CHAPTER 12
Devon
At four sharp, Devon was waiting outside the school. The newspaper lady was right on time. She pulled up in a little gray sedan, tires squeaking.
“Hop in!” She grinned through the open car window, clicked the automatic door locks. “I hope you’re hungry, ’cause I’m starved.”
He was, too.
Twenty minutes later they were seated across from each other in the big plush red booth in Harold’s Diner, the seats that smooth leathery kind that made his legs cold, a huge plate of half-finished fries between them and her notepad before her.
He’d already finished a gigantic, drippy cheeseburger, which he’d decided was probably the best thing he’d ever tasted in his life.
He’d had burgers before—I mean, who hadn’t—but that burger was in a whole new class.
Devon hadn’t done any interviews before, but he decided that if they involved food this good, he was all in.
“So, you don’t talk a whole lot,” the newspaper lady said, studying him.
He felt his cheeks get hot. “Quiet, I guess.”
“Is it weird, talking about yourself? Or maybe it’s just being a kid. To be honest, I don’t know a thing about kids. Except having been one, of course. And that was a long time ago.”
He couldn’t help himself. He laughed.
She smiled. “What?”
“You’re funny.”
“Funny, as in weird?”
“Just funny.” He laughed again, and she laughed this time, too, grabbed another fry. He liked this lady.
“So Devon, tell me about the camp. How’d you come up with the idea?”
Devon gulped the chocolate shake, wincing at the loud sluuuuuurp, but the newspaper lady didn’t seem to mind.
“Well, I got to thinking one day about how a buncha kids my age don’t have much to do once school lets out. Me too—and it gets really, really boring. When you get to be my age, most of the grownups decide you’re old enough to stay home alone. But some of the kids get into trouble.”
“Like, fighting?”
“And drugs, graffiti, all that stuff.”
“Drugs? In Dahlia?”
He gave her a look. She raised her eyebrows, jotted some notes.
“How old are these kids? Like, teens?”
“All ages, high school down to elementary.”
“Wait. Kids in elementary school stay home alone in the summer all day long?”
“Well, yeah. Grownups have to work.” He fiddled with the stripy straw in his shake. “The churches offer free camps when you’re little, but those end after second grade.”
“They don’t have any other camps in Dahlia?” Her eyes were wide.
“Those cost lots of money.”
She frowned. “So you decided the kids needed someplace to go.”
“Yeah.” He grabbed another fry. “I figured the churches are always looking for ways to help, but older kids like us can be hard. And I know the teachers are off all summer, so I thought maybe we could do something at school. Not like regular school, more like fun school, only in the summer.”
“Fun school. That’s pretty genius.”
“Thanks. Anyway, I went to my pastor, we got the school and the other churches to say they’d help, and presented it to the town council last month. That’s about it.”
“I’m impressed.” She snagged another fry, wrote furiously. “So the name, West Dahlia Leaders Summer Enrichment Camp.”
“I wanted to call it Fun School, but they all thought this sounded better. And besides, they call all the kids ‘leaders’ in the camp.” He shrugged. “You know, to make us feel important. I’ve gotta admit, it does feel good being called Leader Devon all day long.”
“Expectation breeds success,” she said.
“That’s what Miss H always says.” He gave her a smile, and she smiled back. “We’ve got fifty-three kids this year, from eight years old all the way to the end of middle school.”
“And I hear the staff is all-volunteer—no one gets paid at all. Retired teachers and a handful of regular schoolteachers, right?”
“And some high school helpers. They get summer school credit for it. It’s a pretty good deal.”
“I’ll say.” She wrote all this down.
“It goes from nine to three all summer long, with reading and some brain stuff in the morning, and the state feeds us lunch and two snacks cause we’re a poverty school. Your granny helped get us that. She’s on the committee with me.”
The newspaper lady opened her mouth a little. “She never mentioned it. So, it is fun? Do your friends like it so far?”
“Yeah, I mean, there’s soccer and tag and recess stuff to keep the kids happy, book stuff to keep the grownups happy, and the town’s happy cause it keeps all us kids off the street. We even have a Bible study, but a kid version.”
She finished writing, tapped her pen against her chin as she looked at him closely.
“So, Devon Robinson,” she said, her words soft and news-reportery, like he’d seen on television. “Why do you care? Why go to all this trouble?”
He looked out the window, thought a long time. She was patient, though. Waiting.
Finally he bent down, reached in his backpack, and pulled out his Bible.
He was almost embarrassed to show her—it wasn’t a brand-new good-looking Bible but old, really old.
The black leather was worn in places, and the pages were dog-eared.
It had “Bible” stamped on the cover in gold letters, but even those were peeling.
Still, it was his Bible, and Mama’s. Thinking about it made his throat go all scratchy, but he swallowed hard, rested his hand on the book, and looked the newspaper lady straight on.
“For Jesus.”
She chewed her lip. “Jesus.” He couldn’t read her expression.
Devon nodded. “He’s my savior. He died on the cross for me.
For me and for you, and for everyone, really.
So we could have eternal life. And he thinks I’m important.
That’s a pretty big deal to me. If I’m gonna call myself a Christian, a real one, then I want to step up and actually be one, really do stuff for him, to make him happy. Like caring for the least.”
“The least?” She scribbled fast, turned another page.
“Yeah. ‘The least of these.’ You know, the people who have a really hard time in life, like widows and kids whose parents died, like me, and super-hungry people, the people who don’t have anything.
Rev calls it being Jesus’s hands and feet in the world, and it’s up to me to do it, me and other people who believe, too.
” He tapped the book. “It’s all in there. ”
“Sounds like you’ve got the world on your shoulders.”
“Somebody has to. Why not me?”
She shook her head, ate a fry. “You’re one amazing kid, Devon. I’ve seriously never met anyone like you.”
“And I’ve never met another grownup like you. You’re a neat lady, Miss Becca.” She was.
Afterwards, he showed her the shortcut back to James Watkins. “Drop me right here,” he said, as they got closer to the school. He could see his bike was still in the rack, locked up with the new lock, safe and secure. Even better, there was no sign of Marquis. He breathed a sigh of relief.
“At least let me take you home!”
“No!” The word was loud in the small car, and she gave him a sideways look, his stomach flopping back to normal. “I mean, thanks anyway.”
“You’re my last appointment today, and it’s really no trouble.”
He shook his head, already grabbing the heavy backpack and sliding out of the car. “Nope, I’m supposed to meet up with my friends, but thanks.” He gave her a no-biggie wave. “And thanks for taking me to Harold’s. It was nice meeting you.”
“You, too, Devon. Oh, and don’t forget—make sure you get that form signed. I can’t run the story without the parental waiver. Send it over with my granny tomorrow, okay?”
“I’ll do it, Miss Becca. See ya.”
He watched as she drove away in her little gray car, then turned to unlock his bike and head home. He only hoped Uncle T wouldn’t be there when he arrived.
He wasn’t so lucky.