Summer Sanctuary (12 page)

I pulled out the hymnal and began playing
The Love of God
, expecting Dinah to play along, but she didn't. She walked down to the center of the aisle, sat down, and just watched me. Since Dinah was just listening, I played songs in other keys, too. I played
Amazing Grace
in G, and
My Jesus I Love Thee
in D. I played all of my favorite hymns. When I got to
It Is Well With My Soul
in C, Dinah asked, “Is that in C?” I nodded. She pulled out her harmonica and played along.

Suddenly, I felt tears in my eyes. I realized this really was our last Sunday together in the sanctuary. Our sanctuary. I'd never be able to set foot in this sanctuary again without feeling Dinah in my heart.

We sat in silence for a long moment after we finished the song. “It's 5:00, Matthew,” Dinah said softly. “You gotta go.”

I nodded as I closed the hymnal and put it back in the piano bench. “So I'll see you at the fireworks,” I said, holding up my crossed fingers.

Dinah crossed her fingers and held them up, too. “At the fireworks,” she agreed. “And then again tomorrow by our tree. I'll be there by noon.”

D
AD PICKED A
spot right in the middle of the field to spread out our blanket. Dad sprayed us all with bug spray and had me spray his back for him before we sat down. As we waited for the fireworks to begin, Mark gave us his play-by-play of yesterday's tourney, emphasizing all of his spectacular plays, followed by his analysis on why his team lost in the championship game. I waited about ten minutes.

“Dad, I gotta go,” I said, wincing a little to make it look urgent.

“Matthew,” Dad frowned. “I thought your mother told you all to go before we left.”

“She did,” I replied. “And I did. Now I have to go again. I must've drank a gallon of water this afternoon.” I stood up to leave.

“I gotta go, too,” said Luke jumping up to go with me. I couldn't believe it. Luke never wanted to leave Mark behind and go with me.

“What about you, Mark?” Dad asked.

“Nope,” Mark said sprawling himself across all the extra room on the blanket. “I went. I'm good.”

I weighed my options. Luke wasn't as safe as Johnny, but I'd rather see Dinah with Luke along than not see her at all. Luke didn't have to know Dinah was my friend.

“I'll take him to the port-a-potties over by the playground,” I said, taking Luke by the hand. “Come on, buddy.”

There were people lined up waiting outside all four of the johns. “Hey, Luke,” I said, “do you have to go real bad?”

“Nope,” said Luke. “Not anymore.”

“I have an idea,” I said. “Let's go play on the ship until the lines are shorter and we have to go again.”

“But I want to see the fireworks,” Luke whined.

“We'll be able to see them from the top of the ship,” I told him. “I'll be the captain, and you'll be my first mate, and we'll have to batten down the hatches and try to weather the terrible storm.”

“Yeah!” shouted Luke, jumping up and down. He loved using his imagination. The only thing Mark ever imagined with him was sports. And Mark was always the hero. Sometimes Luke got to be on Mark's team and get an assist, but usually Luke was the poor pitcher who gave up a grand slam in the World Series or the unfortunate goalie who gave up a penalty kick in the World Cup.

As we jogged over to the ship I was priming Luke's imagination with sharks and whales and battles with pirate ships. Luke raced up to the top deck and ran smack into Dinah.

“Hey!” shouted Luke. “No girls on our ship!” Luke came running back to me. “Captain! Captain! There's a girl on our ship!”

“Hold on, mate!” I laughed and nodded at Dinah. “Girls aren't all bad. Maybe she's a Siren.

“Woooo, Woooo, Woooo!” Luke screeched like a siren.

“Not that kind of siren, mate!” I laughed. “The kind that sings songs or plays music. She might help keep our spirits up during all of our terrible battles and storms.”

Luke didn't look convinced. “I'd be honored to be your Siren, sir.” Dinah saluted us both. “You can call me Siren, okay?” Luke looked at Dinah and then back at me. I nodded.

“Okay, Siren,” said Luke, “but we're gonna have a BIG storm, and we might have to throw you overboard, and you'll be swallowed by a BIG whale.”

Dinah laughed. “Aye, aye, sir!”

“Okay, mate,” I said to Luke, “you need to take the wheel and steer the ship while I stand on deck and watch for whales.”

“Aye, aye, Captain,” Luke mimicked Dinah.

“How old are you mate?” Dinah asked Luke.

“I'm five,” Luke said, holding up five fingers, “and a half.”

“Five and a half,” said Dinah rubbing her chin. “That's definitely old enough to steer this ship.” Luke took his place behind the captain's wheel, and Dinah and I went to the front of the deck.

“Sorry I had to bring Luke,” I said.

“No problem,” said Dinah, “especially if he thinks my name's Siren.”

“Yeah, Johnny started singing ‘Dinah' at lunch today. If Luke comes back saying we met a new friend
named Dinah, my mom would definitely think something's up.” Just then the first firecracker shot high in the air and burst into a red mushroom. “Battle stations!” I called to Luke.

“Battle stations!” cried Luke, jumping up and down and clapping his hands. He ran up and nestled himself between Dinah and me to watch the fireworks. Every time one skyrocketed into the air and exploded, Luke yelled, “Yeah!” and clapped, then he'd yell “Ooooo, green!” or “Oooh, purple!” or whatever colors showered down.

I liked watching the different colored lights on Dinah's face as much as the fireworks themselves. Her fair skin faintly reflected the rainbow of fireworks, and the sparkles danced in her eyes. I thought her hair looked pretty good, too. The whole show was shorter than I ever remembered, but the grand finale was the best ever. When it was over, I took Luke's hand. “Come on, mate. Better not keep Dad waiting.”

“See ya,” I said to Dinah as we turned to go.

“Noon,” she answered, nodding.

When we got back Dad was folding the blanket. Mark said, “About time! What took you guys so long?”

“There was a line, so we went and played on the ship while we waited. Then when the fireworks started we just watched them from there.”

“It was a terrible storm and a BIG battle!” shouted Luke.

“Sorry, Dad,” I said. “We came back as fast as we could once the show was over.”

Dad nodded. “Let's go home.”

I
T WAS AFTER
10:30 when I got to the library Monday morning. Dinah said she'd meet me at noon, so I went straight in and signed up for a computer. I knew it was too soon to hope for an answer from the astrophysicist, but I thought it would be a good idea to practice checking e-mail.

When I logged onto Yahoo I had
two
messages from Dinah—the test message and a new one from Saturday night.” I opened the new message.

PK,

Thanks for letting me meet Johnny. Makes me wish I had a little brother. If I could pick a brother, tho, I'd pick you. I'm glad we have e-mail. Promise you'll write!

Love ya!

BHD

I clicked on reply.

BHD,

Now you've met Johnny and Luke. You make a good Siren. I promise I'll write. Remember you promised to send me all your poems, too! See ya! PK

I read over what I'd written. That was good for now. I clicked “send,” and the e-mail disappeared into cyberspace. I logged out of Yahoo and checked the time. I still had almost 20 minutes, so I went to Ask Jeeves. I liked the idea that I could just ask him anything. I typed in “Is the baby a boy or girl?” and hit enter. A bunch of websites popped up instantly with all kinds of tests on whether the baby would be a boy or girl.

The first one I tried required registration. I decided I'd better not register. The second one had like 20 questions that I started answering, only I didn't know what color my mom's urine was, when the baby was conceived, or what she was craving. I started making up answers, but gave up. Not like I'd believe it anyway.

Next I typed in “Will Dinah be okay?” That gave me a bunch of blogs about people named Dinah. Not my Dinah. This was really dumb. Then I realized I could ask Jeeves the same question I asked the astrophysicist. I couldn't remember exactly how I'd asked
the question, so I typed in, “The Bible says that God is light and that a thousand years is like a day to God. Can you calculate the time dilation ratio between time on earth and time traveling at the speed of light?” and pressed enter.

A whole page of websites popped up. I clicked on the very first one,
Life Spectrum Hypothesis
and began reading about possible explanations for the nature, creation, and evolution of the DNA molecule and life. I scrolled down through formulas and scientific illustrations until I saw the following subject written in bold letters, “EINSTEIN'S RELATIVITY AND THE NEW TESTAMENT.”

I couldn't believe it. It was all right there in front of me, including Einstein's time dilation formula and the conclusion that if God is traveling at 99.9999999999999% of the speed of light, then one day would equal 1,000 years! And there was more, too.

The website applied Einstein's formula that
E = mc
²
to two different verses in the book of Matthew: that the faith of a mustard seed can move a mountain, and that if two people on earth agree about anything they ask for, God will do it. The substantial energy in moving a mountain is
E
, a small mass like a mustard seed is
m,
and two people agreeing are
c
²
.
Two people agreeing are like the speed of light squared. Two people agreeing are like God squared.
I'd really have to think about that one.

All of a sudden I remembered I was supposed to meet Dinah at noon. I scribbled down the website so I could come back and read more. I darted out of the computer room and almost crashed into Mrs. Cleary, who was walking by with a stack of books to reshelve. “Sorry, Mrs. Cleary!” I said, slowing to a brisk walk. As soon as I was out of the building, I dashed to our tree. Dinah was there waiting for me.

“You're not going to believe it!” I shouted, dumping my backpack on the ground by the tree and digging out my notebook.

“What?” Dinah asked, moving in closer to see what was in my bag.

“I asked Jeeves the same question we e-mailed the NASA astrophysicist, and the very first website that came up answered all of my questions and more!” I opened my notebook to the website and waved it around like I'd just found a million dollars.

“That's great, Matthew!” Dinah said, dodging the notebook as I flung it toward her face. When she took the notebook from me to see what I'd written, I
grabbed the limb of the tree and was sitting on top of it in an instant. I loved this tree. A hundred years ago it was just one of those little propeller seeds, but today it was 100 feet tall. Its upper limbs extended to the heavens while the lower limbs embraced me.

“So where have you been all morning?” I asked, swinging my legs back and forth right beside her head. She stepped back and looked up at me.

“I was over at the mall,” she said. “I've been wanting to check out all of the dumpsters on a Monday morning right before trash collection.” She didn't sound very enthusiastic for someone who was just returning from a treasure hunt.

“What did you find?” I asked.

“Not as much as I was hoping,” Dinah admitted. “There was so much food and sticky drink stuff all over everything. It was nasty.”

“Let's have lunch.” I shouted and jumped out of the tree. “I'm starved!” For the first time ever, I landed right on my feet. I took a deep breath and stretched out my limbs. Our tree's shade swallowed me up, shadow and all.

“All I've got is a bag of animal crackers and some apple juice boxes that just expired last week,” Dinah
said, putting down my notebook and rummaging through her own backpack.

“That's okay,” I said. “I brought sandwiches and stuff for both of us. We'll save yours for dessert.”

T
HE REST OF
the week was a total blur of emotions. On the one hand I was really excited about finding an answer to my question, plus answers to questions I hadn't even thought of yet. On the other hand, each day was one day closer to Dinah's leaving. She was “all jazzed” about seeing her mom, whatever that meant. I was trying to be happy for her.

Wednesday was the worst. It rained all day, so I was stuck at home. Mom was tired. Johnny was cranky. I finally finished reading
The Last Battle
. Luke followed Mark around all day until Mark decided to take a nap. Then he followed me around wanting to play pirates and whales. We pretended like we were shipwrecked. I took all of the money out of my Monopoly game and we took turns hiding it and discovering each other's buried treasure.

Dinah was in my brain all day long. I wondered where she would go to stay dry. Maybe she would just hang out inside the library. As long as I wasn't around,
she might be okay. Plus she'd be back with her mom day after tomorrow. I looked all around the sanctuary during Wednesday night's service. No sign of her anywhere. I made sure the back door was unlocked after we put out the trash.

Everything was still pretty soggy on Thursday, but it wasn't raining, so Mom let me go to the library. I went straight to our tree. Dinah was propped up against it, flipping through the harmonica book.

She was waiting for me like a present under the tree. I suddenly wished our tree was a Christmas tree that stayed green all year round instead of a maple tree whose leaves would turn brilliant red only to fall down and die. I pictured Dinah wrapped in a winter coat waiting for me under the bare limbs. Only she wouldn't be there. And even when the leaves returned, Dinah wouldn't.