If that’s what French kissing is, I don’t think she’s doing it right.
Note from the editor: The day is off on this post. Sorry.
Dear Dad,
It’s Monday and I’m writing from home today. I told Mom I didn’t feel good and she said I could stay home. We all figured out years ago that Mom wants to believe what we tell her. Either that or she just doesn’t want to hassle with disagreeing with us. I bet if you were here you’d just make me go to school. Anyway, here I am at home.
I like your stories about your neighbors. I get that you think it’s a boring place, but it still sounds kind of nice. I’d like to meet Gordon and hear him speak Latin. And I’d like to see the boat. What is it about the woman captain that you don’t like? You never said.
Also, if the boat really does go to Heaven, wouldn’t that explain why no one ever comes back?
I need to tell you about my weekend with Misty Lee. I went with her and Rick Jarvis and Sharon King to Misty’s church sleepover. It was actually pretty fun. They have a pastor guy named Drew. One of those guys who wears black t-shirts and jeans and thinks it makes him look young and cool. It doesn’t. Drew hung out with us and told us funny versions of Jesus’ parable about the prodigal son. It was pretty funny. When the prodigal son was out spending his money, he acted it out like Homer Simpson. Doh!
At the end, Drew asked if we had any questions about the story. No one said a thing. I think all the kids just wanted the talking part to be over. Then he asked if we had any questions about God or the Bible in general. I did, so I said, “What happens when we die?”
Drew got pretty excited about that question, because it gave him the perfect chance to get all preachy to us. Rick Jarvis groaned when I asked it and laid on his back and put his arm over his eyes.
“That all depends, Trevor,” Drew said. “The Bible says that if we ask Jesus into our hearts, then when we die we’ll go to Heaven and be with Him. But if we don’t we’ll go to hell.”
I said that was all fine, but wanted to know how it works exactly. Do you just appear in Heaven as soon as your heart stops beating? Do you just pop up there, like one minute you’re laying in bed, dying away and the next minute you’re standing on the streets of gold? Or do you go someplace first?
Drew didn’t know. He said that those kind of details aren’t the point. I said they that they were to me. He said that maybe it was time to play some games.
Then we started playing this big game of hide and seek and we were running all around the church chasing each other in the dark. I went running down this long hallway that was lined with doors and all of a sudden Misty Lee jumped out of one of the doors, grabbed me and pulled me into a dark room. “Come here,” she said and she guided me over to a couch. It was dark, but I could barely make out a desk and a bookshelf.
“Is this someone’s office?” I said.
“It’s Drew’s,” she said, pulling me down onto a couch and kissing me on the lips. We kissed for a while like that, with her hands on my face and my hands at my sides. I liked it.
“Do you think Drew reads all these books?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Misty said, between kisses. “Why do you care?”
“Do you think he has any books about heaven?”
“Probably,” she said. “Do we have to talk about this right now?”
Then she put her tongue in my mouth. I didn’t like it. It felt like some kind of sloppy creature sliding around in there, like a muscular slug. If that’s what French kissing is, I don’t think she’s doing it right. I think if she was doing it right, I would have liked it more. I didn’t put my tongue in her mouth, because she had enough tongue for the both of us. But I did put my arms around her to pull her closer—like people do when they kiss on TV. As soon as I did, Misty Lee jumped up from the couch and said, “Come on,” and ran out of the room.
That was it. We were back in the game of hide and seek and Misty Lee acted like the whole kissing thing had never happened.
Another thing I know about Misty Lee. She is in charge. I just follow along. She kisses me and not the other way around. Maybe I should try to be more in charge. She seems to really like kissing. Maybe I should kiss her more. Maybe I’ll try that at school, if I can find a chance and not chicken out.
So now back to the subject of what happens when you die. You know this, right? Drew doesn’t. But I mean, you died. Can you please tell me exactly how it worked for you?
Your son,
Trevor