An Imperfect Miracle by Thomas L. Peters

man for the town meeting. I’d forgotten all about the town meeting, and for a second I thought about not going.
    I was pretty sure it would just be a bunch of grownups sitting around talking, and that it’d be really boring, worse than school probably. But then I decided that since it was about Mary, I ought to go and hear what folks were saying. If the town was really going to bulldoze her, I could at least get her ready for the bad news. I still felt a little responsible for her after all, like I was the one who’d gotten her into this mess by discovering her and then telling that loud mouth Marcie about her.
    The municipal auditorium was hot and stuffy and not much bigger than our school library. They’d dragged in all these metal folding chairs that were hard to sit on for long without getting a sore backside. Most of them had little wads of dirt stuck on them too, so that you had to wipe off the seat with your hands before you sat down. They packed us all in so close together that I had to tuck my one elbow in real tight against my ribs to keep from rubbing against some guy sitting next to me who smelled like cigarettes. The lights up on the ceiling were bright and hot too and made my eyes sting.
    Some TV reporters had shown up to cover the meeting, but the cops told them that they had to wait outside in the hall. The reporters threatened to sue the town if they didn’t let them in, because they said Mary was big news and the public had a right to know what was going on. But the cops didn’t seem too worried and shoved them all outside anyway. Mom didn’t know anybody sitting right around us, and she was pretty quiet for a change.
    There was a long table set up in front and four gray-haired guys in suits were sitting behind it. One was the mayor I knew from seeing his picture on TV, and one was the chief of police, but I didn’t know who the other two were. I saw the round cop sitting off to the side, and he must have known that somebody was staring at him because he flicked his eyes all around. But I looked away before he caught me, or at least I thought I did. Finally the mayor got things started by pounding a block of wood down onto the table until everybody shut up. Then he stared down at his notes for a while, and for a second I thought he’d fallen sound asleep.
    I spotted Carlos and Father Tom sitting on the other side of the hall in the front row and waved at them. But they must not have seen me, because they kept staring real serious at the mayor. I didn’t see Pastor Mike anywhere. But since he wasn’t Catholic and lived way out on the edge of town right by our church, he’d probably decided he didn’t need to show up. Then out of the corner of my eye I spotted Mr. Grimes sitting off to the side about halfway back fingering his mustache and looking kind of stiff and sour.
    Finally the mayor perked up and coughed a little, and then he announced in a squeaky voice how they’d called the meeting to decide the future of “our little tourist attraction,” as he called it. Then he chuckled like he’d just cracked a joke, but nobody besides him was laughing.
    â€œNow I know there are many opinions out there regarding the theological significance of this image, or lack thereof. It’s not our purpose to decide such issues now. The town’s only concern is how best to manage this new situation. And since the lot where the image is located belongs to the town, it’s the town’s responsibility to decide what to do about it. Many of you have complained about the traffic and the noise, not to mention the increased costs to the town of policing the area and keeping it clean.”
    That part of Main Street didn’t seem all that clean to me, even though they’d hauled away most of the garbage from the abandoned lot and cut down some of the weeds. But the weeds kept growing back, and folks were dumping new garbage along the street all