Free Andi Unexpected by Amanda Flower Page B

teasing tone. Her cheeks twitched as if she were trying to control her smile. Maybe Amelie was afraid that if she looked too happy about her niece’s joke, she’d discourage Bethany from trying to be friendlier in the future. “Maybe I should take a cooking class. We could all take one. It would be something fun we could do as a family.”
    The smile quickly faded from Bethany’s face as soon as Amelie said “family.” “I don’t need to learn how to cook yet.”
    I swallowed and changed the subject. “Can I go with Colin and Bergita to church tomorrow?”
    Amelie dropped her pizza slice onto her plate. “Did you say
church
?”
    “Yeah,” I said uncomfortably. “He invited me.”
    “I can’t remember the last time I went to church,” my aunt said. “Maybe back when you were a baby, Andi.”
    Bethany eyed me over her pizza. “So you move out to the country and find religion?”
    Before our parents died, Bethany and I had regularly attended church back home. I think Bethany used our parents’ death as an excuse not to go now. She hadn’t been to church in a while. And eventually I’d stopped attending too because everyone treated me like the poor little orphan. Maybe in Killdeer it would be different.
    “So what if I have?” I snapped. “Our parents died, and you turned into a brat.”
    “Andi!” Amelie gasped.
    Bethany pushed back from the counter. Her jaw was clenched.
    I felt a twist in my gut.
Did I say that because I’m hurt she told Bergita that she misses Mom and Dad more than I do?
I swallowed a lump in my throat. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.”
    My sister wouldn’t look at me while she put her plate in the dishwasher. My heart sank. I’d just ruined all of the progress we’d made while working in the attic together. She’d never forgive me.
    “I’m going to
my
room,” Bethany said.
    Amelie tapped the counter with her blue fingernails. “Andi, we’ll all go to church tomorrow.”
    “Not me,” Bethany said, inching her way out of the kitchen.
    Amelie frowned. “Yes, you will—unless you’d rather stay home and mow the lawn?”
    Bethany stomped out of the room.
    The next morning, Amelie, Bethany, and I piled into the back of Bergita’s minivan. Bergita and Colin rode up front. As we headed for the College Church, I thought to myself that a university was a pretty strange place to attend church; but according to Amelie, Michael Pike Senior wanted the chapel built on the campus. And the College Church still held Sunday services even after Michael Pike College had evolved into Michael Pike University.
    Bergita smiled in the rearview mirror. “This is the church I attended as a child, Andi. The one where I got in trouble while snatching those cookies.”
    Separated from the surrounding dorms, classroom buildings, and library by lush green lawns aptly named The Green, the church building was made of gray-purple stone, a unique color I’d seen repeated throughout the campus—even on the newer buildings. I couldn’t identify it, so I asked Colin why the stones looked that color.
    “It’s quartzite,” he said. “Quartzite starts out as sandstone, but then it changes due to the heat and extreme pressure caused by the rock’s proximity to volcanic belts or earthquake fault lines.”
    Bethany stared at him. “Do you read the dictionary for fun?”
    Colin blushed.
    I would have to add geology to my list of sciences to investigate. In the short time that I’d known Colin, I’d learned that he has a wealth of knowledge. He claimed it was from watching
Jeopardy
every night with Bergita, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he read a lot of books too.
    As we walked from the parking lot to the church, its stone steeple strained toward the heavens, as though trying to reach the highest cirrus clouds above. The dark outline of the heavy iron bell stood out against the late June sky.
    Before we entered the church, Amelie pointed at a tiny brick building that looked like a