The Meaning of Life (part 4)

He paused for a moment, as if thinking of what to say, and took off his wire-framed glasses and looked at me.  He said, “Jeremy, the Bible was written by God indirectly.  After all He has done for you, isn’t it sensible to at least read His work?”  His words were well spoken and convincing, and I really saw no way out of the situation.

“Yes, sir, I suppose so.  But…”

“Please Jeremy, no more questions.  When did you start thinking about this?”

“For a couple of days now.  I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about my life.”

“Well, I am discouraging you from it.  Doing this is useless and a waste of your own time.  Children aren’t meant to think about these things.  Just ask your parents.  Ask them how they were brought up and then you’ll see what I mean.”

I felt cornered and defeated.  So I said yes.

“Good boy, Jeremy.  Now I’m going to go easy on you for the chores.  You can clean off the desks now and be finished by the end of lunch if you do it fast enough.  And before I forget, we never had this talk, okay Jeremy?”

I looked at my teacher strangely.  Why was he telling me to forget what we said?  It wasn’t that big a deal, was it?  I decided to go along with whatever he wanted me to do for the time being; then I would slowly figure things out by myself.  I nodded.

“Good.  Now get going on your chores; the bell will ring soon.”

For the remaining part of the day, I kept silent and kept my eyes on Mr. Salice.  Not once did I glance at Sean or even at Matthew, though I saw Sean look at me a few times out of the corner of my eye.  At the end of the day, the home bell rang.  I gathered all my supplies and took them to my hole.  Matthew was already at his hole, waiting for me.  I saw him starting to open his mouth and speak, but I felt someone tap me on the shoulder from behind.  I turned around and smiled a little smile.  It was Sean.

“Hey, Jeremy.  Is it okay if you can show me the school and the neighbourhood now?” he asked.  A small grin spread on his face, and I blushed.  Just when I was going to say yes, I almost forgot about Matthew again.  I turned back and saw that he was still there, but he seemed sad, almost depressed.  I didn’t know what it was, so I just asked him if he thought it was okay, since we go home together everyday.

“Yeah, it’s fine.  I have a lot of homework and chores to do anyways.  I’ll see you tomorrow, Jerry.  Call me.”  After Matthew left, I turned back to Sean, and found him with his eyebrows raised.

“Jerry?  Can I call you that too?”  At this point, I was just getting high from seeing him now.  He wanted to call me Jerry!  Matt was the only one who called me by that; he made it up himself.  I felt my cheeks turning red and looked down at the ground so that he wouldn’t see.  It would be stupid if I didn’t say anything at all, so I just carelessly mumbled a “Sure” to him.

“Great!  Jerry it is!  Now, Jerry, can you show me around?”

To be continued!