Leaving Fishers by Margaret Peterson Haddix

Dorry watched, puzzled. “Angela,” she whispered. “I—”

  “Ssh,” Angela hissed. Others around them turned to stare.

  “No, I have to tell you this,” Dorry insisted. “I’ve already been baptized. When I was a baby. So I shouldn’t do it again, should I? It’d be a sin or something, wouldn’t it?”

  “No,” Angela shook her head, and whispered back. “Infant baptism is wrong. If you aren’t baptized in Fishers, you’re going to hell.”

  Dorry considered that. She didn’t remember being baptized, and she’d certainly never felt like this before. Angela knew a lot more about religion than Dorry did.

  “Dorry,” Pastor Jim called. Dorry stepped forward. Angela and Brad walked into the water on either side of her. The smell of chlorine filled her nose and she held back a sneeze, but the water was warm and inviting. She wondered if the River Jordan had been cold or hot—it certainly hadn’t smelled of chlorine. Then she pushed away those thoughts because she was supposed to be thinking about God.

  “Dorry Stevens, do you renounce all sin and evil?” Pastor Jim asked.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Do you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you accept the love and dominion of the Fishers of Men, as the representative of God’s mission on earth?”

  Dorry blinked, trying to comprehend his words. Everyone was waiting.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “And do you vow to dedicate your life to God as embodied in Fishers? Do you vow to forsake all outsiders and all worldly pursuits and endeavors for the good of God’s kingdom?”

  “Yes,” Dorry said again, not stopping to think this time. That was what everyone expected.

  Then Pastor Jim was pushing her down, down, into the warm water. She forgot to take a breath and came up sputtering. Water dripped from her hair. Brad and Angela led her out of the pool and wrapped her in warm towels, handling her as tenderly as a baby. Dorry noticed that, though they were both wet up to the waist, they did nothing for themselves. The three of them stood on the edge of the pool, arms around each other, watching the rest of the baptisms.

  “Welcome to Fishers,” Angela said gently. Her lips brushed Dorry’s cheek, almost like a kiss.

  Chapter

  Nine

  AFTER THE BAPTISMS, DORRY FELT LIKE A new baby chick, freshly hatched from its egg. But no chicken had ever felt such joy—or been greeted so happily. She couldn’t stop grinning as people told her, over and over again, “Welcome, welcome. You are God’s child.” It was after 2 A.M. before the retreat group got into the vans and went back to the lodge, but people still lingered downstairs by the fireplace for another hour or two, reliving the evening.

  “If I die tonight, I will die happy,” someone said.

  “If I live a million years, I will never forget this night,” someone else said.

  Dorry kept quiet, afraid that speaking would destroy her fragile euphoria. She couldn’t possibly explain how she felt.

  When they finally went up to bed, Angela said, “Here, I’ll show you how to pray.”

  So Dorry knelt beside Angela, Angela showing her the proper angle to tilt her head, the proper way to fold her hands. Angela began praying out loud: “Dear God, we rejoice in the salvation of my new sister, Dorry. Thank you for your wisdom in choosing her and making her one of your own. Please make her a worthy member of your flock. Allow her to grow in wisdom and faith. . . .”

  Dorry nodded off before Angela was finished, but Angela didn’t get upset. She gently shook Dorry and helped her to bed.

  The next morning, Angela woke Dorry to pray beside her again. “You must do this every morning and every evening, to stay connected to God,” Angela said. It was very early, and Dorry was still very tired. She couldn’t listen to all of Angela’s long prayer. Suddenly she realized Angela had stopped talking.

  “Your turn,” Angela said, without looking up.

  “I—I—” Dorry stuttered. “I, uh, thank you, God, for this . . . day. Thanks for saving me. Um, please bless everybody. Amen.”

  Dorry knew it was a pathetic prayer. She opened one eye and peeked at Angela, but Angela only resumed her own prayer, her words flowing evenly as a brook. When she’d said her own “amen” and gracefully stood up, she patted Dorry on the back.

  “It takes a while to learn how to pray right,” she said. “I’ll give you a list of what to say.”

  The rest of the retreat passed as hazily as a dream. At breakfast some of the others talked about going to the Fishers’ big Sunday service downtown, but in the end they all agreed it would be better to worship alone as one small group. They wanted nothing to disturb them. The honking of one horn in city traffic might jolt them out of savoring their salvation. At the lodge, everyone spoke in soft voices, moved slowly, touched gently. They all understood.

  At six o’clock, when it was time to leave, Dorry gave in to tears, hugging everyone good-bye. “I’ll miss you,” she cried to Janelle.

  “Good grief, you’ll all see each other at Fishers functions. Maybe as soon as tomorrow,” Brad said. “No one’s moving to Siberia.” But Dorry thought she saw a tear glinting in his eye, too.

  The vans took them back to their schools. Angela had promised to take Dorry home from there. The huge, modem Crestwood High School looked different than it had on Friday—not nearly as scary and overwhelming. Of course, Dorry knew it was she who was different. She was a Fisher now. She had God on her side. She had nothing to fear.

  “I’m over here,” Angela said, leading Dorry to the student parking lot behind the building.

  Dorry squinted into the distance. She didn’t see the Mercedes. The lot was deserted except for a bright blue sports car that reminded Dorry of the car she’d seen at Northview so long ago—had it been just a month? It seemed a lifetime ago. And in one sense it was. Dorry had a whole new life now. How could she have ever suspected Angela of hiding from her? She’d been so insecure, so distrustful.

  “Where—” she started to ask.

  Angela was striding toward the sports car, unlocking its doors. “I don’t have the Mercedes. That’s my dad’s. This is my car—it was in the shop for a while.”

  Dorry froze, confused, a few steps away. Her thoughts raced. So it had been Angela that day at Northview. So she had lied to Dorry about being there. Or not really lied—Dorry had never actually asked her. But surely she’d given Angela every chance to tell her she was there, to explain why she’d hidden from Dorry. Why had she hidden? And what should Dorry do now? Say something about the car? Pretend nothing had happened?

  “You saw me that day at your apartment complex, didn’t you?” Angela asked quietly.

  Dorry didn’t know what to say. She settled on the truth.

  “Yes.”

  “I thought so.”

  Somehow, Angela didn’t seem upset, or worried that Dorry would be upset. She let Dorry into the car, but didn’t put the keys into the ignition yet. They sat still. Dorry waited. Finally Angela turned to her and began talking, her eyes locked on Dorry’s. “You see, when there’s someone who shows a great deal of promise as a potential Fisher, we like to check them out, so we don’t say anything to scare them away. Let me give you an example. My parents are divorced, and divorce is evil and wrong. I know that now, because I know the truth. But before I saw the light, if I had heard anyone from Fishers condemning divorced people, it would have upset me. And the Devil would have used my anger, so that in my blindness, I probably would have missed my chance for eternal life.”

  “But—”

  Angela patted Dorry’s hand. “That first day we met you, we could tell you were crying out for salvation. And, too, we could see that you could become a wonderful Fisher, possibly a leader in the group. So I followed your bus to see where you’d get off, to know more about you.”

  Dorry was trying to make sense of it all. As a Fisher, what was she supposed to say? She didn’t know, so she said what she wanted. “But why
did you hide from me?”

  “I didn’t want you to think I was spying on you,” Angela said, as though that should have been obvious. “I didn’t think you would understand then. And after that, I made sure you didn’t see this car because I didn’t want the Devil to use any doubts you might have. But now, now that you’ve been saved, you can see things with the eyes of God. I know that you have enough faith now.”

  Dorry struggled to be as filled with faith as Angela thought she was. Questions whispered in the back of her mind—Why did it matter where she lived? If following her home wasn’t spying, what was it? But Dorry resolutely shut out every doubt. How could she think badly of Angela? They were sisters now, fellow Fishers. Angela was the one who’d led her to salvation. Dorry owed her very soul to Angela.

  Angela was smiling. “God was testing you, letting you see the car. But I can tell you’ve passed the test. You are a good and faithful child of God.” She leaned over and impulsively gave Dorry a hug. “I’ll take you home now. I’m sure you’re tired.”

  Angela did most of the talking all the way to Northview. She chattered about what Dorry would do, now that she was a Fisher. “You’ll be in a Bible Study, of course. And then there’s the discipling sessions three times a week—did I tell you I get to be your discipler? And—”

  “What’s a discipler?” Dorry asked, roused from watching road signs flash by.

  “It’s like, well, a big sister in the faith. Someone who shows you how to grow as a Fisher.”

  “Oh,” Dorry said. If she hadn’t been so tired, she would have asked more. But they were pulling into Northview now. Angela parked right beside Dorry’s father’s car.

  “My parents are home for once,” Dorry said.

  “That’s good,” Angela said. “You must tell them the minute you walk in the door about becoming a Fisher. Pray with them, and maybe the Lord will see fit to save them, too.”

  Dorry shifted uncomfortably in the bucket seat. Somehow she hadn’t thought that far ahead. It was one thing to be a Fisher among other Fishers, but she didn’t know how her parents would react. Maybe they would notice a difference in her before she told them anything. She would be really good and kind and they would understand what a glorious thing had happened.

  Dorry opened the door. Her father was sitting at the kitchen table eating a sandwich. He looked old and sunken and defeated. Maybe Angela was right, and she should tell him about Fishers right away—he needed to be saved, too. But he would be the harder parent to tell.

  “Where’s Mom?” she asked. “She didn’t get called in to work, did she?”

  He looked up, startled, as if he hadn’t heard her come in. “No,” he said in a strange, flat voice. “She’s in the hospital. She had a heart attack.”

  Chapter

  Ten

  “WHAT?” DORRY SAID. “IS SHE—” SHE WAS too scared to finish the thought.

  “She’s all right,” her father said quietly. “Won’t be in the hospital but a few more days. Docs said it was pretty mild, we should just see it like a warning light for a car engine.” But his face didn’t look like he thought everything was all right.

  Dorry dropped her suitcase and sat down because her knees were trembling. “When—”

  “Friday afternoon, when she was getting ready for work,” her father said. “She had these shooting pains in her chest.”

  “You should have let me know.” Dorry wondered what she’d been doing when it happened. Laughing and talking in the van with Brad and Angela? Playing games to learn the other kids’ names? She should have been with her mother.

  “Weren’t nothing you could do,” Dorry’s dad said. “Your mom said it was best to leave you where you could have some fun.”

  Dorry shook her head, not to disagree, but to clear her mind. She didn’t know what to think. How could this have happened just when she was so happy about becoming a Fisher?

  “Can I go see her?” she asked.

  Dorry’s dad looked at his watch. “Visiting hours are over. I’ll take you tomorrow. You can call.” He gave her the number and went to the couch to watch TV. Dorry dialed the number with shaking fingers.

  “Mom?”

  “Hey, sweetie.”

  The voice was weak but blessedly familiar.

  “How was your retreat?” her mother asked.

  Dorry couldn’t tell her everything over the phone. She settled for, “Fine. How do you feel?”

  “I’ve felt better. But I’m okay.”

  Dorry wrapped and unwrapped the telephone cord around her finger, trying to hear behind the words. What if her mother really wasn’t okay?

  They talked a little longer, then Dorry’s mother said, “The nurse is here to pick on me. Come see me tomorrow, ail right?”

  “I will,” Dorry said. She wanted to add “I love you”—she’d said it to near strangers over and over again during the weekend—but somehow the words wouldn’t come out right for her own mother.

  Once she hung up, Dorry was fidgety. What were you supposed to do when your mother was in the hospital? She made herself a ham-salad sandwich, but couldn’t eat more than two or three bites. She threw it into the garbage disposal and let it run until every shred of the sandwich was annihilated. Her father glared, because the disposal interfered with his TV reception. Dorry went back to her room, but there was nothing to hold her there. It looked like a museum to her Bryden self, a self that now seemed as distant as the people who used the prehistoric tools did in real museums. She was in Indianapolis now. She was saved. And her mother was in the hospital.

  The phone rang. Dorry got it. “So how did it go?” Angela’s eager voice rushed at her.

  “What?” Dorry asked.

  “Telling your parents. Did you pray over them like I told you?”

  Dorry picked up the phone and pulled it around the corner. She went into the bathroom and half shut the door for privacy. She sat on the toilet seat. “I didn’t—I haven’t told them yet.” Dorry was going to explain about her mother’s heart attack, but the news seemed too new to be shared yet. She had to get used to it before she told anyone else.

  “Oh, Dorry.” Angela sounded so disappointed Dorry was afraid she might cry. “You must tell them right away, even if they disapprove. Especially if they disapprove—remember how God loves you more for being persecuted? If you don’t tell, the Devil will work on you, crawl in the cracks between your real, Fishers life, and the fake life you show your family. Or, well . . . I don’t like to bring this up, but if you won’t tell, perhaps it’s a sign that you didn’t receive a real salvation.”

  Dorry squinted at the blank white wall in front of her and struggled to make sense of what Angela was saying.

  “—Do you feel your salvation was real?” Angela asked.

  “Of course.” Wasn’t it? Dorry stared at the cracks in the tile floor as if they held the answer.

  “Well, then—” Angela began slowly, revving up for another flurry of words.

  Dorry couldn’t bear to have Angela think so poorly of her. “My mother had a heart attack,” Dorry blurted out.

  “What?”

  “Friday, while I was at the retreat. She’s in the hospital.”

  There was a silence at the other end, as if Angela needed time to adjust to Dorry’s news. Dorry listened to the phone’s static.

  “Oh, Dorry, that’s awful. How is she?” Angela finally said. Her voice ached with compassion and concern now. Dorry thought it might make her cry.

  “She’s okay now,” Dorry said.

  “Oh, Dorry, I feel so bad for you. Do you want me to come over and pray with you?”

  Pray—that’s what she should have done, she realized belatedly. For a second she longed to have Angela with her, being compassionate and telling her what to do, what to feel.

  “Is your father there? We could pray with him, too, give him comfort—”

  That clinched it. Dorry couldn’t imagine Angela praying with her father. She could picture his skeptical frown a
lready. “No, no, you don’t have to come,” Dorry said.

  “I’ll call the prayer chains, though. Did anyone tell you Fishers has twenty different prayer chains? By ten o’clock, your mother will have eighty people praying for her. We’ll make sure she gets through this.”

  I want that, Dorry almost said. Instead, she murmured, “Thanks.”

  “That’s what we’re here for,” Angela said. “But Dorry, you have to tell at least your father about being saved. Or you won’t be.”

  “I will,” Dorry promised.

  Angela finished with a prayer over the phone. After she hung up, Dorry continued holding the receiver up to her ear, listening to the dial tone. “God?” she whispered. “Can you make Mom better? Do I have to tell my dad about things?” The phone hummed. Dorry sighed and hung up, not sure why she was acting like God would talk right back. Angela made it sound like that’s what He did for her.

  Dorry took the phone back to the kitchen. Her dad was still watching TV in the living room. Heart pounding, she went and sat on the couch beside him. “Dad? I was—”

  “Can’t you wait for the commercial?” he growled.

  Obediently, Dorry waited until the actors in police uniforms were replaced by a commercial for Ex-Lax. “I was—I mean, I kind of had a religious experience at the retreat. We were wrong, at Bryden Methodist. I wasn’t baptized right. But I was this weekend, so I know I’ll go to heaven now—” She knew she wasn’t saying things right. At the retreat, Pastor Jim had told of people being saved hearing about someone else’s conversion. Dorry thought the way she had started, her story wouldn’t save a flea.

  Dorry’s dad was looking at her the same way he would look at a used-car salesman. “What do you mean, you weren’t baptized right? After your mom spent three weeks on that christening gown you had to wear—”

  “But it wasn’t my choice, see? I had to consciously, uh, accept Jesus and ask Him into my heart. . . And I had to be dunked, not just sprinkled—” Dorry didn’t add that it had been in a swimming pool.

  Dorry’s dad was shaking his head anyway. “What are you talking about? What church is this?”