A Thief in the Night
A s Grace got ready for work the next morning, she mulled over what Dad had said. Should she stay here? Should she go? Why did decisions have to be complicated? She had prayed last night, but she still didn’t know. “Dear Jesus,” Grace prayed again, “please show me what I ought to do!”
She went out to the parking lot, chucked her backpack into the passenger seat of her car, and started the engine. An ear-splitting roar met her ears. Whoa, that was loud. What on earth was going on? Had she lost her muffler?
Heedless of her school clothes, Grace jumped out of her car and flattened herself on the pavement to peer underneath. She hadn’t spent a lot of time under her car, so she couldn’t identify a lot of car parts—she didn’t know what the muffler even looked like—but something seemed off. Were there supposed to be two ends of pipe facing each other with nothing in between? Had something fallen off her car?
Grace got back in the car, stopped the engine, and called Dad.
“Dad, I’ve got a car problem.” She explained the noise and what she had seen under the car.
“Two ends of pipe?” Dad asked. “Why don’t you send me a picture.”
Grace sent the picture and called back. Dad sounded serious on the other end. “You’d better call the police, Gracie,” he said. “Your catalytic converter’s been stolen.”
“Stolen! Oh, no!”
She’d forgotten Lucas’s comment the other day about catalytic converter thieves. Now they’d targeted her car.
“The catalytic converter’s got precious metals in it,” Dad said. “I’ve read about other people getting them stolen. I bet it happened during the night. You’d better get off and call the police right away.”
“Yes—yes, Dad, I will.” Grace’s voice quavered. How could somebody do this to her? How awful did you have to be to sabotage somebody’s car?
“I’ll be praying for you. You call me right back if you need anything,” Dad said. “I wish I could get a word with those crooks that stole from my little girl’s car.”
“Me too, Dad,” Grace said. “I’m so mad, I could cry.”
Her hands were shaking. It was a struggle to keep her voice calm on her call with the police.
The middle-aged, dark-haired policeman who showed up a few minutes later was friendly and sympathetic, but said he couldn’t do much. These thefts were happening all over the place. He advised Grace to see if her insurance covered a replacement for the catalytic converter.
Grace called the school and let them know she wasn’t coming in. She needed to figure things out.
An internet search told her she would need comprehensive insurance to cover the part replacement. Grace rifled through her box of important papers, only to find comprehensive insurance marked as “not included” on her paperwork.
Grace flopped on her bed with a groan. Why hadn’t she gotten comprehensive insurance? Because her car was inexpensive, comprehensive insurance cost extra, and she had been a poor college graduate when she took out the insurance policy. She’d have to pay out of pocket for the part, if she could find a garage to replace it.
It took all morning—and some phone calls with her dad and brother—to research a garage in Los Angeles that would replace the catalytic converter. In the early afternoon, Grace got her car towed there. At least her insurance covered the tow.
In the late afternoon the garage called with awful news. The catalytic converter would cost somewhere around three thousand dollars. And it wasn’t in stock. According to California regulations, they could only use factory parts for the replacement, and so many people had had their catalytic converters stolen that there was a shortage. Grace was looking at a couple months’ wait to get her car back.
Oh, no. A hard knot formed in Grace’s chest. What in the world should she do? Three thousand dollars? That was probably more than half the value of Grace’s Honda CR-V. And two months? Practically the whole summer!
Well, this answered part of the question she had been praying about, although not in the way she had expected. If she didn’t have a car for two months, she couldn’t work for Shipt, which required its shoppers to have their own cars. The only thing that made sense was to go to Fraser’s Mill after all.
She called her parents and tried to explain the situation, her words tumbling over each other.
“Grace, Grace, it’s okay,” Mom said. “You can slow down and breathe. We’ve got time.”
Grace took a deep breath. “All right. I’ll try.”
The first issue was whether she should even get the car fixed for that amount of money. Dad told her the vehicle market was so bad right now, it would probably be best for Grace to get hers fixed, as long as there wasn’t anything else significantly wrong with it. “You can’t even get an old sedan for a decent amount around here,” he said. “And in California it’s probably worse, with those smog regulations.”
Grace sighed. “You’re probably right. And I don’t want to get rid of my car. I like my car.”
“There’s your answer then,” Dad said. “So what are you going to do in the meantime?”
“I’ll just have to come to Fraser’s Mill,” she said. “I won’t have any way to get around here until my car’s fixed, so I can’t shop for Shipt. And I don’t have any other way to make money here. You’ve got to agree with me this time!”
Dad laughed. “All right, all right!”
“Are you sure?” Mom asked. “Will you be able to get ready for teaching in the fall? I want to make sure this won’t jeopardize your job or your preparation for the National Board certification.”
“I’m absolutely sure my job will be fine,” Grace said. “I already signed my contract for next year. I’m gonna teach the same classes again, fifth and sixth grade English language arts. It won’t be hard to get ready for that. And I can do all my National Board prep in the evenings after the store closes.”
“Well, then, if you really want to, we’d love to have you.”
“Thanks, Mom. I really want to.”
§
Jen got to the apartment late that evening after studying at a coffee shop. She was horrified about the catalytic converter theft and surprised at Grace’s plan.
“That’s nice of you to help out your parents,” she said. “It’s going to be lonely here without you. I’ll be glad when you get back.”
Grace did feel bad about leaving Jen without a roommate for six weeks. At the same time, she and Jen didn’t hang out that much anyway, and Jen had her boyfriend. She would still have someone to spend time with when Grace had left.
Grace bought her plane tickets that evening. Ticket prices were high so close to the day of the flight, but at least she got a discount for a round trip. She’d fly to Michigan on Monday. That would give her Saturday to pack and Sunday to rest before flying out Monday morning. Her return flight would be July 16 th , giving her enough time to help her parents until Dad’s cast came off. Then she would have a few weeks in California to get ready for the school year, which started in August. The timing would be tight. Looking at the dates on her calendar made her nervous. But it was exciting, too, a completely different summer than she’d originally planned.