Converting Kate by Beckie Weinheimer

Author:Beckie Weinheimer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
Published: 2010-03-01T00:00:00+00:00

chapter fourteen

THE SCENT OF lemon oil greets me as I open my bedroom door. I sniff and my eyes zoom in on Dad’s bookcase.

“No!”

I fall to my knees at the side of the freshly polished shelves. Two of my own books are still here, both on running. And next to them, five new books. They manage to fill only a tiny bit of the space on the now almost empty shelves. The Holy Bible, The Gift of Forgiveness, Christ and the New Millennium, Miraculous Stories from the Youth in God’s Army, and Twenty-Five Missionary Tips for Today’s Teens. But Dad’s books, which only two hours ago crammed this bookcase, are gone.

Every. Single. One.

My fists clench. I hit at the carpeted floor, smacking and punching, losing track of time, losing track of everything, until my knuckles are red and raw. In exhaustion, I collapse on my back, draw up my legs, and wrap my arms around them. I rock back and forth, my eyes shut tight.

Stretching out flat, I stare at the empty white ceiling, then roll over and run my hand across the wood shelves. I rub at the traces of lemon oil on my fingertips. Trust her to have even cleaned the wood! As if she could actually wipe away every speck of his dangerous, worldly books. I jump up, grab her precious Bible, cross the room, open my window, and hurl the red leather book out into the thick woods at the edge of the yard. It’s raining, a gentle drizzle. Back at the bookshelf, I pile the other four books in my arms. Then one at a time, using all my strength, I throw each toward the Bible and watch as they land with a quiet thud on years and years of pine needles.

“They’re all lies. All lies,” I cry to the woods. To the sky. To any god who will listen.

I lean out, looking upward, breathe in the fresh air the rain has brought, and the droplets dribble down onto my T-shirt. The T-shirt with the tiny flowers that I wore to church youth group. The youth group that caused Mom to steal all my father’s books. The same youth group that Douglas’s and Richard’s parents won’t allow them to miss. I smile as Mom’s books receive a baptism from Heaven. Not the Church of the Holy Divine immersion kind, sadly, only a sprinkling. Too bad. But maybe if I’m lucky it will rain and rain and rain and they’ll be covered in a puddle and then every tiny part of them will be covered and they can get a baptism that is acceptable to Mom. After all, I know how important it is to be baptized with total immersion. I learned that lesson on my eighth birthday.

We lived in Idaho then. Grandma, Grandpa, my aunts, uncles, and cousins filled most of the chairs that surrounded the church baptismal font, which to me looked like an oversized sunken bathtub. I didn’t know how to swim and was frightened of the whole thing.

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