The Land of Decoration

There are mirages in space, crosses and arcs and circles that are the reflections of galaxies that existed billions of years ago and that show us what happened in the past, and Father says that scientists want to see things as much as religious people, he says they make leaps all the time. The fossil record for evolution isn’t that good, but the scientists had already decided creation wasn’t an option so they made fake fossils and covered them up. And you would think, being scientists, they wouldn’t. But scientists make leaps of faith all the time, because there’s a lot of guessing and waiting, and some of the best discoveries, like Albert Einstein’s, were made that way. Father says the only people who don’t leap at all are agnostics.

Scientists say miracles couldn’t happen because they are miraculous, but that doesn’t make sense, because they believe in plenty of “miraculous” things, like the universe coming from nothing, and the odds for that are mathematically impossible. Years ago people thought an eclipse of the sun meant God was angry with them, but it isn’t a miracle now because we understand it, and neither is radioactivity or an airplane or germs, though things like bees are, because we still don’t understand how they are able to fly. One day someone will explain it, and then bees won’t be a miracle either.

It makes you think lots of things are miraculous, like the chances of me hitting exactly the same bit in my mouth with the toothbrush that I did a few seconds before, or of my tomato squirting Father on the nose at dinner, or the chance of me being me instead of millions of other people. But they are very small chances, and a bee isn’t a miracle either, only a wonderful thing, because miracles are made to happen.

Evidence isn’t all there is to believing, and neither is being able to explain it. Even if people can’t explain something—like seeing a ghost or being healed—once they have experienced it, they believe it, though they might have spent their whole life saying it was nonsense. Which means that people who say something is impossible have probably just never experienced it.

Of course, they might still want to explain it away and look for a rational explanation. But they are doing what Father is doing and missing the point. Which is that miracles are what you see when you stop thinking, and they happen because someone made them and because someone, somewhere, had faith.

The Test

WHEN I WOKE on Tuesday, the sky was blue and empty and the sun was winking in the windows. Already the snow piles by the front doors and along the sides of the road were softening. I said: “Now for my test.”

I went to the trunk and I got out my materials. I rolled up the sky in the Land of Decoration and in its place I hung gauze. I unhooked the clouds and in their place put a blizzard funnel of wire mesh and tiny polystyrene balls. I removed the cotton fabric and laid cotton wool over houses and steeples, railway lines, mountains, and viaducts.

“Colder!” said a voice, and again I felt as if I had caught light.

I put the tiny people inside their houses. I bundled them in blankets and coats. I put hot cups of cocoa in their hands. I lit hurricane lamps. I sprayed frost on windows and made ice for the roads with sheets of Plexiglas.

“Colder!” said the voice.

I tore the paper lighthouse beam and on top of the waves laid shards of floating plastic ice. I glued icicles to the masts of the ships, turned on the fan, and flurries of paper hail stung sailors’ hands and faces. Snowmen sneezed. Polar bears shivered. Penguins danced to keep warm.

Then I said: “Snow,” just like before. And I saw the town and the steelworks and the mountain sewn up in it, heaps of snow, more than anyone had ever seen here or ever would again.

I said: “Now I must wait.”

I waited through breakfast. I waited through lunch. I waited as Father and I brought in the last of the wood to dry in the lean-to and we pondered Jesus dying to save the world. I waited as we sat by the fire that evening and Father listened to Nigel Ogden playing his organ. I waited all night, checking and looking out at the stars and the white waste of the moon. I ran to the window next morning, but the sun was shining so brightly it hurt my eyes and a steady dripping was coming from above my window.

I felt sick and sat on the bed. I said: “What did I do differently?” I said: “Perhaps I just have to be patient.”

* * *

THAT MORNING WE went preaching. Father said it was the ideal time for it. What he meant was that people would be in. Getting people in is a problem for us, because though we are trying to save people, they will do almost anything to avoid it. They don’t answer the door, they tell lies (“My grandmother just died,” “I’ve got a war wound and can’t stand up for long,” “I’m on my way to church”), they get nasty (shouting, letting the dog out, threatening to call the police), they run away (this is a last resort, but it does happen; once someone took off running when he saw us at his door and dropped some of his shopping in the road). These are all what Father calls Tactics of Evasion. We have tactics of our own, which include asking thought-provoking questions, turning Conversation Stoppers into Conversation Starters, and knocking twice the same morning (though once someone threw a bucket of water over Father’s head when we did this, so perhaps that was not such an effective tactic after all).

We met the group at the corner of King Street. There were small hills of snow on either side of the road. Elsie and May were there, Alf and Josie. Stan, Margaret, and Gordon. Josie was wearing a fur hat and a cape and a knitted all-in-one suit that came down to her shins. She said: “I looked for you on Sunday. I brought you something.”

I went round to the other side of Father. “We must have missed each other,” I said.

“What do you think of this snow?” said Uncle Stan. “Beats everything, doesn’t it?”

“The Tribulation is on the way!” said Alf.

Elsie said: “My joints don’t like it.” She offered me a Ricola Locket.

“Nor my chilblains,” said May. She offered me a Werther’s Original.

“Well,” said Father, “we’ve got a good show of spirit in any case.”

Uncle Stan said the prayer and we started. Elsie worked with Margaret, Stan worked with Gordon, Josie worked with May, Alf worked alone, and I worked with Father. It was cold. Our steps rang on the pavement. Father said hello to passersby. Some of them nodded. Some said hello. Most ducked their heads and kept walking. Despite the ideal circumstances, not many answered. Sometimes a curtain moved. Sometimes a child came and said: “No one’s at home,” and when that happened there was laughter.

The sky was incredibly blue. The blueness bothered me. “It could still happen,” I said to myself. “It could still snow.” But two hours later, when we met on the corner, the sky was just as blue as before. “We don’t seem to be having much success,” said Uncle Stan. I couldn’t have agreed with him more.

Father and I said goodbye to the group and went on Return Visits. Return Visits are people we always call on; they don’t hide from us. Mrs. Browning sat up bright as a pin with rollers in her hair and invited us in for tea and butter puffs. There were dog hairs and grease on the plate, and the cups were brown inside. Usually I can’t drink the tea, which is made with condensed milk and only just warm, but today I swallowed it without thinking. Then Father asked me to read the scripture and Mrs. Browning said: “Such a bright girl! I bet you’re looking forward to going back to school.”

Father raised his eyebrows. “I wouldn’t bank on it.”

We left Mrs. Browning and went to see Joe and his dog, Watson. Joe leaned against the porch as he always did, there was a stain on the wall he had done it so long. Watson dragged his bottom across the step.

Father said: “Any day now, Joe.”

And Joe said: “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

Father said: “You have to believe it or you won’t see it.”

Joe laughed, and a chain rattled in his chest. We left some magazines with him, then Father said we’d have to get back or the fire would be out.

I could see my legs going in and out beneath me all the way up the street. There was a lollipop stick lying in the gutter. I usually made garden fences with them but this time I stepped over it. “I won’t make anything ever again,” I said to myself. “It would have been better for me never to have made the snow at all if it was just a