Jimmy by Robert Whitlow

been living in a very poor country,” Mama answered.
    â€œEven worse than Alabama,” Daddy added.
    Mama ignored him. “Missionaries are men and women who go to other countries to tell the people about Jesus.”
    â€œWhat does that have to do with worms?” Jimmy asked.
    â€œSome of the people in other countries eat worms and grubs,” Daddy said. “They don’t see anything wrong with it because they’ve grown up eating them.”
    â€œWalt tried to make me eat an earthworm,” Jimmy replied. “But I told him it was for fishing, not eating.”
    Daddy opened the car door. “Good boy. If Walt ever offers you an earthworm or anything else strange to eat, tell me about it.”
    Still thinking about worms, Jimmy followed his parents into the educational building.
    The inside of the building was as familiar to Jimmy as the hallways of the elementary school. He’d begun in the nursery, progressed to the crawler area, navigated through the toddler zone, and graduated into the prekindergarten and kindergarten classes. As the biggest church in town, First Baptist had a class for each grade level. The same children who went to school with Jimmy Monday through Friday joined him for Bible class on Sunday.
    The sixth-grade class was located on the second floor. When Jimmy graduated to the seventh grade, he would stay on the main floor in a room by the nursery. Daddy and Mama’s class met in the fellowship hall. Jimmy climbed the steps to the second floor. Inside his classroom, he saw his friend Max staring out the window at the parking lot. No one else had arrived.
    Tall and sturdy with blond hair and clear blue eyes, Max Cochran was smart and good at sports. The two boys first played together because the babysitter who took care of Jimmy after his other mama left town was a friend of Max’s mom. Max had been Jimmy’s best friend for as long as Jimmy could remember.
    Max always saved a seat for Jimmy at lunchtime and picked Jimmy to be on his team at recess. He played at Jimmy’s house a lot and sometimes invited Jimmy to spend the night at his home. Like Grandpa, Max always treated Jimmy as a normal member of the human race. Recently, Mama had prayed with Jimmy that the boys’ friendship would never stop.
    Max turned around and looked at Jimmy through a perfectly formed black eye. Jimmy’s mouth dropped open.
    â€œWhat happened?” he asked.
    â€œI was playing first base
yesterday, and Mitch threw the ball to me between innings when I wasn’t looking. It knocked me to the ground.”
    Jimmy peered closer. “Does it still hurt?”
    â€œYeah, but not as bad as it did.”
    Other students began to arrive, and Jimmy listened as Max told the story several more times. More information came out, including the fact that his father made him hold a piece of raw steak against the eye for over an hour.
    â€œAnd then he cooked the steak on the grill, and I ate it,” Max added. “Eating the steak made the swelling go down.”
    â€œThat’s ridiculous,” responded Denise McMillan, the daughter of a local doctor.
    â€œYou didn’t see it before and after,” Max said.
    Mr. Morton, the Sunday school teacher, entered the room with a red, sweaty face. A chubby, balding man who worked for a local auto dealer as a credit manager, he wiped the perspiration from his forehead. Mr. Morton knew a fair amount about the Bible and a lot about old cars.
    â€œAir conditioner went out on the car,” he said.
    Before Mr. Morton became their teacher, none of the students had ever heard of the Studebaker Motor Company. Mr. Morton quickly corrected their ignorance and one sunny autumn day took them on a brief field trip down to the church parking lot in order to provide an up close look at a 1964 Lark convertible the teacher had beautifully restored. He then spent the rest of the class period showing pictures taken during the