🌼Imagine one of your junior high classmates has gone missing for 3 days. But you, and your buddies, know exactly where to find the body. Join Annie Belcastro, Gordie Lachance, Chris Chambers, Teddy Duchamp, and Vern Tessio, as they set out to find...
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"Is that an old church?" Vern yelled, squinting in the distance of the low setting sun.
About an hour after walking together, Gordie looked at his watch and decided that we could all use a rest. Before we could even find a good spot, we got carried away instead.
Gordie nodded. "Think so."
Everybody had stopped to look at the old church ahead of us, but I kept on walking towards it.
"Where are you going?" Chris asked me, sounding annoyed.
I spun around on my heel to look at him. "To look at the church. I wanna see it!"
"Do you know how dangerous that is?" Chris retaliated, rolling his eyes.
I rolled my eyes back at him, emphasizing it out of spite. "I don't care. I'm gonna go see it. Feel free to stand here if you want."
"I really don't get what you see in her, man." Teddy remarked, just loud enough that I could hear him."She's as stubborn as a rock!"
Just a second later, I heard teddy yelp in pain. Good for him! I continued on walking, it was only a little ways down the hill. Gordie, Vern, and Teddy all followed behind me, Chris tagged along at the end in a huff.
When we reached the church, all the way at the top of a small hill, we all stood in one line, and studied it.
The steeple of the church had completely fallen off, leaving piles of wood scattered around the entrance. The roof had caved in completely so that when the wind blew, you could see the electrical wiring sway back and forth ominously in the sunlight.
I trotted up to the doorway that had been completely ripped out, and read a little rusty copper sign hanging by a thread.
I squinted to read the words."'Saint Anthony's Church for the Children. God help us. Nineteen-eleven to....' nothing." I sighed, looking back at the other boys. They stayed put behind the fallen boards. "You guys coming in?"
They all looked at each other and mutually agreed to follow me inside. As I carefully stepped onto the open grass, I vocalized my thoughts with a quiet 'wow', which seemed to make all the other boys more anticipated to go in after me.
Since the roof was almost nonexistent, all the sunlight in the world seemed to softly pour through all the crevices and holes that were left behind. The entire floor, except for a few wooden planks scattered in varying ways, was covered in green grass and an assortment of weeds. In all of the corners and in little patches throughout, tiny daisies sprouted next to vines covering what was left of the walls. It was beautiful to me.
I checked the ground for nails and screws, but I couldn't see any, so I sat down on a board and got to work on a flower crown to pass my time instead.
Back in girl scouts when I was ten, we all went on a big camping trip for learning leadership and stuff. One of the older instructors taught us how to make a flower crown, so I never passed up the opportunity to look like a pretty flower princess.
