Mary Mae and the Gospel Truth (2 page)

"Tempting kids to believe in something that ain't so," Mama goes on. "Just remember what we believe, young lady."

"What do we believe?" I ain't being smart. I just don't know what she's talking about.

"The world is six thousand years old. You look in your Bible."

"Where?"

"Well, Genesis. Where else? You got the whole Creation, right there."

***

Soon as we get home, I get my Bible out and run my finger down every line of Genesis. I'm looking for six thousand, whether it's in numbers or spelled out in letters. I go through twice. Second time I'm reading with a flashlight in bed. Only six I find is on the "sixth day," what God created, and in different folks' ages, like Enoch living three hundred and
sixty
-five years.

I tell Mama Sunday morning I can't find no six thousand, and she says she don't have time to look, she's got too much work to do.

"What do you think, Granny?" I ask at breakfast. "Do you think the world is only six thousand years old?"

"It's whatever the Lord made it," says Granny.

Sister Coates is a-standing in the middle of the church basement where we have Sunday school, and I decide to ask her. "Whereat in the Bible does it say the world is six thousand years old?"

She looks up a second, like she ain't been asked that question before, then says, "Well, it don't come right out and say this. It's implied."

"What's that mean?"

"It means something is suggested without coming right out and saying it. Like if you put two and two together," she says, "you'll come up with four."

I shake my head. I still don't understand.

"We got to pay attention to Bible scholars that say when they count the generations—and a generation is twenty years—that Adam and Eve was created six thousand years ago. That's the implication. It's that many generations mentioned in the Bible."

"Oh," I say.

Sister Coates goes on. "You know where it says 'begat'? Like Abraham begat Isaac and Isaac begat Jacob and Esau?"

"You mean if I count each begat, I'll come up with six thousand years?"

"You got to multiply by twenty," says Sister Coates. "That's a generation." She looks at me real concerned, then says, "Mary Mae, I think you could use some special study of the Creation. I'm a-talking to Brother Lucas."

He's my Sunday school teacher.

I walk over to the junior corner, where my Sunday school class meets at nine o'clock. We got our banner hanging there:
JUNIORS
1988–89. I'd like to start counting begats right now, but I ain't got a pencil. Besides, I got to pay attention in class. Orlin Coates, Sister Coates's son's there, and so's Chloe. She's reading her Bible, and her hair's spread all over her shoulders like a waterfall. It's blond, almost white, and Mama says she looks just like an angel. Mama's always saying to me, when she plaits my hair, "Why don't we let it hang loose, like Chloe's?"

"I don't want to look like Chloe," I tell her.

Me, Chloe, and Orlin set and wait, and then three more in our class come—Jed Bean, Chester Morley, and Jonathan Safer. We got all boys except for Chloe and me.

Brother Lucas—him and Sister Coates is still a-going at it, talking, nodding, Brother Lucas making notes.

Finally he comes over. "Sister Coates and I," he says, handing out our Sunday school paper, "we was talking about how important it is to know the Creation. And we was thinking you might like to do a puppet show."

Puppet show? We all look at each other.

"She wants us to do Genesis—Creation, Temptation, and Noah's Ark. For the church potluck next month."

"How can you do a puppet show on Creation?" I say. "Don't seem to me there's no need for puppets."

"Let's take a look," says Brother Lucas. We all open up our Bibles to chapter 1 and go around the class reading each verse, how God separates the light from the dark and the land from the water and goes on to making fruit trees and winged fowl. And then I'm a-reading on verse 26:

"
And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.
"

"That's the first place we need puppets," I say. "So what are we going to do up to this verse?"

"Anyone got any ideas?" says Brother Lucas.

"Just do God's voice," says Orlin.

"And we could turn on a light when God says, 'Let there be light!'" says Chester.

"Flashlight," says Jonathan.

"I know!" says Chloe. "We could paint a backdrop for each day."

"Yeah," says Orlin. "'Let there be mountains,' and boom, this backdrop comes down."

"And we could do some thunder," says Jed. "Get a piece of sheet metal and rattle it."

"Just use puppets for Adam and Eve and Noah's Ark," says Jonathan.

"Good idea," says Brother Lucas. "Sounds like you'd like to do it." He looks at me. "What do you think, Mary Mae?"

I don't want to come around too quick, especially with Brother Lucas and Sister Coates thinking they can teach me a lesson. But truth to tell, it sounds like a whole lot more fun than what we usually do, which is read our Sunday school paper. "Do we get to keep the puppets?" I say.

"I don't see why not," says Brother Lucas.

"You can keep mine, too," says Chester Morley. He's making puppy sounds, squishing the air out between his palms.

"I wouldn't want yours," I say. Then to Brother Lucas I say, "Why ain't we doing Cain and Abel?"

"Sister Coates says we only got time for three scenes," says Brother Lucas.

"Then why not Creation, Temptation, and Cain and Abel."

"Noah's Ark's got more to do with Creation."

I think about it a minute. I got the whole class waiting for me to say yes. "Okay," I say. "I'd like to do it."

Brother Lucas nods. "Who knows how to make a puppet stage?"

"It's easy," says Orlin. "All you do is get three big pieces of plywood. Put hinges and cut a window in the middle. We made one at school."

"I can get some plywood from my neighbor," says Brother Lucas. "How about us meeting at my house Tuesday night to make the stage?"

"I go to Scouts," says Orlin.

"How about Wednesday?"

"Wednesday's good for me," says Chloe. Turns out it's good for everybody else, so we decide to meet at seven at Brother Lucas's house on Charter Street.

***

During service, me and Granny sing "Light Me Lord, I'm Full of Glory." That's another one of Granny's tunes.

Sister Coates wants to know did everyone get their stickers out. Chloe says she stood in front of White Castle and handed hers out. Dudley Rayburn pasted his all up and down the main street of St. Bevis. Jaber and Wilma Tatters say they just didn't have time and would get to handing theirs out next week. Me, Mama, and Granny tell how we hit all the malls and rest stops. Mama even confesses to getting a speeding ticket.

"Lord's way of keeping you safe," says Sister Coates. She winks. "Praise Jesus. Now who wants to give thanks this morning?"

Chester Morley leaps up. "I got a new paper route."

Evelyn Mognis raises her hand. "I won a year's supply of free laundry soap." She don't like to stand since she's got a bad back.

"Hallelujah! Praise the Lord!"

Buford Safer, Jonathan's daddy, says, "I'm grateful my foot surgery was successful."

***

This morning Sister Coates preaches on the Ten Commandments. "Some folks think they don't apply, but they're as good today as they was for the people of Moses. And I want you to pay special attention to the fifth commandment, Exodus 20:12, 'Honor thy father and thy mother.' You got to be respectful and do what they tell you to do. Don't give them no sass." She winks at Orlin, then tells stories about kids that was a credit to their mama and daddy, pulling out chairs and opening doors, leaving some orange juice in the carton for the next person. Before she closes, she says, "Brother Lucas, is it true the junior class is doing a puppet show on Creation?"

"Next month," says Brother Lucas.

"Something we can all look forward to," says Sister Coates.

***

We're driving home, and Mama's all excited about my doing puppets. "You'll learn the true Creation this way," she says. "Get rid of all them silly ideas you're learning at school."

At home I go upstairs and start putting a check mark on each begat. I'm running a tally at the front of my Bible.

I come in to school early Monday, and Miss Sizemore's setting at the desk eating sliced peaches from a plastic cup.

"Good morning," she says.

"Morning," I say.

She's got red hair, short, like she don't want to mess with it. I think about telling her my mama and Sister Coates say the world ain't but six thousand years old, but I ain't counted all the begats yet. Besides, I'm wondering how a generation can be twenty years, when all them Bible people's having kids when they's more than a hundred years old. I got to ask Sister Coates about this.

I set down, put my lunch away. Then I look at Miss Sizemore's charts. Besides the one with the cutaway hill, she's got a big, tall one with all them eras. It's right up the side of the room. Dinosaurs come 250 million years ago, but the bottom of the chart goes all the way back to 4,000 million years. I can't hardly figure out how far back that is. It's like reaching into a sock and finding no toe.

I'm thinking it would be a whole lot easier if the world was only six thousand years old. But maybe it ain't.

***

Herschel Cadwallader comes in. He's got some shells he found in his own backyard. Miss Sizemore has Herschel make labels and put them on display. He sets right across from me.

Soon as everybody's in and we've did the pledge and collected the lunch money, Miss Sizemore points on the chart to the Ordovician age. It's the purple box. She says it once and has us repeat it.
Or-do-vish'-e-un.
"That's five hundred million years ago," she says. "Right here in southern Ohio, during the Ordovician age, this land was covered with a warm, shallow sea." Just imagine you was alive at that time, she says. There was palm fronds, and we was twenty degrees north of the equator.

That's what I like about Miss Sizemore. She makes a story out of things.

"You would be one of the early forms of life," she says. "You might be a trilobite." She writes it on the board,

Trilobite

Then she says there was different kinds of trilobites, but the one we had the most of right here in southern Ohio was the
Flexicalymene.
She writes that on the board, too.

If you was a trilobite, she says, you probably growed from an egg. And you would be crawling around on the bottom of the sea. "You would be a distant relative of the crab."

Miss Sizemore shows us a picture. "You have three main parts. That's why you're called trilobite, because trimeans three. And you have little cross grooves so you can roll into a ball. There's a special word for that. It's
enroll.
Now why do you think a trilobite would roll into a ball?"

"For protection?" says Herschel Cadwallader.

"Just like a pill bug," says Miss Sizemore. She shows us some more pictures of trilobites, all sizes, some of them enrolled, and says there was millions of trilobites for millions and millions of years.

We all look at each other.

Shirley Whirly leans across the aisle. "She don't know what she's talking about. The world ain't that old." Shirley goes to Calvary Temple.

But I want to hear Miss Sizemore out.

"We're lucky, living in southern Ohio," Miss Sizemore says, "because it's one of the best places to hunt for fossils. We have what's called the Cincinnati Arch." She draws a picture up on the board, with a big old arch a-pushing up through the layers. "The new rock has been worn away, exposing the older rock from the Ordovician age." She says this don't happen in most places. In most places the old rock stays buried.

Me and Herschel look at each other like we's learning important secrets. Shirley Whirly, setting behind Herschel, stares up at the ceiling.

Miss Sizemore hands each of us a xerox—"Southern Ohio Fossils." Most of them look like seashells you'd find on a beach.

She tells us how them fossils was made. Long ago, when one of them sea animals died, its inside rotted out and limestone drifted in. The limestone got hard, and the shell broke off, so what you have is what you get when you pour plaster of Paris into a mold.

"We'll be digging for fossils right here in our school yard," says Miss Sizemore.

Right away I know where she's taking us. They's building a new addition onto our school where the old primary playground used to be, and the hole was just dug last week. She says the principal told her they ain't a-coming back till next Monday.

"I'll bring shovels," says Miss Sizemore, "but I want each of you to have a hammer and chisel. Or you can bring a screwdriver." She writes on the board

Hammer
Chisel or Screwdriver

"I'm dividing you into groups." She puts me with Shirley Whirly and Herschel Cadwallader.

***

When Granny asks me what we learned in school today, I tell her all about trilobites and how southern Ohio was right down by the equator. "We're digging for fossils tomorrow, too," I tell her.

"Wish I could dig for fossils," says Granny. "But I'm just an old fossil myself."

***

After dinner I ask Daddy if I can borrow a hammer and chisel.

"What do you need them for?" he asks.

"We're digging," I say. I don't say nothing about fossils. Don't want to stir up no trouble.

"Digging?" says Daddy. "You know when I was in school we didn't go out digging. We stayed inside and learned our lessons."

***

Herschel Cadwallader brings in his hammer and chisel, but Shirley Whirly don't bring nothing. She goes right up to Miss Sizemore. "Mama told me I ain't allowed to dig," she says.

"She afraid you'll get dirty?" says Miss Sizemore.

"No, digging goes against my religion."

I'm thinking Miss Sizemore might try and talk Shirley into it, but she just says, "All right, you can be in charge of labeling," and gives her a box and a pencil with some stick 'ems.