Free Vanity Insanity by Mary Kay Leatherman Page A

though we’re out of school, I got a call from the principal at Pius this morning. Evidently the day before the tornado, Lucy and seven other kids were called into the office. Lucy was the only one who admitted to…you know. They had to put the punishment for their crime on hold because of the chaos with the tornado. Sister Annunciata said the janitor had found the kids in the tornado shelter between the two locker rooms…doing stuff!”
    “Stuff?” my mom asked.
    “Stuff!” Ava shouted. “Boys and girls doing stuff.” I heard her crying as my mom soothed her. The milk and soggy cereal mellowed in my mouth. I swallowed quietly.
    “C’mon, Ava. Sit down.”
    The tornado shelter or crime scene was yet another interesting architectural decision in the Saint Pius facility. The guy in charge of the blueprints must not have been wearing his thinking cap the day he drew the plans for the Pius tornado shelter. Stairs leading down from the girls’ locker room took children to a long, dark, safe hallway. Stairs leading down from the boys’ locker room took children to the safety of the same hallway. Great for tornado protection. Not so great for adolescent hormone protection following seventh and eighth-grade basketball games.
    Even I, simple public-school boy, knew about the Hall. Some called it Horror Hall, as the lights were not on when kids went there to do stuff. Some called it the Whore Hall. Whatever. The Hall was known. Ava seemed concerned about the scarlet “H” or “W” Lucy would wear the rest of her life with the news of this heinous crime.
    She may have been guilty of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, but I knew for a fact that Lucy was innocent of the Whore Hall charges. She was always where the action was; however, Lucy was not one bit guilty of the “stuff” that flustered her mother. I knew this. Now I was in an even more-awkward position since the valuable piece of information that I had in my little kitchen was pure and simple: Lucy was innocent.
    I wanted to run downstairs with this information and shout it out loud. I wished I’d left with Tracy for Saint Walter’s. I suddenly had to go to the bathroom.
    “I know she has her moments…” Ava sobbed and then blew her nose. “She’s not a bad girl…What if she doesn’t get confirmed?”
    “She’s a very good girl,” Mom consoled Ava during more quiet sobbing.
    What if she didn’t get confirmed? Did Ava really think that someone other than Lucy had control over her soul? Did she think that someone other than Lucy could confirm her faith? I felt a bit stormy. Linda Ronstadt’s song “You’re No Good” echoed in the basement as Ava sobbed.
    I should know about Confirmation. I had gone through the whole process the year before the tornado with A.C. We were the CCD kids who were tucked in the pews between the Saint Pius school kids on the Sunday of Confirmation. I remember the looks from kids, the same looks we got during First Communion and First Confession.
Who the heck are you? Are you the one that messes with my desk on Wednesday nights?
    Confirmation in the Catholic Church is usually the fourth sacrament that a precious, young Catholic might experience, following Baptism, First Communion, and Confession. Though the ages of those to be confirmed may vary across the nations, most young boys and girls confirm their faith in the Catholic Church around the time that their hormones start clickingaway.
Hey, your body is growing up; now you need to be an adult, spiritually as well.
    In the traditional Roman Catholic rite of Confirmation, the sacrament indelibly seals us to the Holy Ghost, hence its name. During Confirmation, a young Catholic publicly “confirms” his or her Catholic intentions in this crazy world. Parents have spoken for these kids at Baptism and up to this point. Now these young men and women come forward and say, “I am Catholic because I say so!”
    The added bonuses that go along with the whole Catholic