“Hey, you wanna hitch out to Nick’s and get some pizza?” She ignores me, keeps heading for the bus. Maybe if I pretend I’m the one with the problem. “Jorja? I need to talk to you. Please?” She gets on the bus without looking at me, but I can tell she’s thinking. Probably weighing my need, whatever it is, against the boost she’ll get from that church crowd. When I sit beside her she doesn’t turn away to look out the window, just stares blankly at the back of the seat ahead of her. So I wait. If she’s heard me, if she’s on board, she won’t make getting-up motions near the church.

  As we get near Society of Nazareth, I look out at the marquee. This time it’s PUT THE U BACK IN CH RCH. Jorja doesn’t budge. I take a deep breath, but I don’t speak; that would kill it, and she’d be off the bus in a shot. This is how it is with her. You kind of have to walk on eggshells a little. It’s almost like by the time you’ve gone to the trouble to make friends with her, it would be a waste of that effort not to keep going.

  We stay on the bus past my house and ride to the end of the route, where it intersects with the highway. One other kid is still on the bus, a girl who used to have a crush on me. She’s anything but Goth, so she’s probably thinking she had a close call. She’s right for more reasons than she knows.

  Jorja and I must look like quite the pair to anyone driving by, two teenage kids all in black, my jeans skin-tight all the way into the tops of my Doc Martens, Jorja’s long skirt with her version of a handkerchief hem—she hacked it into irregular, frayed jags herself—and huge patch pockets that have nonfunctional metal chain laces up the middle.

  Most cars just drive by, but eventually we get a ride with some woman who knows us, and we have to listen to a lecture about the dangers of hitchhiking and threats about telling our parents for the four minutes’ worth of road to Nick’s. What she doesn’t seem to understand, and I don’t know how to tell her, is that hitching is half the fun of going to Nick’s. One of these days I’m going to hitch someplace really far away, just for the hell of it. One day when I get the guts.

  Jorja orders two slices with pepperoni, which I take to mean that she’s in tough emotional shape. I get two with sausage, we grab a can of Coke each, and we slide into a red-orange fiberglass booth at the front window, where we can watch the little bit of traffic when we run out of things to say or just feel like sitting there a bit.

  I’ve downed my first slice before Jorja says, “So what did you want to talk about?”

  Oh, yeah. I told her I needed to talk. I stall for time with a few sips of soda. Finally, “Kyle tried to freeze his right hand.” I’ve got her attention, anyway. But I don’t know where to go from here. So I say, “Now he won’t use it for anything.”

  “Anything? Is he right-handed?” I nod, my mouth full of pizza. “Must make it tough in school. How does he take notes? Or do his homework?”

  I hadn’t thought of this. She’s right. “I have no idea. I just know he tries to eat with his left hand, and sometimes he forgets.”

  “But why freeze it?”

  I shrug. “No idea. All he said was it was causing him to stumble. Something about cutting off members.”

  Her eyes widen. “You mean like in Matthew?” Was that it? I can’t remember; I just nod. “What was it he did? With his hand, I mean?”

  I sit back and look hard at her; do I tell her what the stumble was? I never know what she can take, what she wants to hear about, and what she doesn’t. I decide on discretion. “He didn’t specify.”

  Silence. Then, “What church does he go to?”

  “The one out on Thurber Road.”

  “Why that one?”

  “Dunno. I guess it’s the one my folks used to go to.”

  She’s quiet, but I can tell she’s thinking. But when she speaks, it’s a new topic. “How are you doing with your folks?”

  Ah. That. “My mom’s lawyer is really good-looking.”

  She sits up straight. “Ethan! Of all the . . . When is the divorce final?”

  “No idea.”

  “Did they get married in that church?”

  “I think so. I wasn’t there.”

  “Then they shouldn’t be getting divorced at all. Doesn’t it bother you?”

  My throat starts to tighten, a dangerous sign. “Jorja, what do you want me to say?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe something like how you don’t want this to happen, like you don’t want to lose your family, like your mom is really unhappy, like you’re doing everything you can to get them back together again? Something like that?”

  I’m shaking my head. “I can’t do anything.”

  “Have you tried?”

  “Like what? What could I do?”

  “You could tell your dad that your mom misses him.” I don’t want to admit to Jorja—or even to myself—that ratting on Mom and Jimmy Korbel had occurred to me the other day. I feel guilty just thinking about it. And I feel guilty for not having tried, anyway.

  Then she says, “It’s not like he was hurting you or anything, was he?” Hurting me? Not past the usual stuff, spankings when I was a kid. “Or your mom?”

  I shake my head. “Uh, no. I mean, she got mad at him a lot, and I suppose there were good reasons, but not that one.” I need to get back to the reason I asked her on this little adventure. “Listen, I was wondering. About History class, you know. I mean, all that stuff about the Constitution. . . .”

  Her eyes get all intense. “I know! Can you believe that? They shouldn’t let that guy teach history! He has everything all wrong!”

  Yes. Well. This isn’t how I anticipated things going. So I try to soft-pedal the issue, try to avoid pointing out that he might know a little more than we do. “But, I mean, it’s not like you’re gonna change his mind. So I’m wondering if it’s really a good idea—”

  “You never know! Besides, I’m worried about the other kids. He’s feeding them this stuff like it’s gospel. Ethan, don’t pretend you don’t know how important this is. Don’t you know the rest of the world—the non-Christian world, anyway—is at war with us? It’s a holy war. And it’s gonna end soon, the Rapture will happen, and anyone who’s not with us, who isn’t in the Church, will be left behind. They’ll have the mark of the beast, they’ll be tormented with fire and sulfur, and they won’t be able to escape when the fires destroy everything and the sea turns to blood! Is that what you want for our classmates?”

  I’m trying very hard not to let on how ridiculous this sounds. She seems to think I’m on board with this lunacy, though. Is there a good way to let her know I’m not? “Come on, Jorja, don’t you think all that fire and brimstone stuff is a little . . .”

  “A little what?” She leans across the table, her voice a hoarse whisper as she tells me, “Ethan. I have seen the beast. I know the beast. Trust me.”

  She’s so intense it’s starting to scare me. For real. All I can do is nod. Jorja leans back again, eyes closed as she takes a couple of deep breaths, almost like she’s been fighting the beast right there in front of me. Then she looks at me, her eyes dull and tired. “You do not want the mark of the beast on you.”

  I’m sitting there wondering how on earth she could have got this deep in without my realizing it. I mean, the beast? I’m actually a little worried about her. Maybe I can find out a little more about where she’s coming from with this business. “So, about this beast. Where do I look in the Bible? It’s in there, right?”

  “Oh, yes. Absolutely. You need to read Revelations. I think everyone should read that first, before they read the rest of the Bible. Then they’d know how deadly serious this is. Then they’d know how hard they need to work, how sincerely they need to believe. They’d know. They’d just know.”

  Revelations. Maybe I’ll ask Kyle. Or . . . maybe not; that could take longer than reading it, and he’d be on me afterward, most likely, to test me or whatever. No, I’ll just have to sneak his Bible away long enough to read Revelations. For Jorja’s sake.

  The next week in Biology we dissect frogs. Sylvia tells us to pair up, and Jorja gloms on to me immediately. Max is looking at me, but as soon as he sees Jorja he turns away. His body moves first, and the look he gives me cuts into me. It’s almost like he’s saying, “If that’s the way you want it.” And it isn’t. But then I feel guilty; what’s Jorja supposed to do if I scamper off with my new friend? She’s never turned me down, never left me in the lurch.

  The frog reeks of formaldehyde, which makes me a little dizzy. Jorja calls me a baby, but it’s not the frog that gets to me, it’s the smell. Plus, ours is a female, and she has eggs. That makes me kind of sad. I mean, okay, we have to kill something to live, but why kill something just to take it apart?

  Jorja picks up on my feelings. “What’s with you?”

  I don’t want to make a big deal out of this, so I just say, “Doesn’t seem to be a very good reason to kill something. This, I mean.”

  Her eyes roll upward. “Oh, Ethan. It’s not like the thing is human.”

  “It was alive. And it was pregnant.”

  “But it’s not human.”

  Like that’s the be-all and end-all. She’s made her position clear. I’m not sure it’s mine, but I don’t feel like getting into it.

  On the bus ride home I’m working on some convincing phrases to use on Mom to try and get her to take me out on the road, driving. If I don’t get started on my thirty-five supervised driving hours, it’ll be next year before I get my intermediate. But as soon as I get to the house from the bus stop, Mom captures me. “Come on, Ethan. You’re going to help me with something.”

  I’m tired, and I just want to go jerk off and sulk in my room. “What?” My voice is heavy with sulk already.

  Hands on hips, she glares at me. “Don’t give me that tone! Now, come on. We have important work to do. Watch this.” She picks up a hammer and walks to the front edge of our yard near the road, and now I see there’s something lying on the ground there. Mom picks it up, and it turns out to be one of those election signs like the ones I’d helped Dad deal with. The kind I’d been sure she’d never agree to. The hammer comes down on the top of the wooden stake, and suddenly we have a sign in our own yard. It faces the road, so I can’t see what it says. But it doesn’t really matter what it says. It’s one of those stupid signs, and it’s in my yard. I want to hide, but that would do only so much good. Around here, everyone knows where everyone else lives.

  About now I notice that our car, a rattly Subaru wagon we got thirdhand, is full of signs, all on raw wooden stakes. But these say something I haven’t seen before. Some of them say, ETTA GREENLEAF. FOR SCHOOL BOARD. FOR COMMON SENSE. Another version says, GOT SCIENCE? PROVE IT. Etta’s name is at the bottom of this one. And then there’s RELIGION IS FOR CHURCHES. SCIENCE IS FOR SCHOOLS. Again, Etta’s name. And also, DON’T PRAY IN MY SCHOOL, AND I WON’T TEACH SCIENCE IN YOUR CHURCH. All the lettering is bright green.

  I’m standing there looking at them and thinking that some of them are bigger than the other signs I’ve seen. The average size of the others is probably around eighteen inches long and a foot high. “What am I supposed to do with these?”

  “You’re going to help me pound them into the dirt, that’s what. This is important, Ethan. This is your brain, your education we’re talking about.”

  “But . . .” Think fast, Ethan. “But they’re too big.”

  “They’re not! You can’t get anything important into four words.”

  “Um, like, got-science-prove-it?”

  “What is your problem?”

  “Ma, I don’t want to get involved in this stuff!” And I don’t. I really don’t. I hate taking sides about anything.

  “You’re involved whether you want to be or not. Do you know what will happen if Carl Phinney wins this seat? Do you?”

  “I’ll learn what Intelligent Design is.”

  “You’ll be expected to take it seriously as science! It’s a Trojan horse, Ethan. Do you remember what that is?”

  I stretch my mind. Trojans. Condoms? No. Wait. Greeks. But I take too long.

  “Get in the car.”

  “Can I drive?”

  “Not today.”

  I throw myself into the passenger seat and slam the door. Mom ignores this and gives me a description of the huge wooden horse the Greeks pretended was a gift to the city of Troy during some war, and all these soldiers are inside, and they come out at night and slaughter everyone. Something like that. I’ve heard it before, I just forgot.

  We turn onto the road, and I can see that the sign Mom planted in our yard is the Got Science one. And before long, I realize that we’re headed in the direction of my school. “Where are we going?”

  “Can’t think of a better place to start than right around the school. This is an educational issue. The schools are public. They’re not churches. And our government is supposed to keep the two apart. What have you learned about that in your studies?”

  I do my best to shrink down so I’ll be seen by as few people as possible. “The wall of separation,” I mumble. “The Establishment Clause. The government can’t set up a religion. The Free Exercise Clause. Worship however you want to.”

  “Very good. There’s hope for you yet. Do you know what that all means?”

  “No one can tell me what church I have to go to.”

  “More than that, Ethan. Sit up. No one can tell you to go to church at all. Or to synagogue. Or any place like that. But what the Carl Phinneys of the world want is exactly what the Constitution says they can’t do. You heard your crazy brother last week. They want to tell you what to believe. And this so-called Intelligent Design crap is nothing more than dressing up religion to try and make it look like science so they can sneak it into the school. Not with my tax dollars, they don’t!”

  I steal a look at Mom from my hunkered posture. She’s looking straight ahead, heaving mad, eyes blazing. Mom looks a little like Jorja when she’s on her high horse. Again, like it’s done a few times lately, my voice surprises me, gets away from me before I can stop it. “What makes you different from them? Seems like you’re both mad as hell at each other.”

  “The difference?” She’s practically squeaking. “The difference, my son, product of my loins, is that their rights end where mine begin. They want to force me into a box that doesn’t fit me. I’m not trying to force them anywhere except out of my face. If they’d stay out of my business, I’d stay out of theirs.” She glares quickly at me and back to the road. “They started this, sonny boy, but they sure as hell aren’t going to finish it.”

  Hoping to calm things down a little, I ask, “Where’d you get these signs, anyway?”

  She lets out a long breath. “I went to visit Ms. Greenleaf, as a matter of fact. Offered my services. We worked out the slogans, she ordered them and paid for them, and I’m putting them up. She’s getting on, you know. That’s why she hadn’t done any up to now. But I promised to help.”

  “So that puts me on the spot?”

  “Consider it a lesson in social activism. Consider it an educational experience.”

  Mom stops at the open field just outside the boundaries of the school property and hammers the first sign into the ground herself. She chooses Got science? Prove it. She says that one’s her favorite. Then she sends me across the road to set some up over there. She hollers, “Not too close together. And not in anyone’s yard, Ethan. Just where there’s open space.”

  There aren’t very many houses near the school, anyway. It’s almost all open space. Fields of boulders with blueberry bushes going red now that it’s autumn, that’s the most common landscape. The edges of the roads tend to fall away from the paved surface into gullies that trap water, and they’re full of milkweeds, puffed white with black-brown seeds to carry off. Twisted masses of bittersweet vines are practically choking skinny poplars. I’ve always liked bittersweet, the bright, hard, mustard yellow pods breaking open to expose the softer, red-orange seed head. But now as I look at them, as I see them strangling little trees, I think again about killing. It doesn’t benefit the bittersweet to kill the tree it’s climbing. So why does nature allow it? At least the larvae that eat wasps from the inside out are doing that to live. The bittersweet is killing the trees just because it can.

  By the time I run out of signs I’m kind of far away from the car, and as I head back that way I see that there’s an SUV pulled over, and someone talking with Mom. Loudly. It’s Mrs. Glasier. Guess she doesn’t lead Teen Meet every day. As I get closer I hear Mom’s words first.

  “I can put these up anyplace I want to. The side of the road is public easement. We aren’t putting them in yards, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  “Charlene, this is school property!”

  “Actually, it isn’t. That’s the boundary, right there.” Mom is pointing past her first sign. “And besides, school property is public property. Even so, that’s not where I put it.”

  Mrs. Glasier just glares. Then, “We’ll just see about this.” And she marches over to her SUV and climbs in, awkwardly because of how high the thing is up off the ground.

  Mom yells at the monster vehicle as it roars past. “What you’ll see is lots more of these. Carl Phinney isn’t the only one running, you know!”

  We stand there staring at the license plate that says JLVSME, which takes me a minute to decode as Jesus LoVeS ME. Wonder what it means that the only word all in caps is ME. I figure I may as well help Mom with the last of her signs. She’s on a rampage, though, slamming the hammer so hard she splits one of the stakes and has to fish out another sign. We don’t stop anyplace else after that, so I guess I’ll have to do this a few more times, ’cause we still have plenty of signs.

  Her mood hasn’t improved much by dinnertime—take-out pizza. And stupid Kyle makes things worse when he comes to the table with his right arm strapped to his side, the hand curled inward and wrapped. It looks painful. I can’t imagine how he did all that with just his left hand, and maybe his teeth.