Rough & Rugged Lily (Paperback)

Chapter One

"I didn't think we'd get to do anything this big in Junior Youth Group," Reni said, the beads on her numerous braids clacking together as she shook her head. "I thought they only did stuff like camp-outs in the Senior group."

"Is it gonna be that big, I mean, really?" Suzy said.

Lily didn't have to be able to see her to know her eyebrows were coming together in a worry knot. She'd wondered how long it would take nervous little Suzy to start stressing about this-but Lily was ready for her.

"It's gonna be major big," Lily said. She loosened her seatbelt a little so she could get up on her knees and peer at her two friends over the seat.

"You heard them say this is gonna be total 'survival in the wild,'" Reni put in.

"But there's nothing to worry about. You saw those people who are gonna head it up-they're professionals. And besides, they're gonna be training us from now 'til March, which is-"

"Three months," Reni said.

"So it's gonna be fine." Lily gave her head of curly red hair a final nod. She could see Suzy nodding, too, though with less enthusiasm. Suzy wasn't a go-at-everything-full-blast person. Lily was already envisioning herself pitching a tent up in the Poconos, fully prepared to ward off an entire family of bears.

"I'm glad we've got three months to get ready," Reni said. "I'm gonna have to do some major talking to get my dad to fork over for all that camping equipment. Did you see all that stuff they had up there on the stage?"

"But they said we didn't have to buy all that," Suzy said. "They said we should just be looking in our garages and attics for stuff." "My parents don't have stuff," Reni said. "They've never been camping in their lives!"

For the first time since they'd left the church parking lot, Lily turned to look at her father, who was driving the van-and probably writing his next lecture on C. S. Lewis in his head. As she looked at his slender, freckled hands on the steering wheel and his I'm-dreaming-of-The-Chronicles-of-Narnia eyes peering through the icy windshield, it occurred to Lily that she might have the same problem.

"Do we have any camping equipment around the house, Dad?" she said.

Dad pulled the van to a stop at a red light and looked at her as if he'd just realized she was in the car with him. "Do we have what, Liliputian?" he said. The heater wasn't working too well in the van, and the "what" came out with a puff of frosty breath.

"Camping equipment," Lily said.

"Why?" Dad said. "Are you planning to run away from home?"

Lily rolled her eyes at Suzy and Reni, who giggled into their mittened hands. Dad had so not heard a word they'd been saying-and it didn't take a nuclear physicist to figure out that there wasn't so much as a tent stake anywhere near the Robbins' house.

"I'll ask Mom," she said. "I bet she camped before you guys got married."

Dad chuckled. "She tried to drag me out into the wild once, but I managed to escape."

That was good for more eye rolling.

"Ooh-look at those lights!" Reni said.

Reni was clearing a circle in the fog on the side window. Lily craned her neck to see what she was pointing at. It was pretty hard to miss. Somebody's yard was so lit up that it looked as if the sky had snowed twinkle lights.

"We saw that the other night," Suzy said. "My dad said he'd hate to see their electric bill."

"Yeah," Reni said. "My dad lets my mom hang a wreath on the door and that's it for outside decorations. He's always whining about money."

"Wow," was all Lily said. When it came to Christmas, her parents never mentioned how much it was costing. Christmas at the Robbins' house was a huge deal. They didn't go as all-out with the lights as some people did, but there was usually the manger scene on the lawn and the candles in every window-not to mention the platter after platter of cookies that came out of the kitchen, and the ten-foot tree they always put up, and the pile of presents that magically appeared under it on Christmas Eve.

But then another thought occurred to her. It was only six days 'til Christmas-school was already out for vacation-and nothing had magically appeared at their house.

Yikes, Lily thought, I haven't even made my wish list yet!

That part wasn't surprising. Until Friday-and this was only Sunday-she'd been wrapped up in the business of being seventh-grade class president, and talk about a big deal. She and the other officers had thrown the party to end all parties for their class the last day before the holidays. No wonder she hadn't noticed that nary a cookie had yet made its way out of the oven.

Besides all that, Mom and Dad were trying to adopt another kid, which meant filling out forms and going to meetings, and the house was overrun with construction workers, who were adding on a new room to the place. Nobody had had time to squeeze in Christmas preparations.

But Lily smiled to herself as she watched the front-yard displays of lights flicker by. This was perfect timing. She would make her wish list right away and fill it with all that neat stuff the survival camp people had shown them.

It's a good thing I hadn't already written it, she thought, because I would have loaded it up with outfits to wear to conduct class meetings. I've got stuff I can use for that-but I do not have a sleeping bag, a tent, a canteen, decent hiking boots, and-

"Is this your street, Suzy-Q?" Dad said.

Lily shook herself out of her camping dreams as Dad rounded the corner by Suzy's house. "Hey, you guys," she said, swiveling around once more to face Suzy and Reni. "I'm gonna ask for camping equipment for Christmas. Have you already given your parents your wish lists?"

"My what?" Suzy said.

"Your list of what you want for Christmas."

"Oh." Suzy gave a nervous giggle. "We don't do that. We just circle all the stuff we want in the catalogs. All that has to be ordered. So I did it at Thanksgiving."

"I already did mine, and there's stuff under the tree already," Reni said. She shrugged. "But I can always ask for more stuff. That's the best thing about being an only child."

Lily thought about her two brothers and shook her head. "Trust me, that's not the best thing," she said.

The van stopped in Suzy's driveway, and as she slid the door open, the light came on-revealing not only Suzy and Reni but also the van's usual tangle of junk mail, left-behind gloves, and McDonald's bags. Even though Suzy had to shake a dried-up French fry off of her knitted cap before she pulled it onto her head, she was smiling. "That's still a good idea, though, Lily," she said. "My birthday's in January."

"Get you an L. L. Bean catalog, girl!" Reni said.

"Merry Christmas, everybody, in case I don't see you," Suzy said.

Reni and Lily said "Merry Christmas" back. Dad, Lily noticed, was unusually quiet. As he backed out of the driveway, she saw that his eyes were bright and focused, and Lily searched the last few minutes to make sure she hadn't said anything dumb. Dad concentrating on the present moment was usually a sure sign that she had.

Reni didn't seem to notice. "You know what would be cool?" she said to Lily. "If we could get matching sleeping bags and backpacks."

"All the Girlz!" Lily said. "'Cause we're gonna bring Kresha and Zooey as guests, right?"

"Ye-ah," Reni said, as if Lily had just asked her if the sun would be coming up tomorrow. "I think I'll ask for a six-person tent so there'll be room enough for all of us and all our junk."

"So that means I don't have to put a tent on my list. I'll ask for one of those rain ponchos instead."

"Definitely. Oh-this is my street, Dr. Robbins," Reni said.

Dad just kind of grunted. The fact that he didn't call her Renoir or Reindeer or one of his other pet names for Reni made Lily a little uneasy. Something was definitely up.

"Call me tomorrow and read me your list," Reni was saying as she plowed through the assorted junk and climbed out of the backseat. "We have to get coordinated."

Lily held up a knit-clad thumb.

"Merry Christmas, Dr. Robbins," Reni said.

"Same to you, Reni," Dad said. And that was all.

In fact, that was all the entire way home, and that never happened. Lily and her dad could always find something to chatter back and forth about. They were alike that way, which made sense to Lily since they also looked alike. Lily and her older brother Art had both gotten Dad's curly hair and pale skin and eyes that could look right into people, or so their younger brother Joe often pointed out. "It creeps me out when she looks at me like that," he would say.

Right now, Lily could see what he meant. Although Dad didn't say a word as they drove home, he gave Lily a few looks that made her want to shout, "What? What did I do?"

But even though she racked her brain the rest of the way and continued to when she was propped up in bed with her prayer journal and Otto, her little dog, and didn't stop after the light was out and she was curled up with Otto behind her knees, she couldn't figure out what it was that had plunged Dad into silence. It was like waiting for that last drop of ketchup to come out of the bottle.

It finally came to her the next morning as she started compiling her Christmas wish list before the sleep was even out of her eyes.

It was all that talk about Christmas in the car, she thought as she chose just the right gel pen for the job. It made Dad feel bad because he and Mom haven't done anything about it yet.

He wouldn't feel bad for long, she was sure, once she gave him and Mom the nudge. She got busy without even putting on slippers or going down to raid the refrigerator, and she was about halfway through with the list when she heard Art's music go on above her in his attic room. Art was a major musician in high school, and he always hit the play button on his CD player before he even opened his eyes.

"He better open 'em quick," Lily said to Otto, who was yawning and beginning to move from his place at the end of Lily's bed. "All three of us have got to give Mom and Dad the nudge."

Lily hurried out into the hall. Joe was just coming out of the bathroom, clad in a Philadelphia Eagles jersey that was six times too big for his scrawny ten-year-old body. He saw Lily and clapped his hands to the side of his face.

"Yikes! What is it?" he said.

"Oh, and you're a vision in the morning yourself," Lily said dryly. "Did you make your wish list yet?"

"I wish you'd get a face transplant."

"No-moron-your Christmas wish list."

Joe put his hand on Lily's arm, sadly shaking his head. Lily could feel her eyes narrowing in suspicion.

"I gotta tell ya somethin', Lil," he said.

"What?"

"There's no such thing as Santa Claus."

Lily jerked her arm away and proceeded toward the steps that led to the attic. "Fine," she said. "Go without presents this year. I'm making my list, though, because in case you haven't picked up on it, nobody seems to be doing anything about Christmas around here."

"Oh," Joe said.

He did look a little baffled, and as Lily started up the steps, he called after her, "You got any paper I could use?"

Art was already on the phone when Lily knocked on his door and let herself in. He'd probably slept with it, and he was more than likely talking to Marsha, his girlfriend of the week. Lily made a throat-slitting motion with her finger.

"What?" Art mouthed. He was still too sleepy to act annoyed.

"We have to talk about Christmas," she whispered.

He pantomimed writing as he continued to murmur into the phone. Lily snatched up his school binder from the floor, ripped out a piece of paper, and wrote in big letters with a stub of a pencil, Have you made your Christmas gift list for Mom and Dad?

(Continues...)