The Lesson (8 page)

Amos watched Jimmy throw back his head in laughter at something M.K. said. “I always thought those two would either kill each other or fall in love.” He chuckled, pleased. “Guess it’s the latter.”

Fern gave him a sideways glance. “You think those two would be a good match?”

“Sure. Don’t you?” He thought it was a wonderful idea. Being in love with Jimmy might cure M.K. of that restlessness. She wouldn’t have time to think about anything else—trying to keep tabs on what Jimmy was up to would keep anybody busy. And M.K. would be good for Jimmy too. He never had a swooning effect on her like he did on all the other girls.

Fern clipped a pair of black trousers to the line. “Was mer net hawwe soll, hett mer’s liebscht.”
What we are not
meant to have, we covet most.
She picked up the empty basket and started toward the house.

Amos puzzled on that for a while. What did that saying have to do with Jimmy and M.K.? Half the time, he had no idea what Fern meant. She spoke in riddles.

Day Three. After M.K. dismissed the students for the afternoon, she put her head on her desk. She was a horrible teacher, just like she had known she would be. And she had an entire two weeks and two days looming ahead of her.

Maybe, if she were thought to be a truly terrible teacher, the school board would fire her. Ah, relief! Followed swiftly by mortification. She would have to move away. Far, far away.

Shanghai. Johannesburg. Reykjavik.

Maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing. Over the last year, she couldn’t stop thinking about what the world outside of Stoney Ridge would look like, what it would sound like. What filled her mind were thoughts of breaking free from this Amish life of careful routine. Every day looked like the day before it. Every day looked like the day in front of it.

There were moments, mostly in church, when she had to sit on her hands to stop herself from jumping up and shouting at the preacher, “You already said that! Over and over again! Every two weeks, the same sermon! The same piece of Scripture! Same, same, same! Let’s try something new!” She would love to see the look of surprise and horror on everyone’s faces.

Of course, she didn’t dare. She would never do such a disrespectful thing. She had been raised to respect her elders.

But, oh, how she would love to do it. Just once!

And then she started to think she might be going crazy. How awful it would be if she really did go berserk one day. She could hear the women clucking about it now . . . “Poor, poor Mary Kate. There was always something a little off-kilter about that girl. One moment, she seemed right as rain. The next moment, a raving madcap.”

Deep down, she knew she could never do anything to
intentionally hurt her father, or her sisters, or Uncle Hank. Or Fern.

It was a good thing she loved Fern, because that woman was impossible. M.K. knew Fern was behind this teaching job. It had Fern written all over it. Fern had a way of knowing what a person was thinking, without that person ever having to say it aloud. She had no doubt that Fern knew she was toying with the idea of leaving the Amish. Fern always knew.

But teaching a roomful of slow-witted, obstinate children? What a cruel, cruel mantle to place on M.K.

She was pretty sure Fern was savvy to the fact that M.K. had turned Ruthie down about joining this year’s baptismal instruction class. She probably knew she had turned Ruthie’s pleading down for the third time in a row. Fern knew everything.

Or maybe Ruthie told her. Ruthie just didn’t understand. Every year, she begged M.K. to go through baptismal instructions with her, but M.K. just couldn’t do it. Not yet.

She knew she would have to decide, at some point. She couldn’t walk this line forever—one foot in the church, one foot out. If she left before she was baptized, then she could remain on good terms with her family.

And do what? The practical side of her always took over this internal conversation, and that was saying something because M.K. didn’t have a practical bone in her body. She wasn’t much of a long-term thinker. It was one of Fern’s continual complaints about her. “Act first, think later,” Fern said. “That’s why you’re always in hot water.” She was constantly trying to tell M.K. to think “down the road.”

So what would it look like, down the road, to leave Stoney Ridge? What would she do? She wasn’t prepared to do much
of anything outside of the Amish life. Even if she had a car, she didn’t have a driver’s license. How could she get a job? She didn’t have a high school education. And she certainly didn’t want to clean houses for English people for the rest of her life. Cleaning houses and waitressing were the only jobs former Amish girls seemed to get.
No
thank you.

She was a crackerjack beekeeper, though, thanks to her brother-in-law Rome. Maybe she could sell her bees’ delicious honey in Paris. That sounded like fun. She knew a Plain girl shouldn’t flame those desires to see such worldly places, but she did. She just couldn’t help herself.

Oh, but there must be something or someplace or maybe even someone out there with enough excitement to satisfy M.K.’s restive nature. She just knew it was out there. Something was calling to her.

She let out a deep sigh. For now, she was stuck. Stuck for two weeks and two more days. She pulled her small Igloo lunch box out from under her desk (there was no way she was going to leave her lunch in the coatroom where Eugene Miller could slip a frog or snake into it—after all, hadn’t she endured Jimmy Fisher’s mischief for countless years?) and locked up the schoolhouse. She wanted to go investigate the murdered sheep farmer’s pasture and look for clues. Solving this crime was the only bright spot of her day.

After school let out, Jenny rushed to the corner mailbox with the letter she had written during the school day. She had to get it in the mail before the day’s mail was taken out. She knew Chris was over at Windmill Farm, but she still looked over her shoulder as she read it one more time before putting it in the envelope.

Hi Mom,

Just wanted you to know that Chris and I might not be able to see you for a while. We’re together and doing fine. I’m going to school, too.

She chewed on her lip, thinking. Should she have added this last part?

Probably nobody told you, but Old Deborah passed. I thought you should know. Here is four dollars that I saved up. I’ll try to send more. Don’t worry about us.

Love, Jenny

She had wanted to write more. She had wanted to let her mother know that she and Chris were living in Stoney Ridge, that Chris was fixing up their grandfather’s old house and planned to start a horse breeding business. Chris had been adamant that their mother not be told where they were. He would be furious if he knew she was writing to her mom. But she felt like a traitor if she didn’t. Her mom may not be much of a mother, but she was the only mother Jenny had.

She licked the envelope, put on a stamp, opened the mailbox, and let the letter slide down its big blue throat.

Men! So frustrating.

M.K. was chased away from the crime scene area by the sheriff before she had time to uncover a single clue. Sheriff Hoffman took his sense of duty to ridiculous limits, she thought. He had a gun in his holster on his belt that he liked to pat, to remind her it was there, at the ready. How was she
supposed to know that no trespassing included the first witness on the scene?

Sheriff Hoffman had glared at her. “You stay out of this pasture, Mary Kate Lapp. We got your statement. We’ll come to you if we have any more questions. And we won’t. You only heard a shot. That’s all. That’s nothing we don’t know. This yellow tape here is meant to keep out riffraff. All riffraff.”

Riffraff?!
She was
not
riffraff. How insulting. Clearly, the police had no new information. If only they would have let her search the pasture. She was sure she would find a clue to the poor sheep farmer’s untimely demise.

M.K. walked over to her red scooter and picked it up. How could she solve this crime when she wasn’t even allowed near the crime scene? During school today, when she had the children reading quietly at their desks, she pulled out the most recent issue of her
Crime Solving
magazine. She read about how often a simple footprint could lead a clever sleuth to the perpetrator.

The only footprints she could find, besides those of the dead farmer’s, were hoofprints that belonged to sheep. And it was then that Sheriff Hoffman happened to pass by in his patrol car and turned on his noisy siren.

So frustrating!

Maybe she would have to come back after dark, with her father’s big flashlight.

She hopped on her scooter and started down the road, deep in thought. She built up speed to crest the hill. Just as she reached the rise, she crouched down on the scooter to improve aerodynamics. She had read about aerodynamics in a book from the library. It had suggested that a rider cut down on any draft by making oneself as sleek and small as possible. She liked to go down this hill with her eyes closed.
There weren’t many opportunities in the Plain life to let go and go all out. This hill, though, offered a taste of it. Danger
and
risk.

Suddenly, she heard someone yell “Watch out!” then a loud “ooouf” sound as her eyes flew open.

Chris Yoder was heading home from a long day at Windmill Farm. He had ducked through a cornfield filled with drying, green-golden stalks and slipped out to cross the road, when suddenly a flash of a red scooter flew right into him. He yelled, but it was too late. Chris was thrown into the ditch on the side of the road. Headfirst. Into murky, stagnant ditch water.

“I’m so sorry,” someone called to him. “Are you hurt? I had my eyes closed and didn’t see you.”

Even though Chris had landed in water, his head had hit the bottom and he was sure he was seeing stars. He was drenched in smelly ditch water. A big yellow dog peered down at him in the ditch and let out a feeble “Woof.” Chris shook himself off and staggered onto solid ground. Life returned to him pretty quick as he sized up his attacker—a young Amish woman with concerned brown eyes. “Why would anybody, anywhere, in their right mind, EVER ride a scooter with their eyes closed?”