saw someone at school almost get beat up by two other kids. The three of them all used to be friends a couple of years ago. But they stopped being friends last year, I think."
"I'm afraid I'm not following," Aunt