The Bookist Chapter 1

Under an unofficial truce, Maggie and Lindsay sprawl at opposite ends of the stain-resistant butterscotch-colored couch in the rumpus room. Maggie plays on her GameGirl, Lindsay looks at books while both of them listen to music and watch cartoons at the same time. In other words, boring. And for Maggie it’s not the regular kind of boring either, but the kind like Level 4 torture. Mom and Dad won’t be back from their meeting for a few more hours, four o’clock at least and she wants to do something. Anything. Her brain is suffocating.

Then an idea comes. She lobs a ruffled pillow, almost hitting her sister’s head. “Let’s go to Sandy’s—her sidewalk gets super wormy in the rain. Sandy and me could be worm queens and little Georgie and you could be, like, soldiers in a worm crusade or something.”

“No way.” Lindsay snags the pillow and tucks it behind her head. “What if we get stopped at the guardian checkpoint?”

“They can’t do anything. It’s totally sanctified. Totally. Mother Conway said.”

“Forget it. I’m not letting the guardians put me in jail.”

“Jail? You’re a kid.” Maggie throws her hands up and rolls her eyes. “They’d probably just give a ticket. What if we work on your commandments while we’re—”

““—Forget it. We’re still not supposed to walk over by ourself. Mom’ll ground us for forever.” Lindsay turns up the TV, flops on her belly and studies the fuzzy bride pictures in her magazine.

“Whatever. Thanks a lot. I’m going.”

Feeling brave, Maggie marches down the hall to the foyer and inserts her stocking feet into the roominess of her rubber boots. Leftover raindrops race down the plastic of her slicker as she climbs inside. She yanks the heavy door open and from the corner, the Eye Friendly emits a happy-sounding Peep!

Maggie waves goodbye to the black, apple-sized dome mounted about waist high. A tiny dot inside glows red and blinks a couple of times.

The Eye and Ear Friendlies were put in to help monitor people’s sins. Mother Conway is no friend of sin, but says they should hate the Friendlies, because they’re from the Guardians of Doctrine & Discipline who are Bookist Reform—they have it in for the Bookist Orthodox. Maggie always waves at it to keep from getting fined for disrespecting. It never works. Unlike most of her friends’ dads, hers just pays the fines and says everyone makes mistakes sometimes.

She slams the door. The rain has turned into a drizzly fog. Clouds swirl like gray soup just above the housetops. In fact the top of the tall palms out by the street are hidden until she’s right up under them. At the front sidewalk now, she looks down Ruth Street at the brand-new, antique-looking streetlamps lit up even though it’s daytime, which is spooky. She’s ready to go back in but Maggie decides, instead it might be a heavenly sign. In the fog, the lamps have halos. God is telling her to trust her faith and the guardians won’t be at the checkpoint. She will definitely make it to Sandy’s and back before her parents get home.

Maggie does not look back. She sets off down the wide, flat sidewalk, past her neighbors’ familiar, landscaped yards. Her boots stomp in as many puddles as possible. A short block later, she turns onto Constantina Avenue where the road heads down a long hill. In the gutter beside the curb, a river gushes by, gathering speed, carrying leaves and sticks and trash down toward the corner where there is a wide lake, almost deeper than her rain boots—almost deeper, but not quite. She’d love to step in, enjoy the suction of the cold water as her toes keep completely dry, but a loud raindrop splats on her hood. And another one. She’d better keep moving if she doesn’t want to wreck her good omen.

For the next few blocks, Constantina goes uphill. This curb has a rushing river too and she imagines all the water races they could do, instead of thinking about the guardian checkpoint coming up. But the closer she gets to the turn onto Sandy’s street, the slower she walks.

It’s totally sanctified for Maggie to go places by herself in public. The rule is: only women need a male escort and Maggie doesn’t count yet. But what if the guardian on duty doesn’t know the rules? She’s heard stories. What if he likes to hassle Orthodox girls that pass by, even though they’re in their rightful neighborhood? He might give her a ticket, just because. Could he arrest her? What then? Would they take her to D & D headquarters?

She hasn’t seen a car go by in a long time. The nearby houses either have their lights off, or their curtains are shut. The wet, black arms of leafless trees reach over to touch those on the other side of the street and kind of creep her out. Raindrops are splashing in the puddles now.

For luck, she starts to recite her Twelve Commandments. For extra luck, she does them backwards. “Twelve! Only-through-blood-shall-mankind-be-redeemed,-therefore-keep-the-Lord’s-sacrifices-unto-the-end-of-days. Eleven! Let-nothing-neither-defile-nor-mar-the-ivory-skin-of-the-body. TEN!…” Her boots march in time with the words. By the time she gets to ONE!, she’s turning from Constantina onto Deuteronomy Lane where—

Her charm worked! The Guardians of Doctrine and Discipline are nowhere in sight. The barricade that separates her Bookist Orthodox neighborhood from the Bookist Reform is even pushed off to the side.

Filled with all kinds of relief, Maggie smacks the abandoned sawhorse with her hand, dashes past two houses and up Sandy’s familiar, rosebush-lined sidewalk. To Maggie’s delight, the concrete is so wormy she has to tiptoe to keep from stepping on her future army. She clomps up the wooden steps of the porch and pushes the bell.

At the corner of the house, a waterfall spills off Sandy’s gutter and into a thorny bush. She pushes the bell again, unsure whether it rang.

Nothing. She opens the screen to knock.

That’s when she sees it, the red tape, wide as her hand, along the door’s crack. She can’t read it, of course, but Maggie recognizes: ‘Do Not— Do Not— Do Not— Do Not—’ printed over and over. The other words are just letters.

This is one of those sinful times she wishes girls were allowed to read.

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