A/N - This chapter, and every other chapter of this story, are in no way trying to portray Christianity in a negative sense. Zack is making criticisms, but this is in no way trying to flaming anyone's religion. I myself am Christian, so I would never do that.

Chapter 7 – Girlfriends & Churches

*Knock Knock*

"Cody, you in there?" I yelp in anticipation of my twin brother. Suddenly, the door opens to reveal a different person than the one I'd hoped for.

"Oh hey Zack! What's wrong?" Cody's roommate, Woody, smiles at me.

"Hey Woodchuck. I really need to speak with Cody. Is he around?" I peak my head over his shoulders into the room.

"Nope. He said something about hanging out with Bailey in her room tonight." Woody informs me. Well that's a good sign. Maybe he did succeed after all!

"Thanks. Later then!" I shout as I run down the hall. Looks like it's off to Bailey's room!

Once reaching the girls' cabins, I immediately recognize Bailey's room to be the one with the open door. I slow down my pace as I approach her room. I don't want to look too anxious. Of course with everything that's gone on today it would only be natural to want to speak to my twin brother all about it, but I'd rather not make it so obvious.

"Hey Bailey. Hey Co…" I start as I walk through the door, finding the two of them laying on Bailey's bed staring at a textbook. "…dy?" I finish my greeting with the implication that I'm utterly confused.

"Zack! So nice of you to come. Wanna do some homework with us?" Bailey welcomes me.

"Homework? It's a Saturday night for crying out loud! Who does homework on a Saturday night?" I roll my eyes.

"He has a good point Bailey. It's getting late. I think I'd better hit the hay." Cody sits up.

"Okay. We'll pick this up tomorrow!" Bailey closes the textbook and rests it on her nightstand.

I slam my hand against my forehead in disappointment as Cody shuts the door. "Guessing you didn't ask her out?" I sigh as I begin to walk with Cody back to our rooms.

Cody hesitates for a moment. "Well… I was going to, but then we started discussing the material on our math test this Tuesday. Next thing I know, I'm calculating the lifespan of the different types of trees in the forest." Cody groans.

I place my hand on his shoulder. "Look buddy, don't sweat it. If you want to ask her out then just go for it. Your problem is that you keep trying to 'wait for the perfect moment'. Well, guess what? Life is never perfect so you're waiting for something that will never happen. Just tell her!" I semi-pep talk him.

"But what if she says no?" Cody worries.

"Let's make that a rhetorical question. What if she does say no? What difference would that make to you?" I asked honestly. For once, I feel like I'm the one who knows what he's talking about around here and not Cody.

"I don't know. Maybe she'll think I've only been talking to her up until now only because I want to go out with her." Cody says with discontent.

"Even if you do want her, you're still great friends so that shouldn't matter. She'll get over it. Besides, I really think she likes you back!" I wink at Cody.

"You think so?"

"I know so." I correct him.

Cody takes a deep breath. "Fine I'll ask her tomorrow afternoon. I promise."

"Awesome! Then I expect to hear from you tomorrow."

"Speaking of today's agenda, where were you today?" Cody becomes curious.

The smile on my face becomes bigger following this statement. "It's a long story, so I'll just get to the point. I made a new friend today! His name is Nicholas and…" I start ecstatically.

"Wait a second. His name? I thought that when it came to getting to know random people you were only interested in girls?" Cody asks with a smirk across his face. He clearly knows the answer to his own question but he wants to hear the answer from my mouth.

"He's a really great guy though. I had more fun with him today than I'd had in a long time!" I say, getting a tad anxious.

Cody stares at me for a few seconds before replying to my statement. "So, when will I be meeting this new friend of yours?"

"He's coming aboard the ship tomorrow afternoon to hang out. I'll introduce you then." I smile in joyful hope of tomorrow. Everything just seems to be falling into place. It just goes to show: the best things in life happen when you least expect them.

After talking to Cody, I head back to my room and go to sleep as quickly as possible. The faster I get to bed, the faster tomorrow will come and as of now, tomorrow is not coming fast enough.

…

…

*Yawn*

I turn toward the clock which reads "7:00 AM". That's odd… I never wake up this early, especially without an alarm aiding me. I guess my excitement for the day to come is just too much to sleep through.

I throw myself together in a matter of minutes and rush toward the door, not exactly knowing where I am headed. I turn toward the clock to find that only ten minutes have past since I had awoken. "Come on you stupid clock! Tick faster!" I groan as I plop mtself onto my bed. It's a Sunday so nobody would even be awake at this time.

After about five minutes of pointlessly sitting around, I decide to give Nicholas a surprise visit. He said he'd be here at noon, but by the time I get there it'll be around eight. Maybe he'll be eating breakfast or something.

I walk toward the front desk where I find the manager of the ship, Mr. Moseby, sipping on a cup of coffee. After spotting me, however, he begins to choke on the substance.

"Zack, what are you doing up? You're never up this early on a Sunday let alone any other day of the week." Moseby glares at me as if I'm up to something.

"I couldn't sleep. I just wanted to take a little stroll in the forest." I state innocently to the manager. He tends to never believe me, although technically I am lying. I have a much greater intention than to simply walk in the forest. Still, I'm not up to no good so it shouldn't bother him.

"I'm watching you." He points toward his eyes as he continues staring me down.

"Later then!" I wink at Mr. Moseby as I walk past him. What a grump.

After a fast paced walk through the forest, I finally see civilization up ahead.

"Zack! You're here!" A familiar girlish shriek cries out followed by rapid hand waving and jumping up and down. I begin to chuckle. I just love attention sometimes.

"Theresa, good to see you! Is Nicholas up yet?" I get straight to the point. Talking to Theresa could result in something fatal again, so I'd rather avoid it.

"Of course he is silly. It's a Sunday. Everyone's up by now." She smiles at me.

I stare at her in confusion. "Why would everyone be up this early on the weekend?"

"Because, it's Sunday. Church starts in fifteen minutes." She replies with a tone as if that should've been obvious to me. "Don't you go to church on Sundays?"

"Well, when I was little I used to, but not recently. I'm not really that religious. Besides, there's no church on the S.S. Tipton for me to attend." I inform the girl. Did I say too much again?

"Oh no!" She gasps.

"What?"

"You don't go to church. That's bad." She shakes her head in disappointment. "Although, it isn't really your fault since there is no church on that boat you live on."

"Yeah…" I sigh. Nobody even gives church a second thought on the ship, yet Theresa's acting like I robbed a store because of my lack of church going.

"Wait a second. I got it!" Theresa snaps her fingers as she smiles once again. "How about you come to church with me?"

I stare at her in discomfort. "I don't know…"

"Awww come on! Church isn't that bad. Besides, Nicholas is going to be there." Theresa reminds me. My thoughts on the matter immediately begin to change. I hate how powerful the "Nicholas card" has become. Then again, Nicholas has proved to provide a fun time in typically boring environments.

"Fine, I'll go this one time, but only because I don't want to be by myself. And if I don't like it, I'm leaving." I make sure I am abundantly clear.

"Yay!" Theresa yelps as she hugs me. "Come on, we'd better head to church. Don't wanna be late!" She tugs on my arm. I wonder how this is going to turn out…

When we arrive at the chapel, I stare at in awe. It's huge! Compared to every other structure in this town, it stands out like a sore thumb. It seems like this church is the prized possession around here.

"We're here!" Theresa exclaims. "Now, for the first hour we have Sunday School. This is when we split up into separate classes according to age."

"First hour?" I groan. "How long is church anyway?"

"Three hours, silly." She sticks her tongue out. My eyes widen. Three hours? I don't remember church ever being this long before…

'Let's just get this over with.' I think to myself as I swing open the church door. To my surprise, the church looks even bigger from the inside. The ceiling stretches ridiculously high with what appears to be God in the center surrounded by angels displayed across the rest of the ceiling.

Theresa immediately directs me downstairs and across a narrow hallway. I trail behind her as I take a brief pause at every door we pass. Inside every room thee are people of different ages doing various things. From young children singing to old ladies praying, Theresa was definitely spot on when she said EVERYONE goes to church around here.

"Here we are! This is the high school boys' class." Theresa extends her arms toward the door.

"Thanks…" I retort. Of course I'm far from thankful to be here, but it only seems fair to thank her.

"No problem. Well, I'd better get to my class now! Daddy'll kill me if I'm late." She begins to walk away, but then turns back around. "Where are my manners?" Theresa smiles as she walks toward me once more. "Bye Zack!" She hugs me for the millionth time in the past twenty four hours.

I wait until Theresa is completely out of sight before I open the classroom door. When I finally proceed to do so, I find about ten boys around a big circular table. However the first one to catch my eyes is obviously Nicholas.

"Welcome!" The middle aged man who seems to be the instructor in the room greets me. "Please have a seat wherever you'd like."

I remain silent, but flash a smile at Nicholas as I take a seat beside him. Nicholas stares at me in confusion. "What are you doing here?" He whispers.

"Your sister talked me into it." I reply as I glance around the table. "Who are all these people? I thought you were the only boy around here."

"They're from neighboring towns. People from all around come here because this is the main church of the upstate region." Nicholas states. He then looks back up at the older man and remains attentive. As a result, I do the same.

"So, as you were saying Joseph?" The older man says.

The petite boy begins to talk. "Well… I just wanted to know… what does God think of me when I do something bad?"

"What did you do?" I interrupt in curiosity. I notice Nicholas trying to shut me up midsentence, but I ignore him.

"It doesn't really matter what specific thing Joseph has done." The instructor informs us. "Everyone turn to Romans 3:12."

Not knowing how to use a bible myself, I look at Nicholas' bible to read along. "Joseph, would you kindly read for us?" He continues.

"Okay..." He softly replies. "All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one." Joseph struggles to read. What the… we're all worthless? What kind of nonsense is this!

"So now, if there is nobody who does good, this means that everyone does bad. Therefore, if God were to hate you for your bad deed, then he'd have to hate everyone. Do you think that God hates everyone?" The man asks.

"No Mr. Lanning…" Joseph stutters. So that's his name.

"Moving on..." Mr. Lanning puts on a pair of glasses as he pulls his binder toward himself.

"Wait a minute!" I interrupt. Mr. Lanning looks up at me with the rest of the boys. "So, Mr. Lanning, you're telling me that everyone in this room is worthless?"

"We are only worth as much as God deems us to be worth." Mr. Lanning replies.

"That's nonsense! People are worth more to certain people than to others. For example, Joseph might be worthless in your life, but very important in my life. So calling us all generally worthless is absurd!" I begin to shout. Nicholas then kicks me under the table. I still ignore him though. It's obvious he just wants me to keep my mouth shut, but how could I listen to such idiocy without saying something about it?

"You're missing the point. What people on this earth think of you will not matter in the long run. What matters is God's view of us because we will spend eternal life under his ruling." Mr. Lanning sternly says.

"So, if he thinks everyone is worthless, then why bother to please him?" I ask.

"Because he still loves us even though we are far from perfect. In fact, he gave us a way to get to heaven even with our imperfections. Would you mind reading verse 22 of that same chapter?" He requests of me.

I snatch Nicholas' bible for the moment and begin to read. "This eternal life with God comes through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe."

"See, even though we are 'worthless', he still gave us a way spend eternal life with him." Mr. Lanning informs me.

"Well, maybe I don't want to spend eternal life with someone who thinks I'm worthless." I roll my eyes. I look around the entire classroom and find everyone staring at me with widened eyes. Are they really that surprised that I'm saying this?

"That's a fatal mistake young man. I don't think you want to be damned to hell." Mr. Lanning states.

"Hmmph. Bring on the fire! I can take it!" I pound my chest. This guy's really beginning to get to my nerves. Why can't he just stop trying to scare everyone?

"Okay, well I have a class to teach. I can't spend all day on this." He opens up his lesson binder.

"Fine. I have better things to do anyway." I stand up and walk toward the door. I turn back toward Nicholas before leaving and notice that he is trying to not react, but it's clear to me that he wants to back me up. "Have a great day!" I shout as I slam the door with all my might. I then walk away, thinking about the fact that they're most likely discussing my whole display. Pffft, that guy can just go screw himself.

It also bothers me that Nicholas just sits there and keeps his mouth shut. Doesn't he see anything wrong with what that guy was saying? Doesn't anyone else in there agree with me? I can't be the only one with such a viewpoint, but I'm definitely the only one with the courage to say something about it.

After I exit the church, I decide my best bet is to head back to the boat. By now everyone should be awake, so I'll have people to keep me busy until Nicholas comes. Besides, I'm sure Cody and Woody would love to hear about my little venture this morning.

How will Nicholas react to Zack's courageous pep talk when he rejoins with Zack? Find out next time!

Well, I hope you guys liked this chapter and understand that this was Zack's voice, not my own at all. I'm not calling out Christians because then I'd be calling out myself which is just silly.

As always, don't forget to review! I particularly want to know if my church scene was a bit much in any of your opinions. I don't want to continue hurting anyone if I did here...