In about an hour I was feeling better, and by the time we got on the road to go home I was hungry. Mr. White pulled into a drive-thru for me and popped in an old CD while we were waiting for my food. As we pulled away, Ashlyn, who was sitting up front, started looking at the CD case.
“Hey, you guys,” she said after a minute. “You know that song he sings . . . Back in His Arms Again?”
I didn’t even know who he was, but everybody else was nodding.
“It says here that he wrote it because one of the kids that had been in his youth group came home from college over Christmas break all upset because he felt like he had gotten so far away from God . . .”
“I didn’t know that,” Laci said.
“Here,” Ashlyn said, turning up the volume. “It’s the next song.”
Of course everybody else sang along while it played.
“I like it better if I know what a song is about when I hear it,” Natalie said after it was over.
“Yeah,” Laci agreed, “when I’m a DJ I’m going to share stuff like that with my listeners.”
“You’re going to be a DJ?” I asked skeptically.
She held up another fake microphone.
“That was the latest from Casting Crowns. Up next, a song from Mark Schultz and the story behind it, but first, let’s check in with David in the weather center for an update on the storm that’s been ravaging the Midwest . . . David?” She stuck her fake microphone in my face.
She’d actually sounded pretty impressive, but I rolled my eyes. I was just about to make a comment about her having a good face for radio when Greg pretended to grab her microphone and talk into it.
“I’m sorry, Laci, but David is indisposed at the moment. We regret to inform our listeners that he has a serious case of non-jovialness.”
~ ~ ~
SEVENTH GRADE BROUGHT us kids from the south side of town together with the kids from the north. Until then we’d pretty much had our own churches, our own recreational leagues and our own community pools, so there truly were a lot of kids that we’d never met before.
The first one I wanted to get to know was Samantha. She sat in front of me in social studies and I didn’t learn much that year in class. If teachers really want to improve test scores across the nation they should put the girls in the back of the classroom and the boys in the front. At least that way we’d have to blatantly turn right around in our seats to be distracted by the girls. When they’re sitting right in front of us, we pretty much don’t have a choice.
Samantha had dark hair, almost black, and it was long and straight and shiny and cut to the same length all around. I looked at it a lot because it was right in my face all during social studies and I found myself hoping that she wasn’t going to get any big ideas from Laci about donating it – I liked her hair right where it was. She would lean over to pass notes to her best friend, Angel, and when she sat back up her hair would fall into perfect place as if it had just been brushed. Her hair wasn’t the only thing about her that mesmerized me.
I didn’t let on to anyone how fascinated I was with Samantha. Tanner had made the mistake of letting me and Mike know that he liked a girl named Calen in the sixth grade and we had teased him mercilessly and embarrassed him so badly that Calen would have nothing to do with him. It was probably fresh enough in Tanner’s mind that payback would be certain and I wasn’t going to do anything to mess up my relationship with Samantha.
Of course, I use the word “relationship” rather loosely here. My relationship with Sam consisted of me staring at her hair instead of listening to Mrs. Harper’s explanation of the major causes of World War II. When first quarter mid-term reports went home I really caught it from my mother at dinnertime.
“What in the world is going on in social studies?” she gasped when she saw my grade. “You’ve always done excellent in that class.”
I shrugged. “I don’t know . . . I just don’t get it.”
“What is there to ‘get’?” she wanted to know.
“The teacher just doesn’t explain things good.”
“Well,” she corrected me.
“That either.”
“I’m going to set up a conference . . .” she began.
“No! No! No! You don’t have to do that. I promise I’ll do better. Please! I promise! Please give me one more chance.”
She frowned and glanced at my father before finally relenting.
“Last chance,” she warned. “If you haven’t brought this up by report card time you’re not going to play basketball.”
I think I was more afraid that she was going to talk to the teacher and I’d wind up with a new assigned seat than I was of not playing basketball. I dragged my social studies book home every night and studied enough to pull my grade up to a low A. It was a lot easier to understand the stuff at home anyway – when Sam and her hair weren’t sitting in front of me.
Shortly after school started, our youth group had its first fundraiser. Mr. White had all sorts of great ideas lined up for the year, including a ski trip as soon as cold weather set in and an ice-fishing trip over a long weekend at the end of February. Although we lived in the cold Midwest, the nearest ski slopes were almost four hours away and I hardly ever got to go. I’d always wanted to go ice fishing too. Dad was an accountant and the winter months were the busiest for him. He took me fishing at Cross Lake every spring and summer after tax season was over, but I’d never been ice fishing before.
We held a Saturday car wash in the parking lot of a bank one block from our church and we earned over four hundred dollars. When we were finished, Laci’s dad arrived to pick up Laci and Ashlyn.
“Need a ride, David?” he called out through Laci’s open door. Laci lived just three blocks further from me than Greg did.
“Um . . .” I hesitated, not quite sure what to do. Mom was supposed to pick me up in about half of an hour. I kept telling her that if she’d buy me my own phone it could save her a lot of time.
“I’ll give him a lift,” Mr. White called out from behind me. Laci’s dad waved and nodded and then pulled away.
“Guess I should have asked you what you wanted to do,” Mr. White said as he coiled up a hose.
“No,” I said, “that’s fine, but I think my mom’s supposed to be here in a little bit.”
“No problem,” he said, “that’ll give us a chance to clean up while we’re waiting.”
It didn’t take long to clean up and soon Greg and I were sitting on the curb waiting while Mr. White walked over to the church to run off some photocopies for the next night’s youth group meeting.
“Sorry about that,” Greg said after his dad had left.
“Sorry about what?”
“I figured you wanted to ride home with Laci.”
“Huh?” I was totally lost.
“You know . . . Laci!”
“What about her?”
“I just figured you’d want to ride home with her and my dad kind of messed it up for you.”
“Why would I want to ride home with Laci?”
“You know, I kind of thought that you liked her.”
“Laci?!” I spluttered. “Why on earth would you think that I liked Laci?”
“She just seems like your type.”
Maybe he hadn’t noticed Sam yet.
“No,” I said, “trust me. I didn’t want to ride home with her.”
“She’s pretty . . .” he continued.
“Yeah, right now she is . . . but just wait.”
Now it was his turn to be lost. I proceeded to tell him all about Laci and her hair and Locks of Love.
“That’s pretty cool that she does that,” Greg said when I had finished.
“I suppose . . .” I agreed somewhat reluctantly.
“We should do that.”
“Do what?”
“You know . . . grow our hair out and donate it to Locks of Love.”
I must have looked at him blankly.
“You know,” he held out two fingers in a “V” and moved them together like scissors, cutting. “Chop, chop.”
“What?”
“We should grow our hair out and donate it to–”
“Are you CRAZY?!”
“Nooo,” he said, shaking his head and looking perplexed. “Why?”
“Because we’re BOYS . . .”
“So?”
“Soooo . . . boys don’t grow their hair long and donate it to Locks of Love!”
“Why not?”
“Because,” I said again, “we’re BOYS!”
He waved his hand at me as if he were dismissing me. “A lot of guys wear their hair long.”
“Not that long!” I argued.
“Sure they do,” he said and then he shrugged. “I think it’s a good idea.”
“You’re crazy.”
“No, I’m not,” he said, moving his fingers like scissors again. “Chop, chop!”
And that was the start of Greg’s hand signals.
Greg’s hand signals went far beyond the thumbs up for “good job”, or the okay symbol, or even twisting an imaginary sharpener around a pencil to see if you had one to loan him during a quiz. Every hand signal that Greg thought up meant something. Something funny or something that was important or something that he wanted you to think about.
I didn’t understand that right away. For the next couple of months he’d catch my eye in science class and give me the “chop, chop” signal. I usually just waved him away or shook my head. Sometimes I gave him the universal “you’re crazy” sign by twirling my finger around the side of my head, but I’d had two haircuts since our talk on the curb when I finally noticed that his hair was curling down over his ears and touching the collar on the back of his shirt.
“You aren’t really going to let your hair get that long, are you?” I asked him at lunch.
“Yes, I am,” he said matter-of-factly.
“Oh, boy,” I replied. “You’re really losing it, you know that?”
“No I’m not,” he said, shaking his head. “You should do it too.”
Chop, chop.
Sometime during soccer season, Greg’s mom and my mom figured out that it would save them both a lot of time if one of them picked us up from soccer on Wednesdays, fed us both dinner, and then took us to youth group. The first Wednesday we did this, Mrs. White picked us up.
“Do you like lasagna?” she asked me as soon as we got in the car. Greg sat in the back with Charlotte, who was strapped in her car seat, and I sat in the front next to Mrs. White.
“I love lasagna,” I said. I would have told her I loved liver and onions if she’d asked because my mom had been harping on me for three days about minding my manners, but I really did love lasagna and practice had left me hungry.
“Don’t worry, Mom,” Greg said. “David’ll eat anything.”
“I will not!”
“You eat that school pizza almost every day!”
“It’s good!” I protested.
“See, Mom,” Greg continued, “if he thinks the school pizza’s good, he’s going to think your lasagna’s fantastic.”
“You don’t think my lasagna’s fantastic?” she asked him.
“Well . . . I think it’s better than the school pizza . . .”
She glanced at me.
“Would you please hit him for me?” she asked.
“Gladly!” I turned around and punched him in the leg.
“Hey!” he said, trying to hit me back, but not being quite quick enough. Charlotte squealed with delight.
We pulled into the drive and I helped Charlotte get out of her car seat and I held her hand as we walked up to the front door because Mom had told me to be helpful. Charlotte wanted to ring the doorbell and Mrs. White said that would be fine so I held her up and let her press the white button. Mr. White answered the door.
“Hello, David!” he said, taking Charlotte from me.
“Hi.”
“You boys wash up right away,” Mrs. White said as she scooted past us and walked toward the kitchen, “we don’t have a lot of time before youth group.”
She didn’t have to tell me twice. I was starving.
When we sat down at the table, Charlotte reached down from her high chair and grabbed at my hand. I was thinking how cute it was that she wanted to hold my hand again, but then I realized that Greg was reaching for my other hand and that Mr. White was reaching across the table for Charlotte’s free hand and that she had already put her little head down to pray.
“Thank you, Father,” Mr. White began, “for bringing us together this evening. We especially thank You that David is here with us and we ask Your special blessing on him this evening.”
I was already uncomfortable because I was holding hands with Greg, but having Mr. White pray for me was almost painful.
“I ask that You be with each of the young people who will be with us this evening and that You prepare their hearts and minds for fellowship with each other and with You.”
Then Mrs. White prayed.
“Lord, I thank You for this day and for the many gifts You have given us. I especially ask that You will give me patience as I try to teach Charlotte about You every day and that You will guide me every moment as I take care of her.”
I panicked when Greg started praying too because I knew for sure now that we were going clockwise and that I was going to be next.
I didn’t catch one thing that Greg said.
When he was done I said, “Lord, we thank You for this food that You have provided for us. Please bless this food to our use and us to Your service.”
That was exactly what my dad said every night at our dinner table and nobody gasped in horror so I figured I’d done alright. Charlotte said “Amen” and we all dropped hands.
The lasagna was fantastic.
The next night at the table Dad said our usual grace and had his fork in his hand before I could even say what had been on my mind.
“Um . . . I think we should say something else . . .”
“Something else?” Dad looked at me blankly.
“Uh . . . yeah, you know, something more . . . like . . . um . . .” I glanced at Mom for help, but she had the same blank look on her face.
“I just think that God would probably like to hear something a little more interesting than the same thing every day, and I thought that maybe,” I cleared my throat, “we could, like, each say something different.”
It probably didn’t take any of them too long to figure out where the sudden inspiration for my suggestion had come from.
Mom finally spoke. “Okay, David, that would be nice. Why don’t you start?”
I’d been thinking about it all day, so I was ready to go.
“Dear Lord, I thank You that we are all here together and that I did so well on my social studies test yesterday.” (I figured it wouldn’t hurt for Mom to hear that too, and besides, I really was thankful for it.)
“Well,” Mom began, “I’m also thankful that David did well on his social studies test . . . and I thank You for this lovely home that You have provided for us.”
After a moment of silence Jessica spoke. “I’m thankful for my family and my friends.”
I couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for Dad. I had my head bowed, but I heard him put down his fork.
“Thank You, Lord, for the many blessings You have given us. Thank You for my lovely wife and the wonderful meals she cooks for us. Thank You for Jessica and David. Please continue to bless this family.”
I decided that I hadn’t given him enough credit, and when I looked up, I saw Mom smiling at him.
I’m not sure exactly why I wanted us to pray at dinner that night the way the White’s had. Maybe I didn’t want to be embarrassed the following week when Greg came to our house, but maybe I knew that God deserved something more than we’d been giving Him. By the time Greg came to dinner the next week most of the awkwardness was gone. We mi
ght not have held hands, but even after soccer season ended we were still doing it.
~ ~ ~
IN NOVEMBER, THE PTO announced that they would be hosting a dance in the gym. I really wanted to ask Samantha to go, but I didn’t dare. I’d been sitting behind her in social studies for almost four months and we’d barely spoken. I wasn’t even positive that she knew my name.
Basketball tryouts were going on all week. While Tanner’s group was out on the floor doing lay-ups, the group that Greg and I were in watched from the bleachers.
“Are you going to the dance?” he asked me.
“I doubt it,” I said.
“You should ask someone,” he encouraged.
I just shook my head.
“Oh, come on. If you were going to ask someone, who would it be?”
“I’m not sure . . .” I lied.
“Yeah, right!”
“Okay, then . . . who would you ask?” I demanded.
“You tell me first.”
I hesitated for a few moments and then finally said, “Promise you won’t tell anyone?”
He nodded his head and I believed him.
I leaned my head toward his and whispered, even though no one was sitting close to us. “Samantha!”
A look of surprise crossed his face.
“What’s the matter with her?” I asked, defensively.
“Nothing’s wrong with her . . . I just didn’t know that you liked her.”
“No one knows I like her and it had better stay that way!”
“I promised you I wouldn’t tell anyone,” he said.
“What about you?” I asked.
“Thank you, but I don’t dance very well . . . you’d be better off asking someone else,” he grinned.
“Oh, come on . . . you promised you’d tell me. Who would you ask?”
“You mean who did I ask!”
“You already asked someone?”
He nodded.
I was impressed. Maybe I should invite Samantha after all.
“Who?”
“Laci.”
“You and Laci are going to the dance?” This didn’t surprise me; ever since the carwash it had seemed to me as if they’d been spending a lot of time together.
“No,” he said. “She doesn’t want to go with me.”