Now get out, you damn devil, and leave her alone, or I’m going to whack the daylights out of her! (Mene cries.) Thank God that’s the first time I think I’ve seen tears! Are you sorry? (Mene: Yes sir!)
You think you’re going to make it up there (in the system) somehow? The only way you could make it is to be a whore, that’s all! You wouldn’t even be an FFer, you wouldn’t even be doing it for God, you’d just be doing it for a living. You’d probably end up on drugs—a drug demon possessed, alcoholic, diseased whore and soon dead! Now is that what you want? (Mene: No sir!) . . .
You’re dirty, you’re filthy, you stink! Your self-righteousness pride stinks worst of all, like stinking dirty menstruous rags! . . . And we’re not going to stand the stench of it anymore, is that clear?
As far as I’m concerned your father Aaron died failing God. . . . Do you want to die like that knowing you failed God and you disobeyed and hurt your family, your grandfather your father your foster father all of us? (Mene: No sir!)
I glance over at Mary and my brothers. As the reading continues, their expressions change from puzzled to terrified. Who could have guessed? Mene seems so nice. Simple and strange, always staring off and spacy, but not evil or demon-possessed. But Grandpa can’t be wrong. Shows you never can tell about people.
And Uncle Aaron died failing God? Psychological issues? Suicide? This is the first I’ve heard of it. Grandpa said God took him to Heaven because he was too spiritual for this world.
“Demons are giving Mene violent visions. She’s babbling about harming herself and others. For everyone’s safety, we are going to quarantine her in the Stone House with Michael and Crystal,” my father tells us. “They are going to live with her and try to help her exorcise the demons.” I feel bad that I was jealous of her.
Mene disappears into the Stone House, and I don’t see her for months. A few other “problem teens” are soon sent to live there as well. It’s now called the Victor Home, as the teens who are there are supposed to be working on getting victory over their issues. It acts separate from the rest of the home and is very secretive, reporting directly to WS. No one is supposed to stop by to visit, even my parents.
I’m so caught up in my new world of teens, I try not to think much about Mene or the other teens in the Stone House, other than as a very scary warning of what could happen to me if I stray. I do my best to not end up a Victor, devoting myself to the Teen Shepherds and my new job, teaching the toddlers for two hours every morning while their regular teacher has Devotions with the adults.
Only the teens who haven’t completed the basic education in the Childcare Handbook are given a few hours of study time each week so they can try to reach a fifth-grade level. With Uncle Ben’s memory techniques, I’m in good shape, but many teens are still struggling to learn their multiplication tables. If they don’t want to study, which they often don’t, they can volunteer for more chores—after all, life skills, cooking, and caring for children are more useful to our futures as missionaries.
We also give weekly Bible classes to System young people who come to the Farm to ride the horses. Nunu is a handsome Portuguese nineteen-year-old who has been coming regularly to study the Bible with Joan. All us girls think he is cute, but we know the rules—we can flirt to get them interested in Jesus, but we can’t touch.
I love my new grown-up responsibilities, but the one downside about being in the teen group is that I don’t see Patrick much, as he is in the older children group, and we don’t do farm chores together anymore. Our old jobs of mucking stalls are now reserved for the delinquent teens who are in the Victor group.
When I see the Victor teens sweeping the village streets or shoveling rocks, I feel sorry for them, but I don’t say a word. I don’t want to risk getting sent there, too.
12
The Silent Coup
Funny Family fads come and go, triggered by a Mo Letter or visiting Shepherd from another country, whether it’s adding bleach to our drinking water or wearing sarongs to, as Grandpa promotes, let our privates air properly in the tropical humidity. Sometimes trends are not so funny, though. In recent months, the tone of the Mo Letters has become more militaristic about putting God first. How? I wonder. We live for God every day.
I hear my mother and Esther discussing the new Letters, and my father telling them not to worry. But the Farm has just grown too big not to draw attention from the higher-up leadership.
When my mother is around five months pregnant, an Australian couple, a heavyset woman and a skinny little man, arrive at the Farm from WS. As the days go by, my mother becomes more skittish. I hear her whisper to my father that the Family is going through another big change in leadership. Loyalties have been called into question, and things have tightened up. Apparently, the top Family leadership thinks certain Homes, like those at the Farm, are too independent and want to rein them in, so they sent WS leaders to consult and assist.
I spy on the couple from Australia. They seem quiet and unassuming, not leading Devotions or giving big speeches. I would have barely noticed them. Just another auntie and uncle, one fat, one skinny.
After they’ve been here a few weeks, I notice they begin having lots of closed-door meetings with the adults, including my parents. I ask my mother what they’re discussing, and she tells me they just asked about how her relationship is with Dad and how things at the Farm might be improved.
We’ve been reading about Grandpa breaking up marriages of top leadership in the recent Mo Letters but don’t expect that wave to hit our small beach village. How wrong we are. At Devotions, the WS Shepherds announce to us all that people need to put the Family and Jesus before their own personal families, which means that certain couples may be required to break up. They task my mother, as one of the Home leaders, to break the bad news to the couples who need to separate.
On the outside our schedule goes on as normal, but tension is tearing the community apart. Everyone is angry or sad or fearful.
Before I register what’s happening, the visiting Shepherds turn their cross hairs on my family, and my mother starts getting blamed for all the problems at the Farm and in her marriage. She’s brought by the WS leaders before the Home Council for prayer. Like sessions she’s presided over, the adults sit in a circle around her, listing her faults, and she must confess, before they all lay hands on her for a two-hour prayer to beg God for mercy on her and to deliver her from her sins.