Free Charlinder's Walk by Alyson Miers Page B

Kenny.
     
    When he came back, Charlinder was nearly finished eating, and Roy apparently also found something very, very funny.

    "What was that about?” he asked.
     
    Roy flopped down on the grass next to Charlinder and tried to control his laughter. "Kenny told me all about the argument you just saw between Ruth and Miriam! Kenny says," Roy paused to look around him and make sure no one was watching them, then lowered his voice to a whisper," he says, 'Forget about God, I'm gonna go worship Miriam!'" he repeated, then collapsed into middle-aged-man-giggles.

    "Kenny wasn't there," argued Charlinder. "He won't be caught dead near Spinners' Square unless he's hanging around Yolande, so how does he know what happened?"
     
    "He got the story from Phoebe!"

    "Doesn't anyone on this farm," Charlinder began, without bothering to keep his voice down, "have anything better to do than talk about each other?"
     
    At this, his uncle laughed out loud; great, howling notes sang out from him. "Wake up and smell the cornbread, Char! You're not living in Eileen's era!"

     

    As much as he had enjoyed watching Miriam tell Ruth how she really felt, there was something in her words that bothered him almost as much as the Faithful's proselytizing of fear and obedience. The Plague had made its way into his schoolroom and Spinners' Square in the same day. He had long understood that the debate, even in the days of Eileen and Mark, was not really about disease, but about power. The disease was merely the vessel that the Faithful used to carry their arguments. Miriam, Roy and all Charlinder's friends understood it just as well, but while Charlinder tried to fall asleep that night, his mind see-sawed between the events of that day, with repeated flashes of Taylor, Robert, the hunting trip with Kenny, and the sheep-grazing with Miriam. As all the images spun together, the parts that continued to haunt Charlinder were Miriam's choice phrases to Ruth that day.

    I don't care...it doesn't matter...we aren't interested...
     
    That was why the picture didn't add up. Jess and Theo didn't want to be left alone with Bruce because they didn't want to argue with him. Yolande fled from the Square when the argument escalated, while Phoebe hardly participated at all. Khalil's more science-based explanation for the Plague, however amusing to the observer, merely demonstrated that the nonreligious couldn't agree on a stable theory for the disease, whereas the Faithful were always on the same page. The Faithful were always itching for a fight and willfully created opportunities to preach. Charlinder's friends scorned those opportunities, shrinking away from argument at least and rebelling against it at most. Charlinder was caught between those who espoused what he found dubious at best and dangerous at worst and who cared enough to start a fight over it, and those who didn't care enough to talk.

    For his part, he was neither impressed with the Faithful's case for their side, nor satisfied with the nonreligious willingness to dismiss the debate as a waste of time. He wanted to move toward the future far more than Miriam, but he also wanted to find the answer to the past--not just an answer that made sense, but one that he could defend. No one in his community yet had such an answer. All they had was a war of philosophy and a battle of wills, with one side having no evidence and lacking the interest to find it, and the other insisting the evidence was all in what had already happened. On one side were the passionate, on the other, the apathetic. He was on the side of the apathetic, and this was one of those times when passion had God on its side.
     
    He, too, was part of the problem. He could hardly fault his friends for shrinking away from the debate, when he himself always found it easier to shut the discussion down than to engage. Now he wanted to engage, but not if it meant he’d be alone. He needed to do something. It was his responsibility as a teacher