Summer Sanctuary Read online

  “So, you get your Promised Land, only it’s already going to the dogs!” Mom was still laughing.

  Dad sighed. “Right. The Israelites got the Land of Canaan, and I get the Land of Canine.”

  They stopped talking. I guessed they were kissing. Time for me to go back to bed.

  Three

  THE NEXT DAY, I couldn’t get to the library soon enough. It opened at 10:00, and I watched Mrs. Cleary unlock the front doors. Mrs. Cleary had worked at the library since before I was born. She still wore her hair in one of those bouffant hairdos. The week before she ordered a bunch of books on relativity for me through interlibrary loan. She stood a little too close beside me and leaned over my shoulder to see my list. She smelled a little too much like the cafeteria at the Senior Center where we went Christmas caroling every year.

  I planted myself on the bench outside the library and thought about the girl. I decided that her parents must be dead. Whoever she lived with must be so terrible that she had to run away. As I sat in front of the library that morning, though, our library didn’t seem like a place for runaways. So I started thinking maybe she was mental. I read something once about people who are so crazy they eat dirt. They can’t help it. They see dirt in a flowerbed or garden, and they just have to pick up a handful and shove it in their mouths. Maybe there’s something like that with garbage. I’d have to research that if she didn’t show up.

  I almost forgot—it was Saturday. What if she couldn’t come back until Monday? What if she didn’t come back at all? Was she sneaking food out of other trash cans? Did she think I was a total loser—a short, skinny, freckle-faced nobody who liked to quilt? She left awful suddenly. Still—she did smile before she left. Not just a polite smile to dismiss me. It was a real smile that covered her whole face and included her eyes. She’ll be here. I just have to wait.

  I reached in my backpack and pulled out The Last Battle. Even though The Chronicles of Narnia series was my favorite, I couldn’t concentrate. I never even turned a page. It was nearly 11:00 when I finally caught a glimpse of her approaching from the side. I didn’t look up from the book until she was standing almost directly in front of me. She was wearing the same clothes as yesterday—same black t-shirt, same jean shorts, same scuffed-up white jogging shoes. When our eyes met, I said, “Oh, hi.” I hoped she couldn’t hear my heart pounding.

  “Hi, Matthew,” she replied. She sat down on the bench beside me, but not too close. I waited. Today she was going to have to do more of the talking.

  “So,” she said, looking me up and down, “you must have gotten all of your chores done early.”

  “Yeah. You were sure in a hurry yesterday. Everything okay?” I asked.

  “Sure.” She slipped her backpack off her shoulder and let it drop to the bench. It was every bit as full as it was yesterday, maybe even packed fuller. “I just had someplace else I had to be.” Then she turned toward me, kind of hiding the backpack behind her.

  “What about today? Is there someplace else you have to go?”

  “Maybe,” she replied. “What about you?”

  “I don’t have to be home until 3:00.” There was an awkward pause. “Do you want to share my lunch with me?”

  “Maybe. What’s for lunch?” she asked.

  “Let’s see what my mom packed today,” I said, rummaging through my backpack and pulling out a brown bag. I peered inside. “How do you feel about half a peanut butter sandwich, half a banana, and some pretzels?”

  “I’d like that,” she said. “But let’s not eat it here. Let’s have a picnic by the trees behind the library.” She was on her feet instantly. “Come on.”

  I’d never had lunch with a girl before. I liked the idea of a picnic where no one could see us. I mean, what if Mom or Dad drove by? Or someone from the church? They’d want to know who she was. I wouldn’t know what to tell them. Not that I was doing anything wrong. I got the feeling she really didn’t want to be seen, either.

  “How about right here?” she asked, settling in under the shade of a large maple tree.

  “Okay,” I said. There were lots of reddish-brown propellers all over the place—little helicopters to carry the maple seeds away in the wind. I plopped myself down right on top of them, Indian style. I’d never been back there before. I wasn’t really sure if we were supposed to be there, but at least there was nobody else around. “So are you ever going to tell me your name?” I ventured.

  “That all depends,” she said very matter-of-factly. “Have you told anyone about me or asked anybody else anything about me?”

  “No,” I answered. I was relieved that I hadn’t. I wanted to solve this mystery on my own. Would I have told Kyle if he were here?

  “That’s good,” she said. “If you tell anyone about me, I’ll be gone. You’ll never see me again.”

  Somehow I could tell she wasn’t kidding. “Well, I won’t tell anyone then,” I offered.

  She stared at me a long time. I felt my palms getting sticky again. I wiped them on my khaki shorts. “Okay,” she said finally. “I think I believe you, Matthew. My name is Dinah.”

  “Dinah,” I whispered under my breath. The name danced around and lingered in my mouth like the bubbles from an ice-cold Mountain Dew. “Are you hungry, Dinah?” I asked. I knew she was. I knew that’s how I got her back here all to myself. But what did I really know about hunger? I knew if she weren’t hungry, she never would have noticed me, let alone told me her name.

  “Sure. Let’s eat.” She pulled a beat-up water bottle out of her backpack and chugged down half of it while I divided up my lunch.

  “It’s creamy peanut butter,” I advised her. “Some people only like crunchy.”

  “And some people are allergic to peanuts,” she teased. “I like creamy best,” she assured me.

  “Me, too,” I nodded, except I didn’t. I liked crunchy. But there was never any crunchy peanut butter at our house because Johnny was still too young for crunchy. And by the time he was old enough, the new baby would be too young.

  We ate in silence. I looked around, trying not to gawk at her while she ate. The wind gently swayed the tree limbs overhead. Little rays of sunshine slipped through the stirring leaves, sparkling on Dinah’s face and hair. A robin hopping around at a safe distance behind us stopped and cocked its head at me. It quickly lost interest and flew away. I didn’t care about the robin, but I didn’t want Dinah to fly away again like yesterday.

  Dinah broke the silence. “Why are you being so nice to me?” she asked. She was combing her fingers through the grass and propellers, watching intently as the blades bounced right back up, twirling the propellers in the air.

  I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t very well tell her that I watched her dig my sandwich out of the trash yesterday, and I was just dying of curiosity.

  “You just seem different—more interesting than most of the people I see around here.” I leaned back on my elbows and stretched my feet out in front of me. “Why did you agree to have lunch with me?”

  “I was hungry,” she said simply, rising to her feet and wiping her hands on the back of her jean shorts. She walked around the maple tree, hugging it with one arm as she walked. Then she turned around and walked the other way, hugging the tree with her other arm. She stopped right in front of me. I had to look straight up to see her face. “You seem different, too,” she admitted. “In a good way.” She sat down and relaxed a little, leaning back against the tree.

  “Can you keep a secret?” she asked.

  I hesitated. How many times had my parents talked to me about good secrets and bad secrets? Could I promise to keep a secret without knowing what kind of a secret it was? “I can keep a secret that needs to be kept.”

  “I mean it, Matthew.” She sat forward, hugging her knees. “If I tell you something, you have to promise not to tell anyone.” Just the way she said it I could tell it was a really serious secret.

  “I promise,” I said, knowing that I would keep Dinah’s secret no ma
tter what and hoping I wouldn’t regret it.

  Four

  “LET’S WALK,” DINAH said, and she was on her feet instantly. We picked up our backpacks and headed into the small woods. “I really didn’t have any place to go yesterday,” she confessed. “And I really don’t have any place to go today. The truth is, I don’t have any place to go for the next 20 days.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “I mean I spent the last few nights in the playhouse at the park by the Y. Before that I spent a night in a barn out in the country. Only one, though.” She paused, and I waited. “You wouldn’t believe how loud cows can fart!” She put her lips to her arm and blew as hard as she could. I burst out laughing; then I tried it, too. “That’s it!” Dinah screeched. “You sound exactly like a farting cow!” I couldn’t wait to show Kyle my new talent. He probably spent all summer listening to cows fart.

  “So where are your parents?” I asked between farts.

  “I don’t have a dad,” she said blowing the biggest fart yet. “And my mom won’t be back until July 9.” She turned to look at me. I saw tears hiding behind her blue eyes. She tossed her head back and picked up the pace. I hustled to stay beside her.

  “Isn’t there anybody you can stay with?” Surely every kid had somebody who would take him in. “What about grandparents?”

  “Nope. My mom grew up in about a dozen foster homes up in Michigan. No grandparents, aunts or uncles that I know of.” We came to a small creek. At first I thought Dinah was going to wade right through it, but she turned abruptly to her left and walked along the edge, leaving me behind her. I caught a glimpse of my reflection shimmering in the water before I ran to catch up with her again. This time I kept her between myself and the creek.

  “You don’t have anybody at all?” I couldn’t imagine a world without my parents. Or my brothers, either, which kind of surprised me.

  “I have my mom, and she has me!” Dinah protested, dropping her backpack and grabbing the lowest branch of a sturdy oak. In what seemed like a single, smooth motion, she was suddenly perched above me. “I’m just on my own for the next couple of weeks.”

  I decided to climb the branch facing Dinah. It was a little bit higher, so I had to jump to reach it and scale the tree trunk until I was hanging upside down like a three-toed sloth. I struggled to right myself and felt the bark scraping away at the skin inside my legs. I gazed through the unfamiliar forest of trees around me until I caught a glimpse of a bridge over the creek that I recognized as part of the bike trails through our neighborhood.

  Dinah leaned her back into the trunk of the tree and wrapped her arms around the branch above her. “What about your house?” I asked her. “Don’t you have a house or apartment or someplace where you and your mom were living?”

  “We were living with my mom’s boyfriend,” Dinah said. “But I’m not staying there without my mom.”

  “Why not?” I studied her shoes as they swung back and forth beneath the branch. They were laced up real tight, like maybe they were too big. I wondered if they were her mom’s.

  “Jerry’s creepy,” Dinah replied.

  “Creepy like how?” I couldn’t imagine my mom liking someone creepy.

  “Like, we live in a one bedroom apartment, so I always sleep on the couch,” Dinah said. “The very first night after my mom left, Jerry told me I should come sleep in the bedroom with him. It wasn’t like he gave me a choice. So I curled up in a ball and pretended like I was asleep, and as soon as he fell asleep, I was outta there. I’m not going back until Mom’s out … I mean back.” Dinah gave me a penetrating glare. I decided not to ask. Then she swung around the branch and stuck the landing of a perfect dismount. “Ta-Da!” she sang, throwing her hands up in the air and then taking a bow.

  I jumped off the branch I was sitting on and landed in the grass on my hands and knees. I scuffled to my feet and dusted myself off. “Do you want to come stay at my house?” I offered, not sure if it would be better to suggest she could sleep on the couch or in my bed with Mark in the room. We didn’t have any girls’ rooms.

  “No way!” Dinah nearly shouted at me as she grabbed both of my shoulders. “I told you. You can’t tell anybody about me.” She let go of me and reached for her backpack. “I mean it, Matthew. Any adult would report me to Welfare, and I’d end up in a foster home. You don’t know how hard it would be for my mom to get me back.” Her eyes pleaded as she looked up at me. “You promised. Anyway, it’s only until July 9. I just need to lay low and stay cool for a couple of weeks.”

  She pulled an index card out of her back pocket and showed it to me. I recognized the sandwich bag it was wrapped in. On the card was a handwritten calendar counting down the days until July 9. Someone had scribbled “60 do 30” at the top. Dinah moved her thumb to cover the “60 do 30” and said, “See. Only 20 more days.”

  “So what can I do to help?” I asked earnestly.

  “I don’t need help,” Dinah snapped. I must have looked hurt because she quickly added, “I’ll tell you what I could use, though, is a can opener. Do you know where I can borrow a can opener?” She raised her eyebrows and grinned. “I’ll give it back in 20 days.”

  “Actually, I do,” I said. “There are at least three of them in the drawer in the church kitchen. Nobody would even notice if we borrowed one for a couple of weeks. Come on.”

  Five

  I HEADED TOWARD the bike trail. For a second I thought about going back to the library to get my bike. But Dinah didn’t have a bike, and I wasn’t sure how long she’d follow me. I decided the faster I got to the can opener, the better.

  “Where’s your church?” Dinah asked, looking up and down the trail.

  “It’s Peace Congregation, just a little ways up this path,” I told her, pointing up the hill, away from the library.

  “Do you have a key?” asked Dinah.

  “Nah,” I said. “I won’t need one. The front door will be unlocked. My dad will be there working on tomorrow’s sermon.”

  Dinah froze in her tracks. “Whoa!” she cried, shaking her head.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “He’ll be up in his office. If he sees me, I’ll just say that I stopped by to practice the piano.”

  “And where am I supposed to be?” Dinah just stood there with her eyes all popped out.

  “We’ll sneak around the back.” I motioned for her to keep walking. “There’s an old elm tree and dumpster near the back door. You can wait there, and then I’ll come get you.”

  Dinah still didn’t move. Instinctively, I took her hand and led her on. She didn’t object. As soon as she was moving again, I let her hand drop. But the warmth of her hand stayed with mine.

  The first thing we saw as we walked up to the church was the tall white steeple. There’s a bell in the steeple that rings loud enough that you can hear it from Kyle’s room a mile away. Usually I’m the one who rings the bell on Sunday mornings. There’s a big, coarse rope like you use for tug-of-war, and you have to yank it real hard, then let it yank you back, then yank it again.

  From inside the church with the doors shut, it doesn’t sound so loud. But one time when Dad was marrying some people from out of town—no kids allowed—I went to stay with Kyle. They rang the bells after the ceremony, only they didn’t even sound like the same bells to me. “What’s that?” I asked Kyle. I was trying to figure out what other church around us had bells like that.

  “Somebody’s yanking your rope, dude!” laughed Kyle. I wondered what Kyle would say about Dinah. Part of me was almost glad he wasn’t around to tell me what he thought. I wanted to sort this one out by myself.

  The trail passed right by the church. I showed Dinah to the back door that led down a short stairway to the kitchen area of the basement. I turned the doorknob just to be sure. Locked as always. The only time anyone ever used it was to put the trash in the dumpster for pickup on Thursdays. Once last winter when I was helping Dad put out all the trash, I accidentally locked us out. We raced around to th
e front to get back in before we froze.

  “Wait here,” I told Dinah.

  She nodded and leaned up against the dumpster. “Just hurry, okay?”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll be right back.”

  I dashed around to the front of the church. It took me a moment to catch my breath, then I pulled open one of the glass doors and stepped inside, holding the bar down behind to keep it from clanking as it closed.

  I could hear Dad’s powerful preaching voice muffled through his closed office door: “So Jesus made a whip-puh out of cord-suh and drove all of the animal-suh from the Temple-uh saying, ‘Get these out of hereuh! How dare you turn my Father’s house-uh into a marke-tuh!’ Yes, my brothers and sister-suh, our zeal for God’s house-uh should consume us!” Sometimes when Dad practiced his sermons, he dragged out his words just like Grandpa. He never did that when he preached, though.

  As I plodded down the steps to the basement, an idea began bouncing around in my brain. The thought gained momentum, and I did too. I ran through the kitchen, up the steps and burst through the back door, hanging on to the door as I swung around, so it wouldn’t close behind me. Dinah was so startled that she dropped flat on the grass by the dumpster.

  “Matthew!” she hissed. “Are you crazy? I nearly peed my pants!”

  “Sorry,” I apologized. Then we both cracked up. We laughed so hard I thought I was going to pee my pants.

  “Did you get it?” she asked finally, looking puzzled by my empty hands.

  “Even better,” I said. “I have an idea. Come inside so we don’t get locked out. It’s okay. Nobody will see us.”

  “You first,” Dinah said hanging on my shoulders as she followed me down the steps. “So what’s your idea?”

  “The church is completely empty every night. It’s got bathrooms, and a kitchen, and look, over here is the youth rec room.” The rec room wasn’t much to look at really. Just a corner of the basement covered with carpet samples that had been duct-taped together, half a dozen beanbag chairs, a shelf of books and CDs, and a boom box.