happiness, she could not help envying those people their innocence.
Her father pulled into the school parking lot. There were two dingy buses and some cars parked here, but by no means as many vehicles as usual. The cup hugirngsi had had an effect. Could John have gone to the game? She didn't think it likely. He didn't like sports, had never before been to any school activity at all, and if he wanted to go somewhere with friends after school he always called. Still, she mentioned it to her father, who promptly pulled into one of the parking slots. 'We will look for him,' he said. 'Maybe he is here.'
There was more wish than conviction in his voice, and that note of nearly desperate hope made everything slid demy hit home. Her brother might really be dead. Or kidnapped, taken to the cup hug/rngss lair.
She might never again see him alive.
She felt not angry, not scared, but drained, tired. 'Sue.'
The voice was a whisper, faint but audible. It had come from somewhere close, but if it had been spoken a moment sooner, while the football crowd was cheering, she would not have heard it.
Her father was already walking up the crooked concrete steps that led to the gym and football field. She wanted to call out to him but dared not, for fear of missing the voice if it spoke again. She stood next to the car, unmoving
'Sue!' The call came again, weak and whispery and somehow familiar.
Frowning, she turned toward the Dumpsters pushed against the low brick wall a few parking spaces away. She thought she saw movement in the shadows between the blue metal sides of the twin bins, and she started cautiously forward.
'Sue!'
It was John. She could see him now, leaning against the side of the closest Dumpster.
'Father!' she called. She did not wait to see if he'd heard her but rushed between the metal bins. John was sitting up but was curled into an almost fetal position, his head nearly touching his knees. His face was purple and red, the skin around his mouth and eyes bruised and swollen, his nose and hands bloody. There was drying blood on his ripped shirt, and his pants were open, the snap torn off. She knelt down next to him, filled with a gut-wrenching hurt that made her want to cry, made her want to hit someone, made her wish this had happened to her instead. She had never before seen any member of her family injured or in serious pain, and the experience made her feel sick inside. 'What happened?' she asked.
John's voice was again a whisper, and she realized that he could barely move his puffy lips. 'They beat me up. They said God told them to do it. They said God doesn't like... Chinese people.'
Her father hurried around her, knelt next to John, -reached under his arms, and pulled him into a straighter sitting position. 'Chink,' her father said in English. 'They say 'chink.' ' It was a statement not a question. John nodded.
Sue thought of Pastor Wheeler and she felt cold. 'Who was it?' she asked.
''Ids from my P.E. class. Butch, J.D.' Rick, and Maria.'
He started to cry. 'And Russ and Kim and Mr. Peters.' ''Your teacher?'
He nodded, wiping his eyes, wincing from the pain as his fingers pressed against his bruises.
The shouts of the football crowd no longer seemed so normal, no longer so benign.
'Do your arms feel broken?' her father, asked in Cantonese. 'Are your' legs okay? Can you walk?' uodded. Thirsty,' he said. 'I'm thirsty.'
We'll take you home.'
Maybe we should take him to the hospital,' Sue suggested.
'Your grandmother can take care of him. I do not trust the hospital now.'
Sue nodded. Her father's paranoid certainty frightened her. Despite all she'd said to her grandmother about wanting the family to open up, communicate, talk more, she found that she longed for the days when her father was an unflappable rock. It reassured her when her parents were calm islands in an otherwise stormy sea. It might not be honest for her parents to keep their knowledge, doubts, and fears from her, but it made her feel more confident when she knew she had solid support at home. i Now they were all adrift. And it scared her.
Her father gave her the keys, told her to drive, and she hurried over to the car, backing it up next to the Dumpsters. Her father helped John into the backseat, sat down next to him, and Sue pulled out of the parking lot.
'Are we going home or to the restaurant?' Sue asked.
'The restaurant,' her father said. 'We'll pick up your grandmother and then go home.'
'I'm cold.' John's voice was low, and she had to listen carefully to hear it.
'Roll up the windows,' her father ordered.
Sue did so, pressing down on the armrest console that controlled the entire car. She slowed, signaled, pulled onto the highway. 'Why did they beat you up?' she asked her brother. 'Was there a reason?'
'I told you,' he whispered. 'They said God didn't like Chinese people.'
'That's it? You didn't get into an argument or anything first?'
'Mr. Peters told me to stop wearing jade.'
Sue looked at her brother in the rearview mirror. 'You didn' tn
'They stole my ring.'
Sue's mouth went dry. 'We'll find more jade,' her father said quickly, as if to reassure himself. 'He'll be okay.'
They drove the rest of the way in silence, the only sound in the car John's loud, ragged breathing.
There were no customers at the restaurant when they arrived, and both her mother and grandmother were waiting outside, in front of the building. Sue hopped out of the car and opened the door for her father who gently helped John out. 'He was beaten up,' he said. 'They took his jade.'
'Leave him there!' her grandmother ordered. 'We must get him home.
Now. The influence is strong. We must find him jade and cover his window with willow branches for protection.'
'He can have my jade,' Sue said.
'I'm not wearing a necklace,' John croaked.
'I have a piece of jade in my dresser,' her grandmother said.
'I'll take an earring.'
Sue found herself smiling in spite of the circumstances. ''No matter what happened to you, you're still a jerk.'
'I'll close the restaurant and put up a sign,' her father said.
Sue stared at him. The restaurant had never before closed on a day other than Monday. Not even illness had been able to alter its hours.
Her grandmother nodded. 'Let's get him home.' i Complaints against the church had reached a fever pitch in the past two days, ever since the three truckloads of new materials had arrived from Globe, and though he'd been dreading it, putting it off, Robert knew that he had to go out to the church this morning and have an other talk with Wheeler.
He stopped by the Donut Hut for breakfast, grabbing a glazed and a coffee before heading over to the station.
He pulled into the parking lot the same time as Father
Martinez. 'Chief Carter! I need to speak to you!'
Robert slammed the door of the cruiser and swallowed his last bite of doughnut, washing it down with the dregs of the coffee as the Catholic priest hurried toward him across the dirt. He nodded at the clergyman.
'What can I do for you, Father?'
The priest was obviously agitated, his face red and sweating, and he had a difficult time catching his breath as he stood before Robert. He put one hand over his chest, held the other up in a wait-a-minute gesture, then bent over to breathe. He stood like that for a moment, then straightened.
'What is it, Father?'
The priest breathed deeply. 'The black church.'
Robert nodded noncommittally, carefully keeping his expression blank, neutral. He'd been wondering when this would come up. He'd expected the leaders of the traditional denominations to come forth sooner. He'd known that they would have problems with Wheeler's church--religious problems, not noise or nuisance problems---and
