Saint Maybe - Anne Tyler [60]
“We have three more people to wait for,” Sister Myra said. “Mindy and the Larsons. Then we can begin. You all stay here with Sister Audrey while I go up and watch for the others.”
Sister Audrey was sitting on a child’s stool way too small for her. She was a big, soft, pale teenager in tight cutoffs and a tank top that showed her bra straps. When she heard her name she smiled around the room and hugged her potato-looking bare knees, but nobody smiled back. They were scared to death of Sister Audrey. She was helping out at Bible camp because she’d had a baby when she wasn’t married and put it in a Dempster Dumpster and now she was atoning for her sin. They weren’t supposed to know that, but they did. They discussed the details amongst themselves in whispers: how the baby had been wrapped in a towel (or Dermott said a grocery bag), how a janitor heard it peeping, how a police car took it where somebody grown could adopt it. Sister Audrey smiled at them hopefully while they clustered in the doll corner and rehashed this information. “Doesn’t anybody want me to read them a story?” she called, but they weren’t about to get that close to her; no, sirree.
Sister Myra came back downstairs with Mindy and one of the Larsons, Johnny. Kenny was home with the earache, she said. “Something for us to mention in our prayers,” she told them, and she clapped her hands. “All right, campers! Gather round! Everybody pull up a chair!”
Some of the chairs were little wooden ones, painted in nursery-school colors. Others were regular folding chairs, and all the boys fought for those so they wouldn’t look sissy. Especially Thomas. He couldn’t bear to have Dermott Kyle mistake him for one of the babies.
“Our Lord in Heaven,” Sister Myra said, “we thank You for another beautiful day. We thank You for these innocent, unsullied souls gathered in Your name, and we ask for Kenny Larson’s recovery if it be Thy will. Now we’re going to offer up our sentence prayers as we do every morning at this time.”
That last part was spoken more to the campers than to God, Thomas felt. Surely God knew by now they offered up sentence prayers every morning. He must know what they were going to say, even, since most of them just repeated what they’d said on other mornings. The girls said thank-yous—“Thank You for the trees and flowers,” and such. (With Agatha, it was, “Thanks for the family,” in a mumbling, furry tone of voice.) The boys were more likely to make requests. “Let the Orioles win tonight” was commonest. (“If it be Thy will,” Sister Myra always added in a hurry.) The only exception was Dermott Kyle, who said, “Thank You for air-conditioning.” That always got a laugh. Thomas usually asked for good swimming weather, but today he prayed for Kenny Larson’s earache to go away. For one thing, Kenny was his best friend. Also Thomas liked to come up with some different sentence now and then, and this one made Sister Myra nod approvingly.
Sister Audrey offered the closing sentence. “Dear God,” she said, “look down upon us and understand us, we humbly beg in Jesus’ name. Amen.”
Some of the boys nudged each other at that, because she probably meant He should understand about the Dempster Dumpster. But then they caught Sister Myra’s frown and so they put on their blankest faces and started gazing around the room and humming.
After Devotions came Sharing Hour. In school they called it Show and Tell. You didn’t have to bring anything to Sharing Hour if you didn’t want to, and most of the boys didn’t. Also what you brought didn’t have to be religious, although of course it was always nice if it was. It could be just some belonging you’d been blessed with that you wanted others to share the joy of. Sister Myra’s daughter Beth, for instance, brought a beautiful silver whistle that used to be her cousin Rob’s from Boy Scout camp. But