“Yes, David, I know what an IOU is. And has he collected on it? This God of yours?”
“Maybe your father understands, but I don’t,” Ellen said.
“I talk to God,” he said. This was embarrassing, but maybe if it was said once, and right out straight, it wouldn’t have to be said again. “That’s what praying is, talking to God. At first it feels like talking to yourself, but then it changes.”
“Is that something you know for yourself, David, or is it something your new Sunday pal told you?”
“Something I know for myself.”
“And does God answer?”
“Sometimes I think I hear him,” David said. He reached into his pocket and touched the shotgun shell with the tips of his fingers. “And once I know I did. I asked him to let Brian be all right. After Dad took me to the hospital, I went to the Bear Street Woods and climbed to the platform me and Bri made in a tree there and asked God to let him be all right. I said that if he did that, I’d kind of give him an IOU. Do you know what I mean?”
“Yes, David, I know what an IOU is. And has he collected on it? This God of yours?”
“Not yet. But when I got up to climb back down the tree, God told me to put my EXCUSED EARLY pass on a nail that was sticking out of the bark up there. It was like he wanted me to turn it in, only to him instead of Mrs. Hardy in the office. And something else. He wanted me to find out as much as I could about him—what he is, what he wants, what he does, and what he won’t do. I didn’t exactly hear that in words, but I heard the name of the man he wanted me to go to—Reverend Martin. That’s why I go to the Methodist church. I don’t think the brand name matters much to God, though. He just said to do church for my heart and spirit, and Reverend Martin for my mind. I didn’t even know who Reverend Martin was at first.”
“But you did,” Ellie Carver said. She spoke in the soft, soothing voice of a person who suddenly understands that the person she’s talking with is having mental problems. “Gene Martin has come to the house two or three years in a row to collect for African Relief.”
“Really? I didn’t see him. I guess I must have been in school when he came.”
“Nonsense,” his mother said, now in tones of absolute finality. “He would have come around near Christmas, so you wouldn’t have been in school.
