“Uh … Sick. Food poisoning,” I say.
Andrew shakes his head. He draws a tombstone over the stick figure’s head.
“Death? Die?”
He sketches a group of circles. They become more stick figures standing over the dead one.
“Um … funeral. Bury!”
Andrew shakes his head and draws more circles. He creates another stick figure with a tear in its eye then manically taps his pencil on the group of figures, leaving ugly marks on all of their faces.
“Distraught?” I guess again.
He nods again, signaling me with hand gestures to keep going. I glance at Heather who is fixated on the white sand streaming into the bottom half of the hourglass. “Upset! Mourn?”
More enthusiastic nodding. Andrew draws long straight lines going north to south then east to west. He carefully connects the ends.
“A cross!” Finally, something I recognize.
As he’s drawing another stick figure on the cross, Heather makes a loud buzzer sound. “Time’s up!”
I give Andrew an apologetic shrug. “What was the word?” I ask him.
“Sacrifice,” he says in frustration. I lift my hands to my face and apologize, as he tosses the pad onto the board. “And we don’t have time to catch up,” he says with a sigh.
Ben checks his watch. “You’re right. We’ve got to run.”
Heather leans back against the couch as the guys gather their things. “Aw,” she says. “I guess we’ll have to stay here all by ourselves. I hope we can survive!” She rolls her eyes at me as we wave bye to them. “They’re going to a men’s study group. No girls allowed and all that.” Heather turns to me. “I wanted to talk to you anyway.”
I tilt my head. “Oh?”
“I need a new study partner.”
“But we don’t have any classes together …”
“Not for school, for the symposium! If you want to join, that is.” She pauses to take a sip of her coffee. “It requires a lot of work—both on your own and with me.”
The idea of committing to extra homework makes me pause. My grades are good—they’re the one thing I’ve managed to master up here—but I don’t want to sabotage my routine. “Oh, um, my classes take up a lot of—”
Heather cuts me off: “Oh, don’t worry. I’ll work with you closely every step of the way, and of course Josh and the others will be there for you. And this way you can hang out with us all the time so we won’t get interrupted like yesterday.”
Spending more time with them, even at church events, which have never much appealed to me, would definitely be preferable to my life as an accidental hermit.
“Listen,” she continues, “the group leaders are extremely picky about offering invitations, which is why I’m asking first to be sure you’re interested. They take commitment very seriously, but I assured them you’re incredibly bright—someone who wouldn’t back down from a challenge.” Heather tilts her head with a knowing grin. “I can just tell that about you.”
“Wow, that’s really nice of you to say.” Her kind words trigger a rush of affirmation I haven’t felt in months.
“I don’t want you to feel pressured, though,” she adds nonchalantly. “I could always tell them to give your spot to an alternate—”
“No,” I say, surprising myself when I touch her arm in a reflexive motion. “I’d love to.”
STEP 3: Show how life’s answers can be found in our official study guides. An exclusive invitation to the Kingdom Symposium is only for the brightest disciples.
L.Y.L.A.S.
My alarm begins its steady beeping at 6:00 a.m.
Just as I start to drift back to sleep, something slides under my door. I get up to see who is out there, but no one’s in the hallway. My name is written in giant calligraphy across the envelope on the floor. I turn it over and lift the embossed sticker. A formal invitation is inside:
You are cordially invited to the Kingdom Symposium.
It’s at a place called The Castle this Thursday night. There’s an address and a folded piece of paper with a handwritten note attached:
Complete the enclosed form with your Bible.
(Both required for entrance.)
L.Y.L.A.S. (Love Ya Like a Sister), Heather
The enclosed paper is a chart filled with empty squares and blanks, labeled with abbreviations like BTs and QTs footnoted with Heather’s handwritten explanations. BT—Bible Talk: partner-guided studies with selected scriptures. QT—Quiet Time: a guided period of personal reflection. At the end, there’s a double line where you total the numbers. Squinting in concentration, I read the instructions to process my first challenge. It reminds me of the balance sheets from high school accounting class that came with sealed packets filled with mock bills and invoices and a green-lined sheet with two choices: debit or credit. I remember my sense of accomplishment when all the seemingly unrelated numbers added up to the same total on both sides. I took the assignment as seriously as someone starting her own business, even though nothing was really at stake beyond a minor grade. My dad always teased me by saying my greatest gift (“and curse,” he would add) is never being able to do anything halfway.
Scanning the tasks again, I’m confident I can ace this. Then, in a panic, I realize I need an actual Bible. So I gather my things, check my watch, and race out the door.
* * *
The hushed energy of the library is a reminder of why it’s one of my favorite places. I love the electric hum of the fluorescent lights. The challenge of pulling out a card catalog drawer to find an exact book. The tangible satisfaction of writing the letter-number combination on a scrap of paper with a tiny four-inch pencil, just like the ones jammed into the backs of church pews back home.
Past the Dewy Decimal B’s, I find the colorful cloth spines of Ancient Greece. I touch them with my fingertips, a habit I’ve never outgrown, as I glide through a sea of philosophy and a long glossy stretch of newly purchased self-help. Then I see them: Holy Bibles. I pull a black textured leather spine with a cursive font and sit on the floor. The pages fall open to a random chapter, and I scan for interesting words: “moneychangers,” “den of thieves,” “Bethany,” “the fig tree withered away.” I’ve never actually read the Bible—I mean, really read it. I open it again, this time to the back where the bright-colored maps with dark brown veins fan across ancient lands, reaching all the way to the Dead Sea. I close it and rub my hand across the front cover to flatten the pages. The leather smells like a relic, triggering a sense of nostalgia I can’t quite pinpoint. A tinge of cautious hope prompts me to stand with determination. I could start right now.
I walk past the building for my next class knowing I’m going to skip it for the first time. Slowing my pace, I savor the tree-flanked sidewalks sprinkled with pink cherry blossoms, as if a procession of careless flower girls had just passed ahead of me. This is how I imagined Boston would be—the picturesque photos just like in the college brochures. The city must have bloomed overnight because the last time I even noticed the trees, they were still bare. I stop to pick a flower and place the stem above my ear, smiling as I cross the street to hop on the T. Once in the Common, I unpack my worksheets under a willow beside the glistening pond.