April Leads Julie Astray

Brad sat beside his twin trying to get her to calm down. Observing the brother and sister, Julie could see that the two shared some special bond, but what it was exactly Julie could not tell. Julie's heart raced as she struggled to understand what had caused such abject terror in April, who was normally such a confident girl, not nervous or skittish at all.

The Principal entered the room where April and Brad sat. "Brad, take April home and you're both on sick leave for the next two days," said the Principal. "I will call your father to discuss what happened here today."

"So we're getting punished its Henry and his friends who should be suspended from school," protested Brad.

"Brad Clayton, I suggest that you learn when is a good time to keep quiet," said the Principal. "You are on sick leave for two days so that you both have time to calm down, you are not suspended. If your father wishes to punish you for fighting in school, it is his decision and his alone. Chip will collect any homework for you and April during the next two days. Now, I suggest you get your sister home and that she lies down for the rest of the afternoon."

Brad was clearly frustrated and angry but could see that nothing he said or did would make any difference. "Yes sir," he said to the Principal, before leading his sister out of the sick room to take her home. April while she had now stopped crying was white as a ghost, and her legs clearly unsteady as she followed her brother in absolute silence.

The Principal and the nurse then turned their attention to Julie in the next room. The nurse examined the abrasion on Julie's forehead and the Principal spoke to her.

"Julie, would you like to explain to me how you came to be involved in the disturbance in the corridor this afternoon?"

"Henry and his friends locked April in the closet and they wouldn't let her out, I tried to get them to open the door."

The Principal shook his head, disbelieving. "So you got into a fight with five boys?"

"No, I didn't try to fight them," Julie protested. "I only tried to get them to open the door. I was only standing up for my friend."

"I'm surprised with you Julie," said the Principal. "A girl with your limitations, and the Reverend's daughter should not be getting herself involved in the antics of April and Brad Clayton and Henry and his friends. You should receive an hour's detention at least for this. However, given your behavior is normally excellent, you'll only get half an hour."

Like Brad before her, Julie could see that no good would come from debating the matter further. Detention for half an hour after school was a new experience for her that she did not care for, but she did have the satisfaction of seeing Henry and his friends getting punished by pruning a hedge -- with hand scissors.

Julie of course missed her regular bus and had quite a wait for the next one. Getting off at her stop, she hoped her parents would not quiz her too much on why she was late home. Julie glanced at the Clayton house. She had worried non-stop about April all afternoon, and wanted to make sure she was okay. She could see that Ben Clayton's van was parked in the driveway, and was tempted to go and knock on the door, but decided to leave things for the moment.

Going in the front door of her own house, everything was quiet until Julie heard her father's voice. "Julie, can you come into the kitchen please?"

Julie walked through into the kitchen to see her mother and father seated at the table, both dressed in smart clothes but looking most displeased.

"Julie, why are you late home from school today?" Reverend Green wanted to know.

Julie attempted to sound casual. "Oh, I missed the bus."

"You missed the bus?" Reverend Green asked.

"Yes, I guess I just lost track of time and I had to wait for the next bus," said Julie. "Sorry about that."

"Did you have a good day at school today?" Reverend Green asked.

Julie shrugged. "Yeah, I guess."

"What happened to your face?" enquired Reverend Green. "You have a bruise on your forehead."

Again Julie tried to sound breezy in her reply. "I hit my head on the door of my locker."

"Just an ordinary Thursday then?" Reverend Green said. "Nothing interesting or different happened?"

"No, just another day," Julie said.

"So, you normally get into fights and are given detention? That's just another day at school for you?"

Julie's mouth fell open. "How did you know?"

"Your Principal called me about it, Julie," said Reverend Green furiously. "How else do you think I know about it?"

"It wasn't my fault, I was just standing up for April," said Julie.

Reverend Green rolled his eyes. "April, of course she would be involved in this."

"Dad, you weren't there, it wasn't April's fault. If you'd only listen to me ..."

"No Julie, I will not be listening to you. Do you know why I'm not listening to you? Because you don't listen to me. If you'd have listened to me, you would have stayed far away from April Clayton and none of this would have happened."

Julie shook with fury. "I'm old enough to decide who I want to be friends with. April helped me when I needed it last week, remember?"

"As you bring that situation up, when you think about it that was your fault for forgetting your house key. Let me be very clear with you Julie. When you live in this house, you live by my rules. I told you not to associate with April and her family, you failed to listen and you get involved in fighting at school, being placed on detention and then lying about it." Reverend Green paused, wiping perspiration from his bald head. "And I'm not the one you should be most worried about defying. Remember that God can see everything you do, every thought you have, every sin you commit."

Julie glared back at her father and delivered a reply filled with sarcasm. "God, yes of course it all has something to do with God. It's all I've heard my whole life."

Reverend Green's expression became more furious. "And what is that supposed to mean?"

"Yeah God really watches out for me, doesn't he?" Julie challenged her father. She indicated her leg brace. "I caught polio at a kids' bible camp if you remember. Was God taking a vacation when that happened? What about kids who got crippled far worse than me? Where was God then? Was he watching out for them? How about kids who died from polio? Was God looking out for them, and their parents who had to live with losing their children?"

"I know that you're angry right now Julie, so I'll pretend you didn't say any of that," said Reverend Green. "But I will tell you one thing. There's an 18-year-old girl from Raleigh North Carolina who is grounded for two weeks and only allowed to leave the house to attend school and go to church on Sunday. Do you know who that girl is? I'll give you a clue, it's you. Now, your mother, brother and I will be attending the church social this evening and you will be staying here to study. Is that clear, Julie?"

Julie looked at her father her face a mixture of defiance and insolence. "Missing a church social? I'm heart broken."

"Where did you learn to be so insolent?" snapped Reverend Green. "April Clayton, her brother and their friends, no doubt. Get your homework, and get started." Reverend Green turned and called out to his son. "Peter, come on, we're going to the church."

Julie looked at her mother and her mother looked back at her. "Your father is right, Julie," Mrs. Green said.

"Do you always just agree with him, Mom?" Julie asked. "Don't you ever think for yourself?"

Mrs. Green stayed silent, and Julie rolled her eyes and sighed loudly in derision at her mother's lack of assertiveness.

"Julie, you respect your mother and do not speak any more," stormed Reverend Green. "I'm so disappointed in you."

The Reverend and Mrs. Green along with Peter, who as usual seemed oblivious to the problems of his other family members, made their way out the front door to the car. Julie, still furious followed them out. "You think you know everything Dad, but you know less than anyone. What great things have you ever done in your life to make you think you have the right to judge people you hardly know?"

Reverend Green was fuming, but also shocked at the behavior of his normally quiet and compliant daughter. "You don't know when to quit while you're ahead, do you Julie? You're now grounded for a month. Is that clear? Now go back inside."

Julie stood on the front lawn in silent defiance as Reverend Green reversed out of the driveway and drove towards the church. Julie's anger towards her parents was over-shadowed by her concern for April and the frightening events at school that afternoon. As the teenager tried to make sense of the troubling situation, a male voice to her side broke into her thoughts, startling her somewhat.

"You okay there Julie?"

Julie turned to see the tall, handsome form of Ben Clayton to her right, the man giving her a smile. "Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you," Ben smiled. "I don't want to get you angry, you already look plenty angry as it is."

"No, that's okay, I'm not angry at you, just at my Dad," said Julie. "He doesn't understand anyone or anything."

"You shouldn't disrespect your father, you should look at things from his perspective. Your Dad acts the way he does because of his past experiences in life," said Ben. "It's the same for all of us. I act the way I do because of my life experiences, and you'll act in a way because of things that happened to you in your life."

"I couldn't care less if I never see my father again," said Julie.

Again, Ben cast the girl a friendly and knowing smile. "I knew a kid who sounded just like you once. A boy who was a real hot-head, and thought he knew better than everybody else around him. When he was 16 he decided to lie about his age and run away from home to join the army and go to the war. His father tried to stop him, they had a huge argument and the boy stormed out and said that he hoped he never saw his father again. The boy got into the army using forged documents, fought in the war and when he got back three years later his sister was waiting for him and told him that their father had died a year ago. The boy still regrets the last thing he ever said to his father to this day."

Julie thought about this for a few seconds. "You're talking about yourself, aren't you Mr. Clayton?"

Ben laughed lightly. "That obvious is it? And please call me Ben."

"I just kind of guessed," said Julie.

"I figured you would," said Ben. "Anyway, I wanted to thank you for standing up for April today."

"I couldn't do much, I was no help at all really," Julie lamented.

"No, you stood up for her against five male bullies all bigger and much stronger than you," said Ben. "I'm guessing that you're pretty confused about what happened at school today?"

"You could say that," said Julie. "How is April? I'm so worried about her."

"Brad took April out for a drive to try and get her to calm down a bit," said Ben. "Chip's out too -- at swim team practice. That boy spends so much time at swimming practice I think he'd have been happier if he was born a dolphin. April was worried about you seeing what you did, that you would be scared. She asked me if I could talk with you, April said she would be too upset to talk about it herself. How about you come across to my house and I can explain things to you?"

With her anger levels abating, the compliant, obedient Julie who never dared disobey her parents returned without warning. "I'm not supposed to leave the house, I'm grounded."

"I won't tell your parents if you don't," said Ben, to which Julie nodded and followed the older man across the street. A tall man whose children were able bodied, Ben without thinking walked too fast for Julie who struggled to keep up, before Ben realized what was happening and walked at a slower pace. Ben opened the door and escorted Julie into the living room.

"Would you like a tea or a coffee?" Ben asked.

"A coffee please," Julie said, taking a seat on the couch and listening as Ben boiled the kettle in the kitchen, then returned with a cup of tea and a coffee, Ben placing the coffee cup on the table in front of Julie.

"Thank you," said Julie, picking up the cup and taking a sip.

"I picked up the habit of drinking tea when I was in England," said Ben as he drank his tea. "If I drink coffee now I'm up until midnight."

"April and Brad mentioned that you were in England when you were in the army," said Julie.

Ben nodded. "That's right. My platoon was there several times in the later stages of the war."

"They said you got the Medal of Honor," said Julie. "You must feel so proud."

Ben blushed. "I wish they hadn't said anything about that."

Julie's heart raced. "Sorry, I didn't know ... I don't want them to get in trouble ..."

Ben gave her a reassuring smile. "It's okay Julie. They won't be in trouble. I was awarded the Medal of Honor, and my kids are proud of that. It's understandable they would be. I just wish I was proud."

"You aren't proud of getting the Medal of Honor?"

"To be truthful Julie, I feel kind of embarrassed by it."

Julie was shocked by the man's reaction. "Embarrassed?"

"Yes," said Ben. "The medal resides in my sock drawer now. Every time I look at it, I think about men who were braver than me and weren't recognized, or who never came back from the war. I think about my actions that led to my decoration, and I think if there was something else I could have done to save more men in my platoon that day. But most of all, I think about things I saw in Germany."

"What sort of things?" Julie asked.

"It's better that you never know the full details, otherwise you could never be a happy woman," Ben assured the girl. "There were places, terrible places in Germany. Camps where they kept Allied POW's, Jews, Gypsies and other groups the Nazis hated. The things I saw, heard and smelled there are things that will stay in my mind forever."

"It must be very difficult," said Julie.

"As I said earlier, experiences in life affect how you react to things," explained Ben. "I can live with my experiences in the war. It isn't always easy, even now nearly 20 years later I awaken some nights after dreams, but I can cope with it. Some men I served with think differently. For some, their war experiences were just like a bad day at the office. Other men found their experiences too much. Some have lost themselves in the bottle, and some couldn't stand to go on and are no longer are with us."

"I think you're very brave," said Julie. "You were my age -- younger than me -- serving in the war."

"I don't think of myself as brave," said Ben. "I think you're braver than me."

Julie was shocked. "Me? Brave? I don't think so. Why am I brave?"

"Because you went through something as a child that has always terrified me. Something I doubt I could have coped with had I faced it myself."

Ben's glance drifted to Julie's left leg and her brace, and the teenager was shocked. "Polio?"

Ben nodded. "Yes."

Julie shook her head. "I'm not brave. Lots of kids had polio in the early 1950s."

"Polio was the one thing that always scared me more than anything else," said Ben. "As a kid, I was always scared I would get it, that my sister Jane would get it, or that our cousins or friends would get it. Luckily, none of us did. And when Brad and April were born, I worried about them all the time."

"But they were okay," said Julie.

"Yes, but not without a massive scare. One morning in summer 1952 when there was that really bad polio epidemic April and Brad woke up with stiff necks and high temperatures. My blood went cold, it was like the world had stopped spinning. They'd been playing with Chip and Katie the day before, so getting on the phone to Jane and Donny was one of the worst telephone calls I've ever made. Luckily, it turned out the kids had flu -- really bad flu -- but not polio. For those few hours though ..." Ben's voice trailed off and he shook his head.

"I can understand how you and your sister and brother-in-law were so worried," said Julie, again puzzled by the absence of April and Brad's mother from this tale. She was beginning to wonder if the twins even had a mother. The family photographs in the living room showed no sign of a wife or mother. Perhaps as infants April and Brad were deposited on Ben's doorstep one morning by a stork?

"It was the scariest experience in my life, far worse than anything in the war," said Ben. "Just the thought that my son or my daughter could end up crippled, in an iron lung or worse. I can't imagine what it would have been like to experience it for real."

Fear filled Julie's pretty face at the difficult memories. "I was so frightened," she said in a small voice.

Ben nodded. "Having polio would have been an experience to affect your life, how you see the world, how you react to different things, different people, different situations. I imagine certain things take you back there, to when it happened?"

"The smell of hospital disinfectant," Julie offered. "And the sound of kids crying. It happened all the time in the ward when I was in hospital. Sometimes it would be the girl in the bed next to me. Sometimes the boy across the way from us. Sometimes it would be me crying, and I didn't know it."

Ben nodded knowingly. "Yes, I can understand that. It can be an ordinary day and I'll be driving down the road or at work and I'll see, hear or smell something and all of a sudden I'll be right back in Europe during the war, either under heavy German fire or going into one of those terrible places to see the absolute worst of what humans can do."

"When Peter was 12 and I was 14 he broke his arm," said Julie. "It was his own fault, he climbed up a ladder to get a closer look at the moon and fell off. Anyway, sitting in the hospital waiting room with Mom and Dad while the doctor put Peter's arm in a cast I could smell the disinfectant, I could hear a kid crying and I felt like I was right back in the polio ward. I felt terrified and just wanted to get out of there as fast as I could."

"That confirms what I was saying about past experiences affecting people and how they will behave in certain situations," said Ben. "Take your parents. I don't know them all that well, but from what I do know I can see that their faith is very important to them, that it always has been a significant part of their lives and will determine how they react to circumstances."

"Yes, they're both very religious," affirmed Julie. "Well, with my Dad being a minister, there would be a problem if he wasn't."

"You probably wonder why I've been talking to you about all of this rather than getting straight to the point and explaining about April," said Ben. "April and Brad have had things happen to them in their life that makes them behave in certain ways. Tell me Julie, have either April or Brad mentioned their mother to you?"

"No, never once," said Julie.

"I figured that would be the case," said Ben. "Have you ever wondered why?"

"I did think maybe your wife had passed away and April and Brad were so sad about it that they never spoke about their mother."

"In many ways that would have been easier to cope with," said Ben. "To properly explain all of this to you, I need to go back to before April and Brad were born, and I arrived in England with my platoon. You've heard about what England was like during the war?"

Julie nodded. "It was pretty bad, wasn't it?"

"Yes. Times were very hard, they had just been through the Depression, now there was all the rationing and shortages and the terrible bombings. One thing that we did notice was how pleased the English girls were to see the arrival of the American forces. Many romances developed, and it was no different for me when I met Rose."