After the camping trip, we have our first big teen talent night. Typically, Family talent night performances involve singing, dancing, dressing up, and playacting. Bones does a great impersonation of Gandhi while wearing just a white sheet diaper, with all his skinny ribs showing and an Indian accent and head shake. It busts us up laughing.
But the arrival of the teen girls turns our talent night into sexy dance performances. Most of the girls pick System songs from My Old Favorites, which are three cassette tapes of Grandpa’s favorite secular System music. Because Grandpa approves of them, we can listen to them for special occasions like dance nights. They are mostly songs from the fifties like “Hot Diggity” (1956, sung by Perry Como) and “High Hopes” (1959, sung by Frank Sinatra). Some other favorite songs to perform to are “Fire and Ice,” a sexy Family song about FFing, and my brothers sing “(Let Me Be Your) Teddy Bear” by Elvis Presley.
The girls move their hips and arms to a hypnotizing rhythm in a coordinated striptease. Their matching jean skirts with snaps down the front are perfect for ripping off to end in their bras and panties, and the teen boys applaud and whistle.
As the Farm adjusts to becoming a Teen Home, Aunt Faithy arrives from Latin America, where she’s been demoted from Area Shepherd. She now dubs herself a Teen Shepherd and announces that all the teens are now required to have buddies. The buddy system has been around in the Family since the Texas Soul Clinic Ranch, because Jesus sent out the disciples two by two: “If one falls down, the other shall be there to lift them up” (Ecclesiastes 4:10). That is interpreted to mean that your buddy is there for your physical safety, if you run into a snake, and your spiritual safety, if you’re tempted to misbehave.
Normally, we must have a buddy only when we leave the commune property. The new system, copied from the HCS, is much more rigid. We’re supposed to go everywhere and do everything together. We cannot leave each other’s side unless the Shepherds say we can. It gets a little awkward sometimes, especially if someone wants to have a romantic rendezvous.
We are reminded, “Your first loyalty is to Jesus and the Family. If you see one of your brothers or sisters in Christ being disobedient, it’s your responsibility to report them for their own good, or you are just as guilty as they are. If we find out you knew about it and didn’t say anything, you will also be punished.”
I know this is true, but I can’t bring myself to tattle—especially on my buddy Joan. Joan is fifteen years old, blond, and very developed. But she doesn’t act disappointed that she’s stuck with the youngest, least developed girl in the teen group. In gratitude, I do my best to be an easy buddy, which includes trying to look the other way if she goes off on her own occasionally. Reporting on Joan is the last resort. We all know we should report on ourselves. Otherwise, our sins will separate us from Jesus, and He won’t be able to bless us or speak to us until we confess it. I hope Joan will report on herself if necessary. I like Joan and don’t want to get her in trouble.
To help us become more honest, we fill in daily Open-Heart Reports (OHRs) each evening before bed. The OHR is preprinted on a small slip of paper that is passed out to us after dinner. We fill out our name and the date, tick the box for whether you had a BM, fill in how many glasses of water we drank (I always put eight, though I don’t really know how many I had. How am I supposed to remember? Does milk count?), and which verses we memorized.
Then the dreaded final question: “What NWOs are you working on?” Five blank lines to write about any mistakes we made, corrections, or bad character traits that we are trying to overcome. The first week is easy: “I’m learning to be more obedient, more yielded, etc.” The usual sins. But soon I’m staring at those five blank lines, thinking, What do I put here? I don’t do something bad every day. Plus, I’m not going to say anything about balancing the basket of leaves on top of the bathroom door with Bones. . . . I try to come up with something new that won’t get me in trouble. Creative writing at its worst—trying to create things that are wrong with me. “I need to be tidier.” “I need to listen more.” “The Lord is teaching me to not be foolish.” “I need to pay better attention in Devotions.” Okay, that one is true.
With the arrival of the first group of teens, we get another surprise. Mene, a Family celebrity, comes to live with us. Even better, she is our real cousin, my uncle Aaron’s daughter.
I’ve never met any of my cousins or Uncle Aaron, who has been dead since 1973, when climbers found his body at the base of Mont Salève in France. It was never fully determined whether it was a hiking accident that killed him, but Grandpa said that God had called Aaron home to Heaven; like Ezekiel, he went walking with God.
I’ve read about Mene in the Mo Letters and watched videos of her performing on the Music with Meaning shows for years. The whispered rumor is that she’s been living at Grandpa’s Home since she was eleven, so she must be extra special. I’m jealous and study her to see what she has that I don’t. Why did Grandpa choose her? Perhaps if I’m extra good, he will send for me.
She is different than I expect. At fifteen, her long, wispy blond hair floats about her face, but it’s her expression that’s different. She seems far away, childlike. She wants to laugh and play with us, but she doesn’t seem to understand our jokes. Sometimes she helps Mary in the kitchen, and Mary must show her how to do simple cooking tasks and then must remind her again the next day.
Soon, strange things start happening around the Farm. A beam falls from the roof in the stables, nearly hitting our horse Taurug. People are having more accidents. Then one morning we learn that the night before, every single teen had sleepwalked into a different bed.
We are gathered by the adults for an emergency meeting and reading. “This is a spiritual attack,” we are told. “We wanted to spare you teens having to find out. We had hoped that the Farm, without the stress of Grandpa’s home and with more young people her age, would help Mene. But the Devil has his claws in her too deeply. She is plagued by a demon who speaks to her and whom she can direct to do harm. That is what has been happening.”
“Yes, I do remember Mene staring at that beam, and it looked like she was muttering under her breath,” someone pipes up.
We all shudder. She is using a demon to cast spells.
At Devotions, we read the Mo Letter Grandpa wrote about Mene.
If you can’t resist (the devil) then get rid of him yourself, wake up somebody that’s with you and tell them to pray with you. And if they have to use a rod to beat him out of you, fine, you’ve got my permission. (Sara: Yes sir I’ll do it!) If you’ve got to slap her to wake her up and get her out of that kind of spirit, slap her! Slap her good! Knock her around! Let her have it! . . .