because I thought our world was coming to an end.
“Do you think our world is coming to an end?” Dad asked, and with no warning at all, I almost started crying. I had all I could do to hold it back. What I thought was, “No, I think your world is coming to an end, and maybe you with it.” That was terrible. I hadn’t thought about it in such a personal way before. I turned and looked out a window until I felt calmer. When I faced him again, I said. “Yes. Don’t you?”
He frowned. I don’t think he expected me to say that.
“You’re fifteen,” he said. “You don’t really understand what’s going on here. The problems we have now have been building since long before you were born.”
“I know.”
He was still frowning. I wondered what he wanted me to say. “What were you doing, then?” he asked.
“Why did you say those things to Joanne?”
I decided to go on telling the truth for as long as I could. I hate to lie to him. “What I said was true,” I insisted.
“You don’t have to say everything you think you know,” he said. “Haven’t you figured that out yet?”
“Joanne and I were friends,” I said. “I thought I could talk to her.”
He shook his head. “These things frighten people.
It’s best not to talk about them.”
“But, Dad, that’s like…like ignoring a fire in the living room because we’re all in the kitchen, and, besides, house fires are too scary to talk about.”
“Don’t warn Joanne or any of your other friends,” he said. “Not now. I know you think you’re right, but you’re not doing anyone any good. You’re just panicking people.”
I managed to suppress a surge of anger by shifting the subject a little. Sometimes the way to move Dad is to go at him from several directions.
“Did Mr. Garfield give you back your book?” I asked.
“What book?”
“I loaned Joanne a book about California plants and the way Indians used them. It was one of your books. I’m sorry I loaned it to her. It’s so neutral, I didn’t think it could cause trouble. But I guess it has.”
He looked startled, then he almost smiled. “Yes, I will have to have that one back, all right. You wouldn’t have the acorn bread you like so much without that one— not to mention a few other things we take for granted.”
“Acorn bread… ?”
He nodded. “Most of the people in this country don’t eat acorns, you know. They have no tradition of eating them, they don’t know how to prepare them, and for some reason, they find the idea of eating them disgusting. Some of our neighbors wanted to cut down all our big live oak trees and plant something useful. You wouldn’t believe the time I had changing their minds.”
“What did people eat before?”
“Bread made of wheat and other grains— corn, rye, oats…things like that.”
“Too expensive!”
“Didn’t use to be. You get that book back from Joanne.” He drew a deep breath. “Now, let’s get off the side track and back onto the main track. What were you planning? Did you try to talk Joanne into running away?”
Then I sighed. “Of course not.”
“Her father says you did.”
“He’s wrong. This was about staying alive, learning to live outside so that we’d be able to if we ever had to.”
He watched me as though he could read the truth in my mind. When I was little, I used to think he could.
“All right,” he said. “You may have meant well, but no more scare talk.”
I thought he would yell at me or punish me. His voice had had that warning edge to it that my brothers and I had come to call the rattle— as in a rattlesnake’s warning sound. If you pushed him past the rattle, you were in trouble. If he called you “son” or “daughter” you were close to trouble.
“Why?” I insisted.
“Because you don’t have any idea what you’re doing,” he said. He frowned and rubbed his forehead. When he spoke again, the edge went out of his voice. “It’s better to teach people than to scare them, Lauren. If you scare them and nothing happens, they lose their fear, and you lose some of your authority with them. It’s harder to scare them a second time, harder to teach them, harder to win back their trust. Best to begin by teaching.” His mouth crooked into a little smile. “It’s interesting that you chose to begin your efforts with the book you lent to Joanne. Did you ever think of teaching from that book?”
“Teaching…my kindergartners?”
“Why not. Get them started on the right foot. You could even put together a class for older kids and adults. Something like Mr. Ibarra’s wood carving class, Mrs. Balter’s needlework classes, and young Robert Hsu’s astronomy lectures. People are bored.
They wouldn’t mind another informal class now that they’ve lost the Yannis television. If you can think of ways to entertain them and teach them at the same time, you’ll get your information out. And all without making anyone look down.”
“Look down…?”
“Into the abyss, Daughter,” But I wasn’t in trouble any more. Not at the moment. “You’ve just noticed the
