Leslie's Journal - Allan Stratton [8]
Mom should be committed.
Katie also believes in dreams coming true. According to her, you don’t have to work for your dreams, you just have to pray for them. According to her, God answers her prayers all the time.
“Oh yeah?” I say. “Well, He didn’t give you that A you wanted in geography.”
“Only because I didn’t pray hard enough. But He gave me a C, and if I hadn’t prayed at all I would have failed.”
Katie also believes in God answering prayers because of her teeth. Since forever, she’d been praying for Him to fix her overbite. Finally, at the end of grade eight, her parents took her to an orthodontist, who gave her braces. She showed me this miracle the next morning before school.
“Katie,” I said, “are you trying to tell me God is a dentist?”
That made her really mad. She said if God was going to answer her prayers, it was mean for me to get picky about how He did it. In fact, it was a sin. I went to say something smart, but she put her hands over her ears and started to hum some hymn.
“Look, Katie, I believe in God,” I yelled, since it was the only thing I figured would shut her up. “I just think He’s got more on His mind than your stupid braces. Making sure the planets don’t collide, for one thing.”
And suddenly, there in my grade school playground, I had a flash of God as this Cosmic Juggler, and us as billions and trillions of balls He’s got in the air. Some of us stay up and some of us fall down. And who stays up and who falls down—well, it all depends on whether He loses His concentration.
Katie liked my theory, except she said God never loses His concentration because He’s perfect. She says everything has a reason, and God has a Divine Plan for each and every ball. If a ball falls, either it didn’t go where it was supposed to go or God planned for it to fall all along.
Katie’s idea of a Divine Plan is what English teachers like Ms. Graham call Destiny. Or Fate. It’s why young lovers get together at the end of a story, unless they’re in Romeo and Juliet, in which case they die.
Mom and Katie are lucky. They really believe there’s a reason for everything, and that sooner or later you’ll be happy if you just work or pray hard enough. I want to be like them, but lately I’ve been overcome by this fear. I just start sweating and I think—what if there isn’t a plan? What if Destiny is just a fancy word for luck? I mean, what if things just happen because they happen? For no reason at all?
For example, maybe you want to get some chips from the store across the street. But the second you step off the curb you’re hit by a truck. For no reason! It just happens!
If things just happen because they happen, then you have no control. You’re helpless. We all are. Even parents. There’s no one—nothing—to protect us. Not ever.
I don’t want that. I want a world that makes sense. Where things have meaning. That’s why even though I think Mom and Katie are crazy, I really hope they’re right. Because then I can stop worrying. Like, if my dream of Jason and me being together is part of some Divine Plan—if it’s destined or something—then it’ll just happen. Or if dreams need a little work, I can keep checking his locker. Or if prayer helps ... Well, okay, not that I believe in it or anything, but just in case, Dear God: If Jason comes up and asks me for a date, I promise to believe in You.
Am I ever glad no one’s reading this.
Seven
God exists! I’ve been rescued from hell! Okay. First the hell part. Yesterday Katie invited me to another of her Saturday night all-girl sleepovers. I was kind of glad to be asked, because if I hadn’t been, I’d be suicidal. But I’m also thinking, hey, we’re in grade ten now—aren’t we a bit old for this shit? I mean, couldn’t we have a house party? But no, at Katie’s place there’s rules about no cigarettes or booze or boys. Once, as a joke, I asked Katie if I could bring some homemade hash brownies to liven things up. You should have seen her face. It was like I’d invited her to