never heard anyone his age talk before. Over his head. And he who had always hated school was smitten with envy. The reporter and all the other adults who appeared on the program were obviously in awe of these kids. The parents of one boy told the reporter that the school had saved their son’s life. He’d been in a different school first, an ordinary school with ordinary students and teachers, and despite his extraordinary aptitude (among all those brainiacs, this kid might have been the brainiest of all), he had not done well. According to his parents, there’d been two reasons for this: their son had been bullied, and he’d been bored.
When Cole heard this he became flustered; he became enraged. He, too, had been bullied and bored. Forgetting all about the ferocious competition to get into the school, he failed to see why he hadn’t been plucked out and sent to Washington to study with genius classmates and teachers who never bored them. Tears of self-pity stung his eyes. He bet none of those kids was an orphan. (He was wrong.) And what would it be like if he ever met any of them? He would not be like them. He would not know all the things they’d been taught; he would not be their equal. And how would they treat him? For sure, they would look down on him. They wouldn’t bully him—they were above that, of course—but they would not befriend him, either. They would ignore him. Maybe even feel sorry for him. The one thing worse than bullying.
Cole had watched the program all the way to the end. He had turned the TV off then and sat for a long time, his soul in a stew. He felt cheated and humiliated and confused. Deeply, he believed he was more like those gifted kids than unlike them. His pride insisted on it: the future great leaders and discoverers and Nobel Prize winners—he belonged with them. A huge misunderstanding had been allowed to take place. Why hadn’t anyone seen that just because he hated school didn’t mean he was lazy and dumb? It was unfair; it was all a mistake. Somehow it must be corrected. If not, he would grow up to be something worse than an underachiever. He would grow up stupid, an ignoramus. He would have to hide himself away from the world or die of shame.
These were his thoughts, but they were not thoughts he would have been comfortable revealing to Clem. Nowhere in the program about the prestigious school had there been any mention of God or church or any kind of religious instruction. Clem would have no truck with such a place. He would have called it a school for fools.
But there were other things Cole could share with Clem, and to which Clem could speak better than most.
About that crowd gathering at the church—
“What do you think is going to happen next?” asked Cole.
Pause.
“I think the more time passes, the more folks’ll calm down.”
Cole’s heart beat faster. “So you’re saying you don’t believe it’s the rapture.”
Clem took even longer to answer this time. “I believe I know an elopement when I see one.”
Cole could have kissed him. But his spirits sank when it became clear that Clem was no more concerned about Starlyn than PW was.
“Far as I’m concerned this is Mason’s responsibility,” said Clem. “He’s done a bad thing, I admit, but it’s not like it can’t be fixed.”
“Well, I think he’s way evil,” said Cole hotly.
Clem looked taken aback. “Evil? Mason?” He gazed sadly at Cole and shook his head. “That’s not right, Cole.”
“Then how could he pull a dirty trick like that?” Cole’s voice cracked, but he was too angry to be embarrassed. He waited impatiently for Clem to respond.
“You know how it is. It’s like, some people, they get religion and that’s that. But other people, they get religion and after a while they lose it. Then they get it back, but then maybe they lose it again. It happens all the time, like falling off the wagon. And it’s not just the weaklings and the hell-raisers who have to get born again and again. Lucky for us, our Lord is the Lord of many chances. If you fall—”
“But what about Starlyn?”
“Girls have always been hard for me to figure.” The way Clem said this suggested any attempt at figuring them would be a waste of time. “I don’t believe Mason would ever hurt her, though. I