The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell(44)

That was my cue.

I stood to exit the pew and noticed that Valerie Johnson and her cadre of friends had all turned their heads to stare at me and giggle. I chastised myself for not having listened to Ernie, for allowing my hopes to get raised. Clearly my classmates were waiting for me to fail. So, too, I was certain, was Sister Beatrice.

I was supposed to genuflect before climbing the steps to the altar, but I was wondering what would happen to our well-rehearsed choreography if I vomited right in the middle of the center aisle. I wanted to be anywhere but in that church. God’s will, it seemed, was to humiliate me.

I caught sight of Ernie kneeling at the side of the altar, but he was looking past me, and when I followed his gaze, I saw Valerie Johnson leaning forward to whisper to one of the girls seated in the pew in front of her. I bent to a knee to genuflect, made the sign of the cross, and proceeded to the lectern, climbing the steps. Once at the podium, I adjusted the microphone as rehearsed. Then I reached for my readings, which the altar preparers were to place on the shelf in the lectern, but when I pulled out the pages I realized, to my horror, that Valerie Johnson had replaced my readings with pages that, at a quick glance, contained old Hebrew words I didn’t have a clue how to pronounce. As my anxiety built, I felt myself becoming red in the face, more and more nauseated, and burning up as if I had a fever. I didn’t know what to do.

And then I heard the bells.

At first I didn’t know what was happening. No one did. I turned to the altar and saw that Ernie had grabbed the gold fingerhold and was ringing the four altar bells with more vigor and enthusiasm than I had ever heard before or since in that church. Father Killian’s head swiveled, his facial expression a mixture of confusion and annoyance. He swung his arm at Ernie as if swatting at an annoying bee. Unfortunately, Father Killian swatted exactly where the altar servers had set his glass of water on a side table, sending it sailing.

I don’t know who was first to laugh, but from my vantage point, perched above the congregation, I saw students with hands clasped over their mouths, fighting desperately to keep from breaking into hysterics, most without success. After what seemed a full minute, Ernie set the bells down, cutting off the chimes. He looked like someone who had just committed a totally innocent mistake, but I knew better. I knew Ernie had rung those bells on purpose, even before he admitted it when we got home that afternoon. He said he knew Valerie and her friends had done something and deduced from my facial expression that they had switched the readings. Ernie had screwed up on purpose. Only Ernie Cantwell had the self-confidence to absorb the impending ridicule he had to know would result, not to mention Sister Beatrice’s inevitable punishment.

But his act worked. When I turned back to the lectern, I was no longer nervous, realizing that no matter how many words I fumbled or skipped, no one would be talking about anything except how Ernie had messed up on such a grand scale. I also realized something else. I didn’t need the readings. I’d performed the actual readings so often I had darn near memorized every word, and I could see them now, on the pages, with all my mother’s little pencil marks.

I paused as my mother and I had rehearsed and looked out over the red sweaters filling the front half of the church pews and then to the parents. My mother’s face beamed up at me, but now Ernie’s mother looked as downcast as she had that day she’d come to our home to inform us that Ernie had a learning disability. Her dejection made me realize the extent of Ernie’s sacrifice. When my eyes shifted to Sister Beatrice, she was scowling, her eyes blazing with fury. There would be hell to pay for Ernie.

I looked last to Valerie Johnson and gave her a subtle burning gaze that wiped the smile from her face and caused her to sit back in genuine fear.

“A reading from the book of Daniel,” I began. Valerie Johnson’s eyes widened, and she looked to Mary Beth Potts, who seemed equally perplexed.

My classmates had chosen the readings, and they all were expecting the classic story of Daniel in the lions’ den. I know this as fact because my mother kept the readings in a scrapbook, complete with her handwritten notes and pencil marks to cue my pronunciations, as we had practiced. As I recited the story of the king throwing Daniel into the pit of lions, and how God rewarded Daniel’s faith and devotion by sending an angel to protect him, I realized Ernie was my guardian angel and had been since that first day on the playground.

I completed the reading certain I hadn’t hit every word, but I had gotten close enough that no one noticed. Then I moved to the responsorial psalm. Again I paused, closing my eyes and seeing the reading in my mind’s eye. My eyes shifted over the crowd. Sister Beatrice’s face remained an angry mask.

“God is my shepherd, I shall not want.” I raised my palm, the gesture for the congregation to repeat the phrase, which they did in unison.

“God is my shepherd, I shall not want. Though I walk in the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.”

As I neared the end of the psalm, I knew I could not allow Ernie to walk into that valley of darkness alone. I was determined to walk beside him, whatever the consequences.

The second reading was a short letter from Paul to the Corinthians.

“Brothers and sisters,” I began. “Paul was called to be an apostle by the will of God . . .”

I had also memorized this reading. The rest of the sentence read, to tell you the good news of Jesus Christ, of his virginal birth, death on the cross, and resurrection from the dead.