Chapter 2 Back to School Special

On the first day of school, Luke, Joan, and Grace decided to walk to school together to school. Even if it required Grace to add an extra leg to the journey, it seemed a good idea: an opportunity to talk without being overheard either at home or school. But Grace spotted a problem about the general strategy.

"If Rove knows that the three of us are walking without him, he'll feel left out," she observed. "And if we include him, we can't talk about the secret."

"Unless we let him into it," pointed out Luke, "Joan's considered that before."

"Yeah, but things are different now," said Joan gloomily. "Before, it was just me. But how will he feel when he learns that his three best friends have a relationship with God and he doesn't?"

"Maybe God will let him in," mused Grace. "Maybe all the good he's doing for Bonnie is a sort of test. Like when I visited him yesterday, he was persuading her not to skip her final year of school, at least until she gets too big to manage it. He's being very thoughtful for a girl who's basically a pest. I hope God's impressed."

They pinned their hopes on that, and dropped the subject.

On arriving at school, Joan and Grace stopped by a restroom to make sure that the long walk hadn't mussed their hair. Joan was intrigued and more than a little shocked to notice that Grace even cared. As they looked in the mirror they noticed the reflection of a third girl, in a skimpy cheerleader outfit.

"Hi, Joan, Grace."

"Do we know you?" asked Grace predictably.

"Yeah," Joan said resignedly. "Grace, meet Cheerleader God. Look, Cheery, do we have to go on a mission today? Everything's so hectic on the first day of school."

"Everything IS hectic," agreed the Cheerleader. "Be on the lookout for people needing help."

"That's the mission?" Joan asked.

The Cheerleader nodded and turned to go, but Grace called out:

"Wait. God visits restrooms?"

"Locationally, yes. Biologically, no." She waved her baton at them and exited. But having got that crack in seemed to cheer up Grace.

----

There had been a time when Joan would have tuned out Law, listening just enough to pass the course. Mr. Harbison, a small, balding man, was not an impressive speaker. Friedman had rudely compared him to an alien on STAR TREK. But Joan understood now that she was being prepared for something great, for which an understanding of law would be necessary.

None of her immediate friends had decided to take the class, though Joan did spot Glynis sitting in the back of the room.

"Three and a half centuries ago," said Harbison. "The philosopher Thomas Hobbes wrote that without the benefits of law, man's life was 'nasty, brutal, and short'. Hobbes' own solution was a dictator or absolute monarch; he had Louis XIV in mind. But in the centuries since we have learnt that the whims of a dictator, changing when the ruler does, are too unstable to support a civilization. Better to have an abstract system that lasts across generations. In America, the system is called Common Law--"

Listening to the teacher, Joan realized that her father had the same ideals. Will Girardi didn't believe in a God, but he needed something beyond himself to believe in, and for him that was Law, a system of right and wrong that transcended the individual.

These elevated sentiments were still in Joan's mind as she walked through the school corridors after class, and came across a tableau that definitely qualified as "nasty and brutal".

A boy was slumped against one wall in pain, holding his crotch. A few feet away, two other boys were holding a struggling Grace Polk by the arms. Beyond them a dark-skinned girl was kneeling on the floor picking something up; Joan couldn't tell if she was involved or not. Beyond the girl was a crowd of students, basically doing nothing but enjoying the fight.

Joan had no experience fighting, and didn't know what this one was about. One thing was clear: Grace was in danger. So she ran up and walloped the nearest boy on the side of his head.

The boy dropped his hold on Grace's arm, and she instantly spun around and planted her fist in the stomach of the third boy. He gasped and released her as well, and Grace backed up to Joan's side. The three boys glared at them with hatred, then ran. The reason for their flight became clear when Joan heard a voice behind her.

"Brawling in the halls, and on the first day? All of you, to my office immediately!"

Vice-Principal Price.

Senior Year was off to an awesome start.

TBC