Drum roll, please.....I have something to write today! ("Oooh!" "Ahh!")

A while back this year, I was on my way to... somewhere... and I was thinking about Beth and Justin. I had a notebook in hand and I was in a really bad spot on that journey. I remembered something I'd written in my journal a little while ago and got an idea. I started to draw a little cartoon strip. The first frame had a big triangle to serve as a mountain and two stick girls on either side. The one on the left had layered hair, like Beth's. The other, on the right, had long, straight hair like mine. The two stick girls were staring up at this huge mountain with expressions that said, "How in the world are we going to get over this huge mountain??" I thought about labeling the mountain "Justin" but remembering that my sister was right next to me, I decided against it.

In the second frame, the girl on the left seemed to be pleading with the other. But the other girl had her back turned and an angry, hurt expression on her face.

In the last frame the Left Girl looked frustrated, her stick arms thrown up in the air. The Right Girl still had her back turned and looked even worse than before, now that the Left Girl had gotten mad back at her.

How do we get over this mountain? I asked myself in the car. "Do we climb it, go around it, or try to tear it down?"

A few Sundays ago I wrote an extension of the cartoon strip, now with 15 frames. The mountain had been broken down little by little; in fact, the hand of God had broken off a huge piece of the top. The Left Girl rejoiced, but the Right Girl looked up and saw a mountain peak still there. "I have noticed rocks moving; maybe you can't see them or they haven't moved for you yet," Beth's words echoed.

Last Sunday (two days ago), I revised the strip again. Now near the end the two girls knelt as if in prayer, and the hand of God came down again and broke off the piece that the Right Girl still saw. In the last two frames, the Right Girl realized what had happened, and both girls jumped for joy, praising God. I should tell her,I thought, about these last two frames. She would be so happy!

So after I'd drawn the cartoon strip, I wrote Beth a note talking about how I had seen the rocks moved! I wrote so happily-- at last a big rock had moved out of my sight. But Sunday night, Beth said something, and I had to add another few frames to my strip.

"Why did he stop quizzing?" I asked her. I'd been curious for quite sometime. But just now was I able to actually bring myself to ask her.

Too bad.

"He said that he didn't want to be in quizzing 'for the wrong reasons'," Beth said meaningfully.

Oh dear.

My head went down from her eyes. My face started getting hot. I tilted my head so my hair would fall down past my face so she couldn't see. It is a habit I have. I always try to "hide" when I am uncomfortable...

"I told him I was thinking the same thing..." She started talking faster, trying to explain-- failing.

I wasn't mad. I wasn't about to cry. I just didn't want to hear this. It hurt. My face burned. I blocked out what she said... Even now I don't remember what she talked about.

When she finished speaking, I looked up a little and mumbled with a very weak laugh, "Is my face as red as my shirt now?" Asking it made my face hotter. But anything, anything to make her stop....

"No," she said. I couldn't identify the tone in her voice. I wondered if she was lying.

"It feels like it," I sighed, putting a hand to my cheek.

So I added two frames to my strip. The Right Girl looks suddenly at the mountain. Suddenly she is much smaller than it.