Leaving Fishers by Margaret Peterson Haddix

joined this new church.” Then a nurse had come in to check her mother’s medication and, somehow, when the nurse was gone again, the conversation went off in a different direction.
    “But you did tell them?” Angela asked, her pen hovering over the paper.
    “Ye-es,” Dorry said.
    “Well,” Angela said forgivingly, “that’s the first step. You should be witnessing to them constantly, so you’ll do better there. I won’t write anything down.”
    Dorry felt guiltier that Angela hadn’t judged her guilty. She looked back at the list. “Selfishness,” she said. “I’ve been selfish. In the hospital, when I should be concerned about my mother, I just keep thinking about myself, how awful it would be for me if she died.”
    Angela nodded approvingly, as if relieved that Dorry recognized how bad she was. She wrote on her paper, and Dorry felt a strange mixtureof pride and shame that that sin was worth recording.
    Her eyes traveled down the list. She felt compelled to come up with more sins. “Maybe this is sins of the flesh,” she said. “Or maybe not. But I kind of have a crush on Brad.” She kept her head lowered. She couldn’t look at Angela, confessing that. “And at the same time, there was this one guy, Zachary, at the retreat, that I was kind of interested in. Is it wrong to be attracted to two guys at once?”
    Angela tilted her head, thinking. “Yes,” she said. “Usually. It can be a sin to be attracted to just one, if you’re lusting after him. Do you feel lust for Brad?”
    Dorry couldn’t look up. Her face burned. Why had she said that? “Maybe,” she whispered.
    Angela patted her on the back. “That’s okay,” she said. “In Fishers, we try to remove a lot of that temptation. Boys and girls are kept separate in many of our activities, especially the ones for new Fishers who are more likely to be troubled by sexual feelings.”
    “Oh,” Dorry said. “So no one’s allowed to date?” She was embarrassed by the whole subject. What if Angela laughed and said, “What? You think someone would want to date you?” But Angela shook her head and answered seriously,“Of course people are allowed to date. But only the Fishers who are more mature in their faith are encouraged to. You must be secure in your relationship with God before seeking anything else.”
    Angela wrote something down on her paper. Dorry pretended to be intent on the list of sin categories. She had to say something else. She grabbed on to the next sin she could find. “I guess this counts as greed,” she began. “Now that my mom is sick and can’t work for a while, we have to really watch our money, and that bothers me. I don’t think it’s fair.”
    As soon as she’d said it, Dorry felt ashamed again. How could she tell that to Angela—Angela, who owned a sports car, whose father drove a Mercedes? She reminded herself what Angela had said about not judging her friends by money. And in her short time in Fishers, she’d already heard a lot about Jesus’ wealth being entirely spiritual.
    Angela lowered her pen, Dorry’s sins of the flesh forgotten. “Are things really bad?” Angela asked compassionately.
    “Not really, really bad, but—oh, I guess so. My dad said I should get a job myself if I want to save any more for college.”
    Dorry didn’t explain the rest. It wasn’t reallythe idea of working that bothered her—she didn’t think it’d be that hard to flip hamburgers or run a cash register. But even with the confidence of being a Fisher, she still dreaded the thought of going into stores and restaurants and having to ask for applications or an interview or whatever you had to do. Applying for a job wouldn’t have been that bad in Bryden, where she knew the guy who managed Wendy’s and she’d gone to school with the kids of the woman who ran K-Mart. But Indianapolis was overwhelming enough without thinking about searching for a job.
    Angela chewed thoughtfully on the end of her pen. “Let me