Free Operation Oleander (9780547534213) by Valerie O. Patterson Page B

baskets.
    â€œDon’t you know what they’re saying?” Sam asks. “Locals in Kabul are blaming our soldiers for the bombing.”
    â€œNo.” I shake my head. “It’s not true.”
    â€œSome people believe it.”
    â€œExactly. That’s why we have to keep going.”
    â€œPeople will think you’re disrespecting Corporal Scott and Private Davis. They’ll say you’re doing this for yourself. To get attention.”
    â€œHow can you say that? Is that what you think I’m doing?”
    He shakes his head.
    â€œFor my own reasons? Isn’t doing something for others a good thing?”
    â€œI’m sorry I said that, Jess,” Sam says. “But you have to know what people over in Afghanistan are thinking. It’s too soon to go back to this. That’s all I mean. This isn’t like Toby.”
    Toby was a boy from our class last year who had leukemia. The classes organized teams to collect pop tabs to help out with his medical bills. Sam, Meriwether, and I were a team. We collected the most of any team; that’s how good we were. We won free tickets to Calypso Crazy Golf and all-you-can-eat pizza.
    â€œI know that.”
    â€œDo you? Really?” Sam asks. “Because this is about Afghanistan. It’s about a war. It’s more than some make-believe operation.”
    In front of my eyes, fireworks flash.
    â€œYou don’t have to tell me, Sam Butler, about soldiers in Afghanistan. Your dad isn’t there. Mine is. Or he was. Now he’s in a hospital in Germany.”
    Sam flinches, then shifts his weight from one foot to the other, as if he isn’t sure whether to go or stay.
    His voice lowers.
    â€œI’m just saying they have a point. This charity thing—okay, we did it. Some good—maybe—came from it. But look what’s happened. Two soldiers died. Your dad’s wounded. It isn’t just about orphaned kids over there. It’s about American soldiers, too. What about them? What about your dad? What if this is
our
fault?”
    Our fault.
    My head spins, crazy, like some roller-coaster ride that flips you upside down halfway through.
    â€œDon’t you mean
my
fault?”
    â€œJess—”
    â€œJust go.”
    Sam nods. “I didn’t come to fight. There’s a candlelight service tonight. My church. I wanted you to come with us.”
    I’ve been to Sam’s church before. Church of the Nativity. It’s Catholic, and it’s nothing like the plain old meeting space for the Bible church we sometimes attend. But inside the stucco walls with the wooden beams, the crucifix, which I won’t let myself stare at, I have always been comforted.
    Lots of people from the post will go. The whole of Clementine will be drawn together tonight. Maybe Meriwether and her dad will go.
    â€œMaybe,” I say, barely above a whisper. I won’t commit.
    â€œI’ll wait for you outside the church,” Sam says. He lays the poster from the sliding glass doors on the tabletop, the pieces of tape folded back, neatly.
    With army precision.

Twelve
    S AM’S WAITING by the door like he said he would be, even though I’m almost late. Mrs. Johnson insisted on driving me, and then she got stuck in traffic. Sam hands me a candle that sits inside a plastic holder to catch any wax that falls. So we don’t burn our fingers. I inhale, but the candle doesn’t have a scent, not beeswax or perfume. Not even plastic. It’s odorless.
    Inside the church even the little children are quiet. That’s what impresses me when we first walk in. Then it’s the coolness of the sanctuary on my skin, and I think of that word.
Sanctuary.
A place of safety, a refuge.
    The lights are low enough so everyone has to slow down. Our eyes adjust from the brightness outside. The crucifix hangs in front, and the scenes along the wall are carved in relief. Once, Sam walked me through the