“Come on, Jill!” called Ricardo from the volleyball court. “We’re one short! We need you!”
Jill got up reluctantly to join the game. She wanted to play but Alex was playing and she felt a little self-conscious around him this morning. She couldn’t believe she had told him all that stuff the previous night. Had she really talked to him about Colin, and the boy who had moved to Australia? She didn’t talk about those things much; in fact no one, not even Anya, knew about what had happened behind the grandstands after that choir concert. Except for Alex, now. She had told him everything.
It’s because he’s my friend, she thought, as she took her place in front of the net. They got along well, that was all. It was easy to talk to him, easy to laugh with him. It shouldn’t matter that he was a guy. Except that now he had tried to kiss her. He wasn’t content with being just friends.
She looked over at him as they began to play and caught his eye, as she already had many times that morning. He would just have to stick to his word and keep things platonic. If he didn’t … but she didn’t know what she would do if he didn’t.
“Nice, Jill,” said Alex, as she won a point for their team. He grinned at her, then turned away, and she relaxed a little. There were no hard feelings, it seemed. She would take him at his word, and they could stay friends. Then he would still come along to the youth events, and perhaps he would understand a little better what Christianity was all about. It had been hard trying to explain things to him, last night, and she was looking forward to James’ next talk, and perhaps a conversation afterwards.
But although Alex came along to the church hall that evening, he left before the talk, saying he had to meet his parents for dinner. And although he was at the volleyball again for the next two days, he didn’t come to any of the other evening events. Jill sat through James’ last talk, wishing Alex was there to hear it. James explained things so clearly, better than she thought she would be able to. Jill had never found it easy to be a Christian. Sometimes the girls at school gave her a hard time, calling her intolerant and small-minded. It was hard to forgive her dad, to be loyal to Aunt Bert, and to make sacrifices for Simon. But she knew in her heart that she belonged to God, and although she often had questions, she wanted more than anything to live her life for him. She wanted that for the people she cared about too, and not a day went by that she didn’t pray for Alex.
When all the beach mission events were over she still saw Alex often. He was on the beach almost every day, often with Fez and Ricardo, and if she was there with Simon they always ended up having a swim together, even sometimes, for Simon, a ride on his surfboard. James organised a trip to a nearby waterpark and she spent a morning riding supertubes with her friends, and afterwards sitting next to Alex in the Spur, drinking milkshakes and laughing at
Anya dipping her chips in ice cream and barbecue sauce. A few times a swim or a surf turned into hanging out at her house or Anya’s, listening to music or watching movies, and Alex was usually one of the crowd. But when the conversation turned to spiritual things, as it did a few times, Alex was silent. He would stay out of it, only joining in again when the subject had changed.
On the day before Christmas, after Alex had once again turned down an invitation to church, Jill was in the CNA buying some lastminute wrapping paper. She walked past a shelf of Bibles and Christian books and impulsively bought a small black soft-covered Bible, took it home, wrote a short inscription inside and kept it for the next time she saw Alex. When she gave it to him she could see he was trying to look pleased, but she knew he probably didn’t want to read it. But she figured that even if he didn’t want to read it, he might one day in the future, and that one more Bible out there wasn’t exactly going to do any harm.
One evening, a few days after Christmas, Jill invited the gang to her house to play a board game that Aunt Bert had given her for Christmas. Simon was spending the night at James’ house, so she could have her little party. Aunt Bert went to her room with a book and took out her hearing aid. She was always a sport about Jill having friends over.
“So,” said Jill, opening the box on the low coffee table in the lounge. “We divide into pairs. One person has to give clues for the other person to guess the words or phrases on the card, without saying the word of course. Then we move these pieces around the board according to how many words your team guesses before the timer runs out.”
“Eish,” said Ricardo. “This is gonna be interesting.” Jill laughed. “It’s so much fun,” she said.
They drew lots, and she and Alex were on the same team. Alex shrugged and looked at Jill as if to say – it was fate! Not my fault! Bianca and Ricardo were also a team, which everyone found amusing seeing that the two had just in the last few days started shyly holding hands. Anya was with Hayley, and Fez was with David.
“Okay,” said Anya, perching on the edge of the couch to look at the board. “Our turn first, Hayley. You and I go way back and know everything about each other, so we are gonna win this game, right?”
“Oh yeah!” said Hayley. “Hand me a card!” She took a card and looked at it.
“Go!” said Ricardo, turning over the thirty-second egg timer.
“Uh … uh…” said Hayley. “This is a place where the President of Britain lives …”
“The President of Britain?” said Alex.
“Ten Dowling Street!” shouted Anya. “Downing! Whatever. Next!”
“Uh … a singer …”
“Justin Bieber!” yelled Anya.
“No man! Listen first! A blind singer!”
“Ag no, what is his NAME!” panicked Anya, hitting herself on the face.
“Come on, Anya!” squealed Hayley. “Sunglasses! I just called to say I love you!”
“STEVIE WONDER!” Anya remembered. “Next, quick
Hayley!”
“Okay … uh … an orange drink …”
“FANTA!”
“No man, it’s not fizzy …”
“OROS!”
“No, it’s for sports …”
“Time’s up!” whooped Ricardo.
“ENERGADE!” shouted Anya, just too late.
“Ah, man!” said Hayley. “Just missed that one! How many did we get?”
“Two,” said Ricardo.
“Only TWO!” moaned Anya. “This game is HARD!”
David and Fez went next. They also got two, bombing out over a couple of celebrity names neither of them recognized. Ricardo and Bianca got three, so when it was Alex and Jill’s turn, they were the ones to beat.
“Right,” said Alex. “You ready, Jill?” “Ready,” she said.
“Go!” Ricardo turned over the timer again.
“Disney, original talking animal,” said Alex, as quickly as he could.
“Mickey Mouse,” said Jill.
“Whiskey, black, red, blue …”
“Johnny Walker.”
“Celebrity, her daddy owns hotels …”
“Paris Hilton!”
“Singer, he did Thriller, his original band.”
“Michael Jackson … Jackson Five!”
“Ivy League Univer…”
“Harvard!”
“Finished the card,” said Alex, holding it out.
“Take another one, take another one!” squealed Anya, shoving one into his hand.
“Okay … Swedish band, Dancing Queen.”
“ABBA!” shouted Jill, before he even finished.
“Strong guy in the Bible, long hair …”
“Samson!”
“Bilbo Baggins ...”
“THE HOBBIT!”
“TIME’S UP!” yelled Ricardo. The group erupted in cheers. Alex jumped up and gave Jill a hug.
“No way, you guys are AMAZING! You got EIGHT!” yelled Anya.
Alex and Jill looked at each other, grinning. “That was cool,” said Alex. “We must have some kind of mental connection, right?”
“Flip, you guys are sharp,” said Ricardo. “How do you know all that stuff?”
“Who’s Paris Hilton?” Fezile wanted to know.
The evening continued much the same – the game was a lot of fun and there was a lot of hilarious laughter. In the end Jill and Alex won by half the board, once getting ten in one round. Anya was rather put out that she and Hayley had come last.
“You need to work on your guessing, Hayley,” said Anya.
“You can’t expect me to guess ‘Suez Canal’ if you tell me it’s in South America, doll,” said Hayley.
After everyone else went home at about nine thirty, most of them piled into Anya’s dad’s Kombi, Alex and Jill were left alone. Aunt Bert had gone to sleep already. “Is it okay if I stay a while?” asked Alex. “My parents are having golf friends over for dinner and I really don’t want to go home yet.”
“Sure,” said Jill, hoping it was. They sat on the couch, drinking tea and talking about school, sport, youth group, their friends, and all kinds of other things. When Alex looked at his watch and realised it was eleven o’clock, they were both surprised.
“Will your parents be worried?” she asked.
“Don’t think so,” he said. “They would have called me. But I’d better leave now.”
“Message me when you’re home,” said Jill.
As she said good bye at the front door Jill felt a little funny. Maybe it wasn’t the best idea to be hanging out like this alone together. That’s what couples did, talking into the night and forgetting about the time. What if he was getting the wrong idea?
Again?
His message arrived. Safely home. Good night!
Good night, she replied. Thanks for the company.
Oh no, she thought. I shouldn’t have sent that. Too late. The blue ticks were there. But he didn’t reply, and she felt a little better. He promised, she thought. It’s okay. But she resolved to make sure it didn’t happen again.