Joy Sparton and Her Problem Twin by Ruth I. Johnson

Author:Ruth I. Johnson [Johnson; I. Johnson]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-8024-8990-6
Publisher: Moody Publishers
Published: 1963-08-27T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 7

A Policeman Questions Roy

I WOULD HAVE GONE TO BED, but I just knew I couldn’t get to sleep. Anyway, I wanted to be awake when Roy came home—if Roy came home.

All at once I wondered where Roy had gone. If he had escaped from the police, he certainly would not come back home. But much to my surprise, a little bit after nine, I heard Roy put his bicycle in the garage and walk into the house. I wondered if he had his school and library books with him, or if he had forgotten to go back and pick them up. But would he go back to the library when the police were looking for him? Then I wondered why he came home.

I opened the door to my bedroom because I wanted to listen to anything that was said.

Mother and Daddy were in the kitchen when Roy came, and when I opened my door it seemed that everybody was laughing and joking. This made me feel awful. How could Roy laugh and joke when he had been in a crime? When the police were looking for him?

I could almost imagine what would happen to Mother when she found out. She would cry and cry and cry and get real sick about it. And Daddy would probably say he could never preach again. And how could he? How could he get up there and tell other people how to live for Christ when his own son was living a life of crime?

Pretty soon Daddy came to the foot of the stairs. “Joy! Do you want to come down for a snack? We’re going to have a little bit before bedtime.”

Eat! How could Roy or anybody else eat, I wondered. “I’m not hungry, Daddy,” I called down. And then I heard Daddy say, “Well, that’s a different wrinkle.”

By the time everyone else came upstairs, I had jumped in bed and pretended I was asleep. I had wanted to talk with Roy and tell him what I had heard on the radio. I was going to tell him I was sorry I had promised to keep his secret. But I couldn’t talk with him now. Not when he didn’t seem to be the least bit sorry for what he had done.

“So you finally got your theme done?” I heard Daddy say, as they were coming up the stairs.

“The whole works,” Roy bragged.

I shuddered. How could he lie like that, I wondered. When they walked by my room, I tried to be very quiet. I didn’t even want to move. Roy stopped at the door. “Joy?” he called softly, but I didn’t answer. He went to his bedroom and closed the door.

Daddy had just turned the bedroom light off and crawled in bed when the doorbell rang. That wasn’t too unusual, because people would stop to see Daddy about spiritual problems even in the middle of the night. But I jumped as I heard the bell ring. It was a policeman, I knew. I knew it had to be a policeman after Roy.

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