Grace by Richard Paul Evans Page B

where she had acquired the painting supplies, but I didn’t ask.
    â€œEveryone at school’s looking for you,” I blurted out.
    She looked at me calmly. “What do you mean, everyone ?”
    â€œPrincipal Allen made an announcement. Mrs. Waller even talked about you in class.”
    â€œYou didn’t tell anyone where I was, did you?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œThen what’s the problem?”
    â€œWhat if someone finds out?”
    â€œHow will they find out? I’m in a clubhouse in a field behind your house.”
    â€œBut what if they do?”
    â€œIt’s no worse than if I go back.”
    â€œBut, if they find you…”
    She looked at me with sudden understanding. “Are you afraid for me or for you?”
    I hesitated. “Both.”
    â€œWell, you don’t have to worry about me. I can handle me.”
    The conversation wasn’t going the way I had hoped. “The question is,” I said, failing to conceal my exasperation, “when are you going back to school?”
    She looked at me as if I were stupid. “Never.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œI can’t go back. If I go back, my parents will find me.”
    â€œBut you can’t just skip school.”
    â€œWhy not?”
    I had never questioned this before. “Kids go to school. It’s what they do.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œTo learn things.”
    â€œWhy? So we can learn how to make atom bombs and kill ourselves faster?”
    â€œNo. So we can improve our lives.”
    â€œRight,” Grace said sardonically. “My mom graduated from college, and it didn’t do her any good. In fact, I think school makes you dumber.”
    As a three-year recipient of the perfect attendance award, I took offense to this. “How could learning things make you dumber?” I said. “That’s just stupid.”
    â€œI didn’t say ‘learning,’ I said ‘school.’”
    â€œIt’s the same thing.”
    â€œNo it’s not. School makes people lazy. They stop thinking things out for themselves and just plug in the facts other people want them to think.”
    â€œLike what?”
    â€œHow about what really happened to the Indians?”
    I didn’t know how to respond, since, frankly, I wasn’t sure what had happened to them.
    â€œWe need school to learn socializing skills.”
    â€œWhat socializing skills has school taught you?”
    She had a point. The only social lesson I had learned at Granite was that big dogs eat small dogs; a particularly disturbing lesson when you’re a small dog.
    â€œYou’re just parroting the Establishment,” Grace said.
    I was starting to get mad. “I’m not parroting.”
    â€œYes, you are. They can tell you anything and you’ll just believe it.”
    â€œGive me one example,” I said.
    â€œOkay. In Christopher Columbus’s time, why were people afraid to sail?”
    â€œEveryone knows that,” I said. “It’s because they thought the world was flat.”
    â€œYou’re sure of that?”
    Her saying that made me not so sure. “Yeah…”
    â€œGuess what year the first globe was invented?”
    â€œI have no idea.”
    â€œFourteen ninety-two. You know the poem, In 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue. It was the same year Columbus sailed. If they thought the world was flat, why were they making globes?”
    â€œYou just made that up.”
    She shook her head. “No, I didn’t.”
    I couldn’t tell if she were making this up or if she really was a lot smarter than me. The latter seemed likely. Either way I was losing the argument. “What does Christopher Columbus have to do with you living in my clubhouse the rest of your life?”
    She looked at me, stunned. “Fine,” she said between clenched teeth, then began grabbing her things and shoving them in her bag.
    â€œWhat are you