Free Saint Training by Elizabeth Fixmer Page B

that had opened overnight. She’d enjoyed the beautiful spring weather on the way home from school. The purple and white crocus had been out for weeks, but now the trees were budding, and her sisters were quick to point out each yard that boasted colorful tulips, grape hyacinth, or fragrant lilies of the valley. Summer was only weeks away and Mary Clare couldn’t wait for the long days at Rock Lake. Most of her friends went to Lake Ripley, which was closer but cost money to get in. Rock Lake was free. And since she’d have to watch the kids anyway, it didn’t much matter.
    During her last class she had counted: only twenty-three days left of school for the year. Becky and Tina had twenty-four more days, because public school kids didn’t get off school for Holy Days of Obligation. May 4 was a holy day, where Catholics were supposed to remember some mystery of the faith. Remembering meant not going to school and going to Mass instead.
    When she’d gotten home, Mary Clare found her mother on the phone, her finger to her lips signaling everyone to be quiet. Mary Clare prompted the kids to go upstairs and change out of their uniforms. But she lingered behind to listen to her mother.
    “Thank you,” her mother was saying. “Then you’ll send me an application in the mail?”
    “An application for what?” Mary Clare asked when her mom got off the phone.
    “None of your business,” Mom said. But her voice was cheerful and her eyes flashed with excitement.
    Mary Clare knew better than to press her mother, so she hurried up the stairs to get into a pair of jeans. She was in such a good mood that she decided to surprise her mother by cheerfully helping with dinner, cheerfully setting the table, and cheerfully doing the dishes, which might earn her saint points. Having now read The Interior Castle, she could see that Saint Theresa, the Little Flower, earned saint points by smiling and saying sweet things even when she was annoyed or in pain. Mary Clare might be floundering when it came to sins, but at least she could still do “good works.”
    When Mary Clare swung the closet door open to hang her uniform, she witnessed a miracle. There, in the back of the closet, a rosary glowed.
    She gasped. Tears sprang to her eyes. This was a sign from God. He did want her to be a saint! He was going to accept her deal!
    Suddenly the rosary started to jiggle. It swung wildly and finally dropped to the floor. She heard an unmistakable giggle. As her eyes adjusted to the light, she could make out a small body huddled against the back of the closet, reeling with laughter.
    She had been had.
    There was Gabriella—looking impish as she laughed, openmouthed, revealing her chipped front tooth. Gabriella scrambled to pick up the rosary.
    “Give me back my rosary, you little brat!” Mary Clare lunged at her sister, grabbing at the rosary in Gabriella’s hand. Gabriella clutched it harder, still laughing until Mary Clare jerked it free and it flew across the room.
    “You shouldn’t have tried to trick me!” cried Mary Clare.
    “I did trick you,” said Gabriella. “You thought the rosary was a vision, didn’t you?” She was wearing that snotty I’m-smarter-than-you-and-you’re-nothing-but-a-fool look on her face thatmade Mary Clare want to slap her. “You’re always looking for a miracle, Mary Clare.”
    Now Mary Clare wanted to tear the ribbons out of her sister’s pigtails. Mary Clare turned away from her sister to collect herself. “Gabriella, you’re so—cynical. You should believe in miracles.”
    Gabriella stood and picked up her rosary, now broken into three pieces. Her face twisted. “That was from Sister Lucy,” she blubbered. Mary Clare knew that Gabriella loved her second grade teacher. She was young and bubbly, and whenever Mary Clare walked by the room the class seemed to be laughing.
    Mary Clare was still furious, but she knew what she had to do. She went over to her bed and pulled out her own glow-in-the-dark