Summer Sanctuary (3 page)

“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 matter what and hoping I wouldn't regret it.

“L
ET'S WALK
,” D
INAH
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.”

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 the 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.

“It's not exactly a Holiday Inn, but it's comfortable and dry. And it's got to be safer than sleeping in the park.”

Dinah still looked skeptical, but she wandered across the carpet squares to check out the books and music.

“All we have to do is leave that back door unlocked,” I went on. “You can lock it at night while you're here. And I can make sure I'm here to take the
trash out on Wednesday nights. No one will even notice. What do you think?”

“Where did these come from?” Dinah was running her fingers along the leaves of a plastic palm tree.

“They used to be up in the sanctuary. We moved them down here for our winter beach party in February. As soon as we did, my mom put four live peace lily plants there instead. I offered to put them back, but my mom said, ‘Over my dead body!'”

“They're perfectly hideous!” snickered Dinah.

“Yeah,” I laughed. “Aren't they great?”

Dinah pulled two beanbags together and tested them out like a bed. “Well, it is more comfortable than the park,” she conceded.

“There's even a couch up in the nursery where you could sleep if you wanted to. There's a sofa in my dad's office, too, but I think it would be better if you didn't go up there.” Dina was up looking through the CDs. “So what do you think?”

“Have you ever spent the night here?” Dinah asked.

“Once—when we had a rock-a-thon to raise money for the new youth center. Twenty of us sat in rocking chairs rocking all night long. We made about $500.” A vision of Kyle lying across a beanbag on top of his
rocker while the rest of us rocked our hearts out and his sister's Electric Amish CD blared, “
Talkin' 'bout my congregation … my congregation”
made me smile.

“What time do I need to be out of here in the morning?” Dinah asked, pulling herself up out of the bean-bags.

“Dad comes over and unlocks the doors at 8:00,” I said. “Do you have a watch?”

“I have a watch, but no alarm.” Dinah pulled a wristwatch out of her backpack.

“There's a timer in the kitchen.” I said. “You can set that for however many hours you want to sleep.”

“What if I get caught?” Dinah worried.

“You won't get caught. Just don't turn any lights on near the windows after dark. And if you hear someone, you can run out the back door and down the trail.” Suddenly, I was afraid she might disappear forever. “Then we'll meet up again at the big maple tree behind the library, where we just had lunch.”

As we walked back through the kitchen, I opened one of the drawers. “Here's where the can openers are,” I said. “And here's the timer on top of the stove.”

“I think I'll take a can opener with me,” said Dinah. I nodded.

We bounded up the steps and I unlocked the door, making sure the button was all the way out. “It's all set,” I told her.

“Thanks,” said Dinah.

As we approached the trail, I pointed in the other direction. “See that light green house with the dark shutters? That's where I live. It's about two miles away by car, but hardly a minute's walk through the grass.”