The Beginning (Jessica Christ Book 1) Read online

  “Yeah, okay.” Jess went back to her drawing.

  “My mother is the teacher,” Sandra said.

  “Neat.”

  “My father is a congressman.”

  The giraffe’s neck was almost proportionate. Jess added just a little more length before drawing the body below it, starting with the chest. “I don’t know what that means.”

  Apparently, Sandra didn’t like that because she puffed up and huffed exasperatedly. When Jess turned to look at her, she noted that Sandra sort of resembled a giraffe with her chest stuck out like that and her neck extended as long as she could get it with her chin turned up like she was stretching to reach some good leaves. “It means he’s the most important person in Mooretown.”

  Jessica knew that to be incorrect. Her mom had told her time and time again that she, Jess, was the most important person in this town. God had even agreed a handful of times.

  Without meaning to, Jess chuckled.

  Sandra threw her hands onto her hips. “What! You think he’s not? Oh, and what do your mom and dad do? Oh wait, your mom makes sales calls and you don’t know who your dad is.”

  How does she know about Mom?

  “I do know who my daddy is,” Jess mumbled, hoping Sandra would stop being her friend and leave her alone.

  “Oh yeah? Who then?”

  “None of your business. He’s in Heaven.” There. That would be the end of it, just like Destinee had promised.

  Only it wasn’t. “Just because your dad is dead doesn’t mean you don’t have to know who he is. I bet your daddy was a criminal. I bet your parents weren’t even married when they had you.”

  A couple of the other kids at the table had clued into the conversation and Jess could feel their eyes on her, waiting for her response. She hated how much that bothered her. With the stupid bright colors everywhere making her angry and with Sandra prodding, Jess couldn’t focus enough on what a giraffe leg looked like, and she was about to ruin the whole drawing because of it.

  “He’s not a criminal.” Why wouldn’t Sandra just leave her alone?

  “So you do know who he is.”

  “He’s in Heaven.” Jess doubted it would work any better this time around.

  And she was right. “How do you know he’s in Heaven? He could be … in the other place.” She let the words linger in the air, and none of the other kids dared break the silence first.

  Jess couldn’t focus. Which way did the knee joints go on the hind legs? She couldn’t recall the image while so much was going on.

  “God!” she spat, breaking her mother’s rule but hoping it would put an end to things. “God is my father!”

  Sandra’s squinty eyes popped open for a moment, then she quickly broke into laughter that seemed just a little forced. Why was she pointing? Why were the other kids laughing?

  “You think God is your father?”

  Jess had screwed up; she realized that now. But then she remembered something she’d heard God say and thought maybe she could recover without lying. “We’re all God’s children …” Saying it with any real oomph was impossible for Jess, though, because it felt like she was giving away something she held dear, something that made her feel special.

  She gritted her teeth and scribbled the brown crayon over her giraffe’s messed up leg then eventually over the entire drawing as the kids continued to laugh.

  “Stop it or I’ll tell!” said a new voice next to her.

  That put an end to the laughing.

  Jess looked up to see who her savior was and saw a tiny wisp of a girl with long but delicate white-blonde hair that reflected the harsh fluorescent lights of the classroom in a soft, peaceful glow. The girl’s crystal-blue eyes peered out from beneath dark lashes as she smiled at Jessica.

  Sandra and her audience at the table stood up and ran off to destroy some kid’s block tower, and Jess took a deep breath.

  “Sorry they were being mean to you,” said the little girl.

  Jess didn’t say anything and looked down at her scribbled drawing with regret.

  “You can still start over,” said the girl. “Maybe try something else this time.”

  Jess frowned. “Yeah, I guess so. I wanted to draw a giraffe, though.”

  “Can I draw with you?” the girl asked.

  Jess nodded and the little girl sat.

  “Are you my friend?” asked Jess.

  The little girl grabbed two new sheets of paper and placed one carefully in front of Jess then one in front of herself. “Yes.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Miranda.”

  “I’m Jessica.”

  “Okay, so now we’re going to draw something and not talk while we do it.”

  Jessica liked the sound of that, and she liked Miranda. She felt more like a friend than Sandra had.

  The problem now was inspiration. Starting all over with a giraffe didn’t sound like fun, so what to draw, what to draw …

  She looked around the room and saw a tall, thin women breaking up bickering between Sandra and the kid who had built the now-destroyed block tower. As soon as Jess’s eyes landed on the woman, an image flashed in her mind, one unlike anything Jess had ever seen before. Was that a memory? It felt like a memory, but it wasn’t of anything she’d actually seen with her own eyes. The pretty, tall blonde was in the image, behaving in a way Jess couldn’t explain. In fact, the entire scene made little sense to Jess, but at least it was vivid, so it was something to draw. She closed her eyes and homed in on the image again to study the shapes. Then she began to draw, pouring all her focus into it, and how much time passed, she didn’t know. But finally she felt like it was done. She sat back and looked at it. It was close enough to what she’d seen in her mind.

  Miranda looked over. “What’s that?”

  Jess shrugged. “I don’t know. Some people. What’s yours?”

  “A taco stand. They have them where my daddy lives.”

  Mrs. Thomas moved to stand at the front of the classroom and clapped her hands three times. “When I do that, you clap three times and then stay silent for instruction. Understand? Okay. Let’s try it.”

  THIS IS DUMB.

  I don’t know, I like clapping. Don’t you have an earthquake to clean up?

  WHY DON’T YOU LET ME WORRY ABOUT THAT.

  Mrs. Thomas introduced herself and then introduced her teaching assistant, Ms. Rickles—the blonde woman in Jessica’s picture. Even just a quick glance at Ms. Rickles’s large watery eyes made it obvious that she was one hundred percent terrified behind her plastered-on smile.

  “Just like this is your first time being in kindergarten,” Mrs. Thomas continued, “this is Ms. Rickles’s first year as a teaching assistant, so she wants to come around and get to know each of you to start the school year. I’ll be doing the same.”

  Jess decided to add a few finishing touches to her drawing to help impress the teachers when they made it around the room to where she and Miranda waited.

  WHAT ARE YOU DRAWIN—OH ME. WHERE DID YOU COME UP WITH THAT?

  I don’t know, I just saw it.

  DO YOU KNOW WHAT IT IS?

  No. Just a woman and a man wrestling.

  NAKED?

  Yes. Is naked bad?

  IT’S COMPLICATED.

  Ms. Rickles skipped over Sandra’s group and instead headed straight to the small table where Miranda and Jessica sat finishing up their art.

  She started by asking for their names, complimenting their names, and then after that, Ms. Rickles looked at Miranda’s drawing. “Would you tell me about your drawing?” She had a quivery sing-song voice that made Jessica feel a little sorry for her.

  Miranda pointed to each aspect as she explained. “That’s a road and that’s a rainbow and that’s a taco stand and that’s my daddy getting a taco.”

  “Wonderful! And what about you, Jessi— Oh good lord.”

  That wasn’t the response Jess had hoped for. She felt her face heat up and knew that she was about
to be in trouble, though she didn’t really understand why.

  “Um,” Ms. Rickles said, holding her posture rigid like Jess had only ever seen reptile experts do while confronting a particularly venomous snake, “what exactly is your drawing?”

  Jessica looked up at her, confused. Didn’t she know? “It’s you.” She pointed to the woman whose naked torso was draped facedown over the side of the bed.

  “I–I don’t …” Ms. Rickles’s face flushed red.

  “And that’s—” She pointed to the naked man standing behind Ms. Rickles, pressed up against her bottom half. It felt like she should know who it was, but she didn’t have a name …

  MR. WURST.

  “Mr. Wurst.”

  Ms. Rickles jumped up to standing like the snake had just struck, then, in a much less sing-songy and much more quivering voice, said, “How dare you! You— You have no idea what you’re talking about! How— How dare you!”

  “Huh?” asked Jess meekly, slinking low in her tiny chair.

  She was sure the whole class was looking at her, but she was too scared to take her eyes off the teaching assistant long enough to check. She wanted to cry because she didn’t mean to be bad. Could she even be bad? She’d never been bad before. She was the daughter of God, didn’t that mean something?

  Ms. Rickles’s gaze darted down to the drawing on the page again just before Mrs. Thomas appeared behind her and grabbed her arm, causing her to jump at the sudden contact. She turned to face Mrs. Thomas, who was scowling fiercely. “What exactly is going on here?”

  Pointing a finger in Jess’s face, Ms. Rickles stammered, “Sh—she’s accusing me of … Her drawing! It’s inappropriate and a lie!”

  Mrs. Thomas remained calm, which was no small comfort to Jess. “May I see the drawing, Jessica?”

  A weighty heat rushed down from Jessica’s face as she managed to lift her arm, which felt like lead, grab the picture, and hand it over to Mrs. Thomas.

  The teacher looked down at it. “I see,” she said, furrowing her brows. She looked up and turned slightly to face Ms. Rickles. “And this woman is you?”

  Jess thought she saw the faintest glimmer of a smile tilt the corner of Mrs. Thomas’s mouth.

  Ms. Rickles continued glaring down at Jess. “That’s what she’s saying!”

  “Well, what do you say, Kira?” Mrs. Thomas’s voice remained steady.

  That left Ms. Rickles speechless for a moment as she seemed to choke on words. Finally, she spat, “I think she has a lot of nerve making that sort of an accusation, considering her mother’s reputation!”

  The tenuous cord of patience in Mrs. Thomas’s voice snapped. “That’s enough.” It came out like a slap, and Ms. Rickles took a step back. “She’s five, Kira! You may not be that much older, but you’re old enough to know better. I think you need to go take an early lunch.”

  “It’s only nine thirty—”

  Jess hoped Mrs. Thomas never looked at her the way she was looking at Ms. Rickles. “I said go take lunch. A long lunch. I’ll let you know when your lunch is over, do you understand?”

  Ms. Rickles burst into tears, grabbed her purse from behind the desk, and then sprinted out of the classroom without looking back.

  Most of the class watched her go. Sandra didn’t seem to think much of the interaction once she realized it wasn’t Jess getting in trouble, though, so she continued ravaging the bookshelf.

  Mrs. Thomas leaned down and whispered, “Don’t worry, you’re not in trouble,” before folding the drawing into fourths and addressing the class to say that it was time for an early snack.

  YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE DRAWN THAT.

  Why did you tell me to, then?

  I DIDN’T.

  Then how did I see it?

  I MUST HAVE LET MY GUARD DOWN AND YOU SAW A MEMORY.

  You were thinking about that?

  I WAS THINKING ABOUT MS. RICKLES’S SIN OF ADULTERY, YES. I’LL HAVE TO BE MORE CAREFUL NEXT TIME TO NOT LET YOU SEE. THAT ONLY HAPPENED A COUPLE TIMES WITH YOUR BROTHER AND NOT UNTIL HE WAS MUCH OLDER.

  Will you smite Ms. Rickles?

  FOR ADULTERY? NO. THERE ARE A FEW OTHER THINGS I’D LIKE TO DO TO HER, THOUGH …

  Jess wondered what those things might be, but God made so many strange comments that she’d decided long ago not to linger on them all. She’d also heard from more than one person that God worked in mysterious ways, so she usually didn’t worry about it.

  Once Mrs. Thomas had finished sprinkling the Goldfish crackers onto each student’s napkin, she pulled Jess aside to sit with her in a beanbag chair corner, where she unfolded the drawing and held it out for Jess to look at with her.

  “You’re not in trouble, Jess. I just want to hear from you what it is that you drew.”

  Jess pointed to each thing as she explained. “That’s Ms. Rickles and that’s Mr. Wurst. I don’t know who Mr. Wurst is, though.”

  “That’s okay. I do. And who’s that grinning face in the corner?”

  Jess looked at it. She hadn’t remembered drawing that, but she knew immediately who it was. “That’s God. He’s watching them sin.”

  Mrs. Thomas held back a smile, though Jess didn’t know what was worth smiling about. “I see. And why did you draw this?”

  She shrugged. “I just saw a picture of it in my head and I drew it. I messed up my giraffe, so I didn’t know what else to draw.”

  Mrs. Thomas reached out and rubbed Jess’s back comfortingly. “Okay. That’s all I was curious about. If you want, I can hold onto this for you and we don’t have to talk about it anymore, not even with your mom.”

  While she didn’t suspect Destinee would care one way or another about the drawing, since it was God’s fault and Jess could simply tell her that, she appreciated Mrs. Thomas’s offer anyway. Maybe she’d misjudged Mrs. Thomas at the start of the day. Mrs. Thomas actually seemed nice. Even at such a young age, Jessica could recognize a protector when she saw one, and Mrs. Thomas certainly seemed to fit the bill.

  Not even Sandra messed with Jess for the rest of the day, allowing her and Miranda to keep to themselves and become even better friends as they bonded over favorite colors (purple and green), favorite foods (cheese pizza and Sonic Blasts), and favorite new friends (each other). And when Jess showed up the next morning and the morning after that, Ms. Rickles was nowhere to be found, and Jess suspected that kindergarten might turn out to be the funnest thing she ever did.

  * * *

  The first week of school flew by, and Jess had never imagined life could be so eventful. Every day so far she and Miranda had come up with a new game to play, and every day students in her class had done something they weren’t supposed to do that was funny to watch and got them in trouble with Mrs. Thomas.

  God had been uncharacteristically quiet all week, too, which might have also explained why Jess considered this the best week of her life so far.

  And it was only Friday morning.

  The first class of the day, after story time, was science. The lesson had been on landforms like continents and oceans and deserts and mountains. Jess’s mind snapped to attention when Mrs. Thomas mentioned the Himalayas.

  She raised her hand and was called on. “Was there an earthquake there recently?”

  Mrs. Thomas smiled and nodded. “Yes! Very good!” She looked out over the tiny faces seated on the rug around her chair as she continued to hold open the book to the page on mountains. “Does anyone else know what an earthquake is?”

  Jess felt pride radiate through her. But she was also relieved that God hadn’t been lying about the earthquake as an excuse to disappear. It seemed strange that He would lie, anyway. Could God lie? Jess was just glad to hear about what the Himalayas were and to see pictures of them in the science book. She decided that she wanted to visit there someday, but only if God promised there wouldn’t be an earthquake, because those seemed scary.

  After science was recess. It was the only time of day besides lunch when Mrs. Thomas’s class got to i
nteract with Mrs. Gregory’s kindergarten class, as well as a first grade and a second grade class. That didn’t mean Jess had much interest in playing with the other kids. Why would she, when they just wanted to run and climb on the white-hot metal of the playscape and monkey bars rather than do the sensible thing and play in the sandbox, which was shaded from the late-August sun by the shadow of the school? A small group of first graders were the only other students that opted for the large sandbox alongside Jess and Miranda, who had set their mind to the mammoth task of recreating the Himalayas as accurately as their memory allowed. The mountain range had only been covered briefly in the lesson, but Jess knew enough about it now to know there at least had to be an Everest. So while Jess focused her energy on that, filling a small plastic bucket with water from the faucet (with permission and assistance from Mrs. Thomas, obviously) to moisten the sand enough so that it stuck together, allowing for steeper inclines, Miranda set out to construct the smaller mountains of which they didn’t know the names. Once Jess was finished with Everest, Miranda squiggled her finger around the peak to give it the appearance of being snow capped and they both giggled before working to extend the range even further with smaller and smaller mountains fanning out in all directions.

  Then out of nowhere, a rock the size of a silver dollar came flying in and narrowly missed knocking over Everest, landing instead in the flat sand a few feet behind where Jess knelt.

  “Hey!” She looked up to see where the rock had come from. A blond boy with golden skin and freckles stood holding his stomach and laughing his head off. “Stop that!” She’d seen the boy around at recess, but he was in the other kindergarten class, so she didn’t know his name.

  He picked up a bigger rock and threw it at their mountains, and this time it hit one of the lesser peaks and blasted it away.

  “I said stop!” Jess insisted. Why wouldn’t he listen? Why was he being mean?

  Another projectile came flying in, and Jess’s relief that it’d missed the Himalayas was short-lived when the rock found her shin bone instead. She yelped and felt rage surge through her like she’d never felt before. “You hit me!” It didn’t make sense why he was so set on being mean. She wanted to force him to stop, but she didn’t know how.