When Dad came home at a little past 5:15, I knew I was in for some serious questioning. I was in my room now, doing my homework, so Dad wouldn't see me when he came in; this innocent person would not return to the scene of the crime. I had already deduced that the strange girl was going back to her hole in the ground, simply because she had nowhere else to go. And since she was so scared of automobiles, I also deduced that she would do her best to stay out of sight. In the end, no one should be able to find her except the way I did: by accident. As soon as Dad saw the mess of Lego in the living room, he called me in and asked what had happened. Naturally, I told him the truth, since he would believe me. I have learned the hard way that it is best not to abuse your parents' trust, so I am quite grateful that Dad trusts me now.
I told dad everything that had occurred, starting from when I had decided to go to Beth Tfiloh to visit my former classmates, all the way to the point when she dropped the model X–Wing fighter and ran out of the house.
"Where is the girl now?" he asked.
"I'm pretty sure she's back at her hole near the Rabbi's house," I answered. "I don't think she has anywhere else to go, and she definitely doesn't know anyone around here."
"You know your mother's going to have kittens when she finds out you had a friend over without permission."
"Yeah." Mom always goes off like a bomb when a house-rule gets broken.
"So what are you going to do about it?" (As of now, the dream has completely transitioned to being a fanfic.)
"We could just tell mom that I played around with my model when I got home from school," I said. Dad really hates it when mom blows up, so he's willing to stick up for me when doing so would save his hide.
A few minutes later, Dad left to go pick up my little brother from school (he is in the 6th grade at BT). I figured that that was the end of the issue about the strange girl, but I was to be proven wrong about an hour or so later.
FLASH FORWARD…
Mom comes home…
The moment mom walked into the house, she knew something was wrong. But that wasn't because she was psychic; it was because she saw the small dirt pile that was left by the door where the girl had last been wearing her sandals (she had taken them off when I put my moccasins on in place of my hiking boots). "All right!" Mom shouted. "Who forgot to wipe their feet!"
I responded by calling from my room, "I changed my shoes when I got home!"
My little brio brother was doing something on his laptop in the next room over, and he called to mom, "I wiped my shoes! Maybe dad did it!"
But a moment later, when mom went to take off her snow boots on the mat in the dining room, she called again: "Who's sandals are these!"
I froze. That girl forgot to take her shoes! Damn! I raced into the dining room just to make sure, and lo and behold, there are the girl's sandals: right where she left them. There was no way I could talk my way out of this one; all the proof was right there. "Uh, mom?"
"Are these your sandals?" she asked me.
"Uh, mom? After school today, I brought a friend home."
"Which friend?"
"Well, after I dropped my stuff off in the sun-room, I took a walk to Beth Tfiloh to visit my former classmates," I answered truthfully. But before I could continue, mom cut me off.
"The Beth Tfiloh dress code doesn't let students where sandals to school. Besides, it's too cold this time of year for these."
"I'm not finished mom. As I was saying: When I walked past Old Court Road, I found this girl. She looked lost, and she wasn't wearing much more than a black outfit and roller-blade pads. She looked lost and when I tried to ask her where she came from, she led me into the woods, until we came to a hole in the ground."
"So she's a stranger?"
"Yes."
"And you let her in the house?" Letting a stranger into the house is a family crime that would get me the nearest thing to capital-punishment from mom. I had to get of this one, and fast!
"It seemed to be a better thing to do than let her stay out in the cold!"
"How do you know she wasn't sick or anything? She could have had–"
"Mom! If I show you where I found her, will you calm down?"
"Only if you intend to return the sandals, because right after that, you're coming straight home."
"Mom, if I introduced you to her, would you feel better?"
"Do you know where she is?"
"Yes! She's right behind the Rabbi's house!"
"How do you know that?"
"Look. If she's not there, I'll just drop off the sandals and that will be the end of it. Okay?" By now, the sky was getting darker, so if I had any chance at finding her, I would need a flashlight.
"How do you know she's not a guest at the Rabbi's house?"
"I have a really strong hunch that that isn't the case."
"Do you know how late it is?"
"Yes."
"Are you sure she will still be there?"
"She has nowhere else to go."
"Do you know how to get there from Beth Tfiloh?"
"Yes."
"So if I drop you off in the parking lot, you will find her in five minutes? If it takes longer than that, you will be walking home." I knew mom was bluffing, and even if she wasn't, I knew the way home. The only difficulty would be finding the hole if I started looking for her from a different place.
All I could say at this point was "Yes, mom." I knew it would take way more than five minutes to find her, and I knew that she would be resistant to the idea of coming home with me again. But, I nonetheless felt sorry for her, and I was willing to go the extra mile if it meant success. What was it about pretty faces that made guys willing to do anything? "Just let me get a flashlight and I'll be ready." I went to my room, and collected my Swiss Army knife and my mini-Maglight™. When I came back, I was ready to go. Mom called to my little brother (he was doing something on his laptop in his bedroom) to tell him where we were going, and then we boarded mom's new minivan, Dad driving, and we left.
Mom drove the Sienna minivan to Old Court Road, and at the intersection I told her to drop me off. I got out of the car and crossed the street. Immediately I saw the foot prints from earlier today, so I followed them to the source. As I got closer, I turned off my flashlight so she wouldn't detect my approach. As it turned out, there was an small orange glow coming from the pit, so immediately I knew she couldn't see me, even if she wanted to. As I got closer, I saw a silhouette hunched over the light-source. Where she had gotten the blanket, I had not a clue, until I remembered her pouch. Aha. That's where she kept it. I decided to approach from behind her, so her blanket would block any noise I made. Between her concentration on the fire and the blanket, I knew she couldn't possibly detect me. And I was right.
Standing directly behind her, I dropped one of her sandals into the pit next to her, surprising her. As I had predicted, she gasped and turned around to see me standing there, right behind her. She hadn't even heard me approach. I separated the Velcro piece from in front of my mouth and I shined my flashlight at my face. She recognized me immediately, and she was scared, probably because she had no idea what I was going to do. I lowered myself to a stooping position and I smiled at her the same way I had when we first met. (This sounds like it's turning into a love story, doesn't it?) How do I let her know that I forgave her for pulling a knife on me? She looked at me suspiciously, and I'll bet she was wondering the same thing I was: Did he actually forgive me for dropping that thing, and pulling my knife on him? I showed her the other sandal that she had left at my house, and she gaped. She looked down to see what she had been wearing on her feet— and she saw that she had run out wearing my house slippers (one pair of them, anyway; I actually have at least two)! I smiled at her again, stifling a small laugh, and I held out my hand to help her out of the pit, not so much because she needed it as I wanted to show her that I really did forgive her. She returned the smile and pulled herself out of the hole, and we hugged while I mentally prayed that G-d would forgive for violating Shomer-N'gia.
Suddenly, the moment was interrupted by someone calling my name. It was my dad! Mom had probably sent him to look for me when I didn't show up at the end of five minutes. At least he could only see the footprints; I don't know what would happen if he saw us hugging. As it was, I planted my flashlight in the snow, and I went into the hole to retrieve her sandal that I had dropped in. I also retrieved the rest of her gear and I stamped out the small fire. In the light of the flashlight, I saw that she couldn't believe what I was doing. I again made the gestures for 'we will go back to my house'. Then I smiled, picked up her pouch and sandal (she was already holding one of the sandals), grabbed her hand and my flashlight, and we were off, back to my house.
FLASH FORWARD…
When we get back to the minivan in the Beth Tfiloh Middle School parking lot…
When we exited the woods, the girl hesitated when she saw the minivan's headlights. I wrapped a reassuring arm around her shoulders and I nodded to her when she looked at me, wondering what we were about to do. I pulled the handle for the rear door on the left side of the van, and pulled the door to the side. I climbed in and turned around, waiting for her to follow suit. When she did, I pointed toward the back, as though telling her to "go there." After that, I closed the door and I joined her in the back of the car. She clearly liked the comfortable seats, though I dared not force her to wear the seatbelt; that would have to come in time.
Then mom started talking again: "So, Ben, is this your friend?"
"Yes."
"What's her name?"
"I don't know." What an unusual answer! How can I have a friend if we don't even know each other's names?
"Did you ask her?"
"She doesn't speak English."
"Then how did you talk to her?"
"ASL."
"What?"
"Amateur Sign Language."
"So you've just been gesturing to each other the whole time?"
"Yup."
"All right." Mom's voice trailed off for a moment, but then she got another idea. "How do you know she's not a neighbor or someone else's guest?"
"Would a neighbor leave her daughter in a hole in the ground?"
"You slept on a tarp in a field during your OA ordeal," Dad pointed out.
"True," I agreed, "but that was an organized event with a whole bunch of other scouts in attendance. She was alone when I found her."
"So? Maybe she can't talk for this ordeal. Maybe she's actually taking the rules seriously," argued mom.
"We've conversed verbally on occasion," I answered. I watched the girl out of the corner of my eye, and I'm pretty sure she knew we were talking about her.
"You said she didn't speak English."
"It's all in how you say it; not necessarily what you say."
"Ben," Mom turned around to look at me at this point, "She can only stay in my house if you take responsibility for her."
"Okay, mom. I will."
At that moment the girl spoke again. She appeared to be asking a question, or more specifically, one of three possible questions: a) Who are you people (referring to the adults)? OR b) Where are we going? OR C) What happened to the thing she broke? I assumed she had asked the first question, so I did my best to gesture the answer: "I'll show you when we get there (there the place I was just pointing to, a.k.a. "my house")."
Dad drove the minivan up Carla Road and he made the left turn onto Labyrinth. The girl stared out of her window, taking in the view for the rest of the ride, and I wondered what she was thinking about…
-
I'm not going to disclose the Rabbi's name, simply because of privacy issues, and because he is not an important character in this story.
Shomer-N'gia is the restriction in Judaism that, in layman's terms, says a guy cannot touch a girl until they are married. I interpret this to really mean that a guy is not supposed to turn-on when touching someone of the opposite gender except when he touches someone who is SUPPOSED TO turn him on! To prevent the possibility of turning-on, even accidentally, at the slightest contact, the Rabbinate determined that guys and gals should not to touch whenever possible. In the case of this story, I could think of no alternative way to say 'I forgive you' since I speak bad in Japanese, so I think G-d would understand in this case.
ASL really stands for "American Sign Language," but because I hardly know it, I decided to make a little joke along the way. Not quite "LOL," but you get it, right?
When I did my ordeal for membership into the Order of the Arrow, I was actually required to spend the first night in the open, on a tarp, under the stars. Except that there were no stars; rather, there was lightning all night, and at about 5:00 AM Saturday Morning (5 AM according to my biological clock) I was woken by some camp official, who said that everyone had to move to the lodge on account of the oncoming storm. As a result, I received about an hour's worth of sleep that night. I know that because my biological clock said it was 6 AM the second time everyone was woken. One of the rules of the OA Ordeal was that we could not make conversation among ourselves while we performed whatever service project we were assigned. Well, my ordeal leader did not understand the purpose of that rule (he specifically told us that), so he let us talk as long as we worked.
I can tell when she is asking questions because questions are always ASKED.