Free The Land of Decoration by Grace McCleen

“Judith, it’s all a matter of faith.”
    “The mustard seed!”
    “Precisely.”
    “I won’t say any more to Father.”
    “Very wise.”
    “But he’ll believe me in the end?”
    “Yes.”
    “Because I’ll do more and more things and he’ll have to see. He will have to see I am doing something special.”
    “No doubt about it,” said God.
    Then God went wherever it is that He goes and I lay down and thought two things. The first was that I had been silly to expect Father to understand about the miracles but I didn’t have to worry because it would all come right in the end.
    The second thought was strange. It was that this had been waiting to happen to me, and thinking that made me happier than anything I had thought before in my whole life. The miracles had been waiting all this time, and so had I. And now the waiting was over, and things could begin.

The Long-Distance Call
     
    F ATHER SAYS THAT God is the voice in every Christian’s head helping him to do the right thing. He says that the Devil tells the Christian to do the exact opposite. This means we must be careful which of them we listen to. Up until yesterday, I hadn’t heard God’s voice but I had been talking to Him. I think I must have been saving up things to say, because for a long time I didn’t talk at all.
    *   *   *
     
    W HEN I WAS small, Father took me to see a doctor because I didn’t do anything but stare straight in front of me. There is a photograph of me taken by Father at that time. It’s a warm day and I am sitting beneath the cherry tree he planted for Mother in the front garden. The grass is littered with blossoms. I am wearing a blue T-shirt and shorts that come down to my knees. There is a scab on the right one. My legs stick straight out in front of me. My hands are in my lap.
    I can’t imagine Father thinking it was a good idea to take me to the doctor, because he never goes to them himself, but he did. I remember that the doctor’s room smelled funny. I remember there was a chair with a leather seat and in the corner a box of plastic blocks and a big red bus. I played with the bus and Father talked to the doctor.
    The doctor did tests and made a plan and came to a conclusion. The conclusion was that we were both missing Mother, and the plan was that Father should read to me. So he did, and I learned all about the Nephilim, and the Ark of the Covenant, and why circumcision must be performed on the eighth day, how to clean an infected house of leprosy, what not to say to a Pharisee, and how to remove the sting of a gadfly. And as I began to read I began talking, and in a while I was talking as much as anyone—though perhaps not about the same things.
    There weren’t many people to talk to except Father, so I began talking to God. I always supposed it was just a matter of time before He answered me. I used to think of it as a long-distance telephone call. The line was bad, there were birds sitting on it, there was heavy weather, so I couldn’t make out what the other person was saying, but I never doubted I would hear them eventually. Then one day the birds flew off, the rain cleared up, and I did.

The Third and Fourth Miracles
     
    I DECIDED TO use my power to help people, and first on my list was Mrs. Pew. I had been thinking about her since I saw her crying. I didn’t think she could be the type of person to kidnap children if she was so upset about Oscar; it was quite disappointing to think that Kenny Evans probably did go to live with his father after all.
    Oscar is a large ginger cat who sits in Mrs. Pew’s front-room window between a bowl of hyacinths and a yellow china dog. I didn’t know why he had decided to disappear. Perhaps he was tired of the dog, who didn’t do anything but grin in an empty way, or perhaps he was tired of the view. Anyway, all that mattered was that I bring him back. So on Thursday when the snow came down in flurries, I made a cat with marmalade wool. Father called: “What