Smoke in the Air!, page 1
The Magnificent Mulligans: Smoke in the Air!
© 2023 Bill Myers. All rights reserved.
A Focus on the Family book published by Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188
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Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version,® NIV.® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Smoke in the Air! is a work of fiction. Where real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales appear, they are used fictitiously. All other elements of the novel are drawn from the author’s imagination.
Cover and interior illustrations by Greg Hardin. Cover design by Michael Harrigan.
For manufacturing information regarding this product, please call 1-855-277-9400.
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ISBN 978-1-64607-119-7
ISBN 978-1-68428-578-5 (ePub); ISBN 978-1-68428-579-2 (Kindle); ISBN 978-1-68428-577-8 (Apple)
Build: 2023-09-29 17:52:04 EPUB 3.0
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son,
that whoever believes in him should not perish
but have eternal life.”
JOHN 3:16
For Parker, as you continue on your adventure of being a big sister.
Contents
Chapter 1: Just for Starters . . .
Chapter 2: Hector and Janelle
Chapter 3: A Not-So-Gourmet Meal
Chapter 4: No Laughing Matter
Chapter 5: Wheelin’ and Dealin’
Chapter 6: The Plot Sickens
Chapter 7: An Afternoon Swim
Chapter 8: Dress Rehearsal
Chapter 9: A Change in the Weather
Chapter 10: Show and a Lot of Tell
Chapter 11: Gertrude and Goony
Chapter 12: Hector Saves the Day! (or Not)
Chapter 13: Real Value
Chapter 14: Loading Up
Chapter 15: A Little Talk
Chapter 16: Detour!
Chapter 17: Get Along, Little Rhino
Chapter 18: Time for Eats
Chapter 19: Oops!
Chapter 20: Two Down, Two to Go
Chapter 21: Real Reality
Chapter 22: Things Heat Up
Chapter 23: Deeper Talk
Chapter 24: Nick’s Sermon
Chapter 25: Things Heat Up Even More
Chapter 26: Just like Noah . . . Kind Of
Chapter 27: Mulligans to the Rescue
Chapter 28: Wrapping Up
Thoughts and Questions
1
Just for Starters . . .
“COME ON, JESS!” Mom stood and shouted while holding baby Al on one hip. “Outta the park, sweetheart. Knock it outta the park! You can do it, girl!”
When it came to softball, Mom was Jessica’s biggest fan. Of course, she didn’t know anything about softball, but that didn’t stop Mom. Mom was the biggest fan of anything we did.
As Jessica stepped up to the plate, Mom whistled and yelled, “You got this! Outta the park, babe! Woo-hoo! You go, Jess! Woo-hoo! Go girl! Go, go, go! Woo-hoo!”
The rest of our family glanced nervously at those around us.
“Mom,” Stephie whispered.
“What’s that, dear?”
Stephie motioned to all the staring people.
Mom saw them and gave a little nod. “Sorry,” she said as she slowly sat back down.
Back at the plate, Jessica took a couple of practice swings and waited.
The pitcher checked second and third, then fired a sizzling fastball that
thwup-ed
hard into the catcher’s mitt.
“Strike one!” the umpire shouted.
“Strike?” Mom leaped back to her feet. “Is he out of his mind?”
“Mom . . .” Nick reached for her.
“That was out by a mile!”
“Mom—”
“That’s so unfair. She never even got a chance!”
“Mom!”
Mom looked down at Nick.
“She gets two more strikes.”
“Oh, right,” she said. Glancing around, she slumped back into her seat. “I knew that.”
Yup, that was Mom doing her Mom thing. But you can’t blame her. We were all pretty excited watching Jessica in the first game of the softball playoffs. (Why they call this game softball is beyond me. Have you ever tried eating one? Hard as a rock. I almost broke a tooth. And taste? Let’s just say Dad’s TV remote has better flavor.)
Anyway, it was the last inning of the game with one out and runners on second and third. If Jessica knocked it out of the park, which we all knew she could, she’d score the winning run and be a hero.
“Shake it off, girl!” Mom shouted. “You can do this!”
I joined in with a little of my own OO-oo AH-ah EE-ees.
As the pitcher prepared for the next pitch, cute little Julie tugged on Mom’s arm.
“I gotta go to the bathroom,” she said.
“Now?” Mom couldn’t take her eyes off the game. “You went three minutes ago.”
“I have to go again.”
The pitcher fired the ball and
thwup!
“Strike two!” the umpire shouted.
The crowd booed, and Mom was back on her feet. “Come on, Ump!”
“Mom . . .” Julie continued to tug.
“What’s that, baby?”
“Now. I gotta go now.”
Poor Mom. You could tell she was torn between watching Jessica and helping Julie.
Luckily, eleven-year-old Stephie offered to help. She’s got a heart as big as a river, which is why we’re best friends—even if I am a chimpanzee and she’s just a human (which I don’t hold against her because it’s not her fault). She reached for Julie’s hand. “Here, I’ll take you.”
Julie pulled away. “I want Mom.”
“Julie . . .”
“I want Momma,” she repeated as she wrapped her arms around Mom’s waist and held on tight.
Suddenly, down on the field, Jessica leaned across the plate and
bunt-ed
the ball.
“A squeeze play!” Nick shouted.
“She’s making a sacrifice?” Lisa, who is blind, yelled. She relied on us to tell her what was going on.
“Yeah!” Nick shouted as the pitcher ran off the mound, snatched up the ball, and threw Jessica out at first base . . . giving the runner on third base time to race home to score.
Of course, everyone cheered for the scoring runner. They shouted and clapped for her.
And Jessica? No one paid much attention to her as she trotted back to the dugout.
No one but Mom. “That’s okay, Jess!” she called. “You gave it your best! You tried!”
“Well, she did more than try,” Nick said.
“What do you mean?” Mom asked.
“She sacrificed herself at first so the runner on third could score.”
Mom looked confused. “And that’s good?”
“Good?” Nick laughed. “She just set us up to win the game!”
Mom leaped back to her feet, whistling and shouting, “Woo-hoo! Atta girl, Jess! Great work! Woo-hoo!”
None of us knew then that we’d soon be watching a sacrifice play a thousand times greater than the one we just saw.
2
Hector and Janelle
TWO OF THE MULLIGANS didn’t make it to the game. The first was one of our newest family members, Hector. He’s ten years old and grew up on the streets of Bogotá, Colombia. He’s a pretty cool guy, but a little rough around the edges—and he’s been getting rougher since he started hanging out with some very bad-news kids. . . .
“So take it, dude,” Bad News Kid #1 whispered.
“I will, I will,” Hector said. He reached toward the shelf of magazines and then hesitated, glancing up at the store’s security camera.
“So what’s the problem?” Bad News Kid #2 said.
(They’ve got real names, but these are the ones they should have.)
“There’s no problem,” Hector said.
Of course, he was wrong. The old Hector would have stolen the magazine off the shelf, no problem. But the new Hector, the one trying to live like a Mulligan, knew better.
“You wanna be part of our group or not?” Bad News Kid #1 said.
Hector barely heard him over the tug-of-war inside his head:
Take it. Don’t take it. Take it. Don’t take it. Take it. Don’t . . .
Well, you get the idea.
Unfortunately, Bad News Kid #2 didn’t. “He’s just chicken,” he said.
Chicken? That did it. If there was one thing Hector was not, it was chicken. Without a word, he slipped the magazine under his sweatshirt. Now, if you’re thinking that was wrong, you’re thinking the exact thinking you should be thinking if you’re thinking what you thought you were thinking.
You are right. And Hector was wrong.
But as Hector turned for the door, Bad News Kid #1 grabbed his arm. “You’re just taking one?” he said.
“How many am I supposed to take?”
“Looks like you got room for three or four.”
Bad News Kid #2 agreed. “Or six or seven.”
Hector gave them a look.
They gave Hector a look.
Reluctantly, he grabbed several other magazines and stuffed them inside his sweatshirt.
Feeling like the Pillsbury Doughboy, he waddled toward the exit. But he barely made it through the door before the alarm
BUUUUUZZZZZ
went off.
The cashier looked up.
The boys looked back.
The cashier shouted, “Stop!”
The boys shouted, “Run!”
And run they did . . . across the street to the van where their leader, Heathcliff Ferguson III, waited. Although “Ferggy” was older, he was still way too young to drive. But as a future prisoner without parole, he’d never let a little thing like breaking the law stop him.
The boys opened the side door and leaped in, just as Ferggy floored it.
The van swerved to the left.
“Look out!” Bad News Kid #1 yelled as they nearly hit a parked car.
“Watch it!” Bad News Kid #2 shouted as they swerved and nearly
HONK!
hit another while shooting through the red light.
“So, how’d he do?” Ferggy shouted.
“Fantastic!” Bad News Kid #1 yelled as he clung to his seat for dear life.
“He’s in!” Bad News Kid #2 called as he braced himself against the door.
“Cool!” Ferggy shouted from behind the wheel. “Wait ’til you see what we’re doing tomorrow!”
Hector didn’t like the tone of his voice. But whatever they did, he hoped it involved walking.
And while Hector was entering the world of crime, Janelle, Jessica’s twin sister, was heading for Broadway. Well, almost.
Since Janelle was quite shy, Mom had encouraged her to try out for this summer’s community theater production. It was the musical titled Slush. Janelle got the role of Nanna, the sister to Elise. It turned out that Elise had a magical ability—she could melt everything she touched. It was a beautiful story about the love between two sisters. There was one minor problem: The girl playing Janelle’s sister was the super-rich, all-school mean girl named Chloe Richardson.
“Ms. Diva, Ms. Diva,” Chloe whined as she stood on the stage beside Janelle during rehearsal. “I know I have to share the scene with Janelle, but do I have to sing a duet with her too?”
Ms. Diva, who was famous for being a background singer in a Taco Bell commercial thirty years ago, sighed. “It’s called a duet because two people sing.”
“Right,” Chloe said. “But it’s not my fault they didn’t call it a solo.”
With another sigh, Ms. Diva asked, “And what do you suggest, Chloe?”
“Well, I mean, you’re the director and everything, and I don’t want to tell you how to do your job . . .”
“Of course you don’t,” Ms. Diva muttered.
“And I think your wardrobe ensemble today is especially stunning, not to mention your hair. Are you doing something different with it, because it looks so marvelous that I just—”
“What’s your point, Chloe?”
“Well . . . instead of a duet, I really think it should be a solo by me. I mean, with my perfect pitch and this beautiful blonde hair”—at this, she flipped her hair to the side like she did a million times a day—“doesn’t that make all the sense in the world?”
Of course, Ms. Diva had her doubts—the same ones she’d had when casting Chloe to begin with. But since Chloe’s mother was the biggest financial donor to the theater and since Chloe had a nasty habit of running to Mommy whenever she didn’t get her way, well, maybe she did have a point.
Ms. Diva pulled down her ruby-rhinestone glasses and peered over their top at Janelle. “What do you think, Janelle?”
Janelle shrugged. “It’s okay with me.” (Of course it was okay; remember, she hated being in front of people.)
“Well . . .” Ms. Diva gave another Academy Award–winning sigh and pushed up her glasses. “If it’s okay with Janelle, I suppose it’s—”
“Super!” Chloe said. “That’s a great idea.”
“Of course it is,” Ms. Diva mumbled.
“And if I’m doing the solo”—Chloe took Janelle’s hand and led her to the back of the stage—“you should stand here, right? I mean, that way no one will miss that it’s me singing.” She spun back to Ms. Diva. “Isn’t that right?”
Ms. Diva took a long, slow breath and blew it out. “Sure.”
3
A Not-So-Gourmet Meal
THAT EVENING EVERYONE sat around the table talking about the day. Well, everyone except me. Mom’s got this silly rule:
NO ANIMALS AT THE TABLE.
Of course, I’ve tried explaining that I’m a chimpanzee, not an animal, but all my
OO-oo AH-ah EE-ees
in the world haven’t convinced her.
It doesn’t matter. I’ve got plenty of places to hide. In my younger days, before I put on those extra pounds and lost my girlish figure, it was inside Stephie’s backpack. But there are still others—like the pantry and cupboards. (There’s also the oven, so long as no one’s baking cookies.) Tonight, I sat outside on the window ledge where Mom saw me putting on my best woe-is-me face. I threw in some shivering, too, but since the temperature was still seventy-three degrees, I doubted it helped.
Anyway, at the moment she was praising Jessica. “You should have seen her make that sacrifice so the other girl could run in for the touchdown.”
“Uh, Mom,” Lisa said, “touchdowns are in football.”
“Right. I meant so she could score the goal.”
“That would be soccer.”
But Mom was unfazed. “The point is she was great!”
“Which is more than I can say for this dinner,” Janelle said.
“Hey, hey, hey,” Nick complained. “I put a lot of thought into fixing this meal.”
“A meal?” Hector asked. “That’s what you call this?”
“Frozen french fries?” Stephie said.
“They were warm when I picked them up at McDonald’s.”
“How many hours ago?” Lisa asked.
Nick shrugged. “Well, actually it was yesterday.” Over the groans, he shouted, “Which is why I preserved them in the freezer!”
“Until five minutes ago,” Lisa said.
“That’s right.” Nick grinned. “Think of them as . . . potato popsicles. And they’re just the appetizer. The main course is on its way.”
Dad took a deep breath and murmured, “I can hardly wait.”
In case you’re wondering, Nick always looks for the easiest way to do things. And in case you’re also wondering, we have a rule where each Mulligan takes turns fixing dinner for the family. The meal has to include something from these five food groups: milk, meat, cereal, vegetables, and fruit. Mom never lets me cook because she says peanuts and bananas only equal two groups. (Right, like she’s a math genius or something.)
Turning to Dad, Mom asked, “What’s the latest on the winds?”
“Weather report says they’re picking up,” he said.
“But no fires?”
“Not yet, but everything’s tinder-dry. And with the Fourth of July coming up—”
“People will be using fireworks,” Lisa said.
“Aren’t they illegal?” Nick asked.
Dad nodded. “They’re supposed to be.” He turned to Mom. “Just to be safe, we should be prepared in case a fire does happen. I’ll alert the staff and tell them to be prepared to transport the bigger animals to safety. You and the girls should bring the portable cages out of storage—in case we need to move the smaller animals in a hurry.”
“And the snakes, too?” Julie asked hopefully.
