Hi Everyone!! I know I said it would be coming out every week, but I really excited and couldn't wait!
Caleb walked down the flooding hallways full of children. He kept his head down, praying he wouldn’t be noticed by Matthew or anyone else. Suddenly he paused. He heard distant shouting.
Oh no.
Caleb raced down the hallway, forgetting the no running rule. He dashed through a door, around the corner, and he sighed at the scene.
Andrew sat in a corner, with one black eye, a bloody nose, and bruised arms and legs. But as he struggled to his weak knees, he was just punched once more.
Caleb grabbed Matthew’s shirt and tried to push him aside, but he was too strong.
“Aww, you’re coming to save the day? It looks here your little sidekick can’t defend himself.”
“Leave him be, Matthew.”
“Why should I?”
“Because it’s not what God wants. It says right here—” Caleb pulled out a mini Bible. “Matthew 12, verse 31, look here.” Caleb went to read but Matthew grasped the book quickly from his hand. “You read this? And you believe it? No, no, no. God doesn’t need us to love our neighbor, he simply needs us to…what was it? Oh, yes, turn the other cheek. But it never says to not know how to defend yourselves. So you telling me to live him be, is disobeying the Bible.”
“What? No, that’s not what it means.”
“Oh, really Einstein?”
Caleb sighed hopelessly. If he couldn’t get through to one person here at school—how could he get through to many people on his coming mission trip? He would fail. He knew he would.
Andrew stood up wearily and tried to take a step but everything he winced at the pain.
“Look what you’re doing. You think this is okay? This is a horrible sin.”
Matthew chuckled. “Everybody sins. It says right there in your little book. And you know what it also says? God loves the whole world, and He forgives them.”
“That’s—that’s not what it means.” Caleb just couldn’t conjure the courage he needed to explain to Matthew. He turned to Andrew and helped him up. He whispered in his ear, “Andrew Kaminski, have you lost your mind?”
Andrew didn’t bother to answer.
Marion caught up. “What happened?”
Matthew grinned as he strode past her. “I happened, that’s what.”
Marion took Andrew to the nurse’s center. He was cleaned up now and ready to go home.
Caleb went outside and was reaching for his bike, when his hand stopped in mid-air. “What?” He looked everywhere. His bike was missing. Caleb really felt like getting in a fight right about now.
“Where’s my bike?” Andrew questioned aggressively. “That Matthew stole our bikes too?”
Marion’s was also stolen.
“How will we get home?” Andrew complained.
“We’ll have to walk.” Caleb silently began walking down the concrete sidewalk.
As the three walked together three other boys rode alongside past them, laughing and snickering. Matthew rode Andrew’s bike, and his friends rode Caleb’s and Marion’s.
The sun was going down when Caleb arrived home. He was so tired and worn, he didn’t even notice the extra car out front.
“Hey Mom, I’m home!” He groggily, sleepily walked upstairs. He heard his mom say something about rooms, but he honestly didn’t care. He just wanted to sleep. He swung open his bedroom door and tossed his bag on the bed, and just as he went to plop down on the bed, he noticed a person was laying on his bed reading a book!
“Ahh!” Went Caleb.
“Ahhh!” Went the person.
Caleb fell backwards and the bookshelf nearly toppled to the ground, but he pushed it back just in time. But all his books slid out.
“Who—who are you?” Caleb then remembered. He
He’s my cousin, idiot! How could I forget?
Caleb smiled awkwardly and then dashed out the door, down the steps, and right into his uncle.
“Whoah, there.”
His deep voice startled him.
Caleb gulped. First he threw his book bag at his cousin, then he screamed, then he almost knocked the bookshelf over, and now he just ran into his uncle? This can’t be good…he was thinking.
“Caleb?” The tall strong man looked down at skinny helpless Caleb.
“H—Hiya.” Caleb felt like smacking himself. “Hiya” was not the correct way to greet a guest.
The man laughed. “I see you haven’t changed much since the last time I saw you.”
Caleb nodded but then realized what exactly he was nodding to.
“Shall we sit together and properly introduce each other?” Asked his uncle.
“S—sure.”
The two went into the livingroom and the man cleared his throat. “My name is Edwin Lawrence Peters. But you can just call me Uncle Lawrence. When Theodore was eight, we moved from England to Florida. There I decided to start up my own company. I own a professional ranch business in Florida. I sell the most prize horses. Racing horses, too.”
Caleb looked in awe. “Racing horses?”
“Yes. I believe you haven’t met my son yet, am I correct?”
Caleb didn’t know what to say. “Well, not exactly…”
“Shall I call him down?”
“No, I really don’t think you—”
“Theodore!”
Caleb kept quiet. His bag had been full of books. What if this Theodore had bruises all over his face?
The skinny, frail little boy named Theodore quietly walked down the steps and held onto the railing. He reached where his father was at.
“I’m here Father.”
He looked in the direction of Caleb.
Caleb waved nervously.
Theodore’s eyes didn’t move an inch.
“Theodore…this is Caleb.”
“Yes…” Theodore glared. “We’ve met.”
Uncle Lawrence left the two to get aquatinted better.
Caleb shuffled his feet shyly. “I…I’m sorry I threw my book bag at you.”
“At my face as well.”
“Yeah…it wasn’t on purpose though.”
“It wasn’t?”
Caleb sighed. “I am sorry. Let’s start over. I’m Caleb.”
“I’m Theodore. Shall we talk?”
Caleb wondered at their perfectly proper English. But then he remembered Uncle Lawrence had said Theodore lived in England until he was eight.
The night dragged on peacefully and enjoyably. Uncle Lawrence was a lot like Dad, only a bit more charming and fun to be around. But still something was odd about him.
Surprisingly, Caleb and Theodore talked the night away and became quite good friends all in that one night, and they completely forgot how they met.
But something was different about Theodore. And Caleb wanted to find out what. He decided that it was about time that he and his cousin take a nice stroll around the neighborhood.
“Goodbye, Father.” Theodore told Uncle Lawrence as they departed. Theodore quickly took ahold of Caleb’s arm. When Caleb slightly tried to release the grasp of his arm, Theodore held tighter. “I don’t know the neighborhood,” he said. “I’m not as fast as you are, I won’t be able to keep up.”
Caleb smiled. “Let’s go.” He knew that Theodore was very skinny and small but he definitely wasn’t what he described himself to be. Something was wrong.
They walked alongside each other in the park. They talked about their fathers and how they wondered why they didn’t know each other before.
“It doesn’t matter, anyhow. We know each other now.” Theodore told him. Theodore sighed. “Father never really let me leave the house, much…he thinks I’m useless.”
“Useless?” Caleb stopped in his tracks. “You’re far from useless. Why would anyone think that?”
“It…it’s hard to explain.”
“Theodore…everyone has a purpose, a reason for their being on earth. You know that…”
“Who said that?”
Caleb remembered that his uncle wasn’t a christian. “The Bible says that.”
Theodore shuddered. “No. Not that, not ever again.”
Caleb paused and looked at the distraught boy’s face. “Why? Have you…have you ever read it?”
“Well, I mean, I’ve tried…”
Caleb put his hands on Theodore’s small shoulders. “Theodore, this is good. What happened when you read it?”
Theodore hesitated. “My father beat me.”
“What?”
“Look. I just want to please him. Make him proud of me. Just once.”
Caleb looked away and caught a glimpse of a mother deer and her fawn. They were grazing, only ten feet away.
Caleb whispered to Theodore, “Look. You see that? Look at it, it’s beautiful.”
“What?”
“Look, over there.”
“Where is it?”
Caleb pointed.
Theodore hesitated, and then said, “Aha, there it is.”
“Look at the fawn. So small, it can hardly stand on those wobbly skinny legs. It must have just been born.”
Caleb heard a faint rustling. He heard voices and a siren. He suddenly felt alone and scared. “We best be heading back.”
“Already?”
“Shh. Do you hear that?” Caleb crouched down behind a bush. He gasped. “Escaped convicts.”
“You sure?”
“It’s clear as day.” Caleb leaned forward to get a better glance when he leaned too far forward and made a loud noise on the bushes.
“You hear that?” One of the men in the distance said. They eyed the two boys watching them. They held up a gun.
“Okay, we have to go.” Caleb crawled on hands and knees. “Theo, come on!”
Boom!
“Theodore, that almost hit your head!!” Caleb crawled farther and Theodore went to follow but stopped. He began to panic. More bullets shot through the air. One was nearly away from his head, when Caleb pushed him out of the way. He took his arm and ran as fast as he could, out of the forest and park. He pushed Theodore to a wall and put his hands on his shoulders and shook them aggressively. “You almost got shot! Why didn’t you move?”
“I—I don’t know!” Theodore was crying. He was really crying.
Caleb let go. “Theodore, what is it? What’s going on?”
Theodore couldn’t stop bawling and sobbing. “I—I just couldn’t go without you.”
“I was right there!”
“I know, but I was scared. I…”
“Theo.” Caleb looked into the poor boy’s frightened eyes. “Are you…are you blind?”
Theodore turned his back on Caleb. “Why do you think that?”
“You wouldn’t go when the bullets were shooting. And you couldn’t see the fawn at first and it was very close. But anyway, that was just a silly question.” Caleb suddenly remembered when they were leaving the house and Theodore kept making excuses for reasons to ahold onto Caleb’s arm. He always seemed scared. Insecure. Unsure of himself.
“You’re a child of God, you know that?” Caleb blurted out. He didn’t mean to but he did.
“Me? Oh, no, not me. I’m just…I’m not like you. God’s probably angry at me.”
“God’s angry at all of us. It says so in the Bible. If you’ll repent and accept Him as your personal Lord and Savior, He’ll forgive you.”
“Really?”
“Of course. Just ask Him.”
Theodore hugged himself, trying to keep out the cold. “Not now. Father would hate that.”
Caleb took Theodore’s hand and said nothing. It seemed that Theodore’s father was major problem. He needed to turn him. Help him change his heart. Maybe this was the reason they were visiting in the first place. God had sent him to Caleb. Maybe this was a test.
If it is, I’m failing.
Caleb smiled at Theodore and in his mind, wondered what the next steps should be in trying to help Theodore.
What will I do about his father?
No comments:
Post a Comment