Prince Tennyson by Jenni James Page B

rock out of my way and sat down behind the tree at the playground during lunch recess. It was my thinking spot now. Sarah and Jasmine just laughed at me and told me I was weird, but I didn’t care. They would play with me tomorrow when I was in a better mood. They were getting used to me.
    I couldn’t help it. My grandma would’ve called me moody if she could see me right then—but I really couldn’t help it. My heart felt so different. Like it was cold now, and gone.
    Never mind.
    I was glad my mom was happy. I was glad her heart was warm and her eyes had sparks in them. I was glad, really.

Chapter Eighteen
    â€œHEY, YOU.”
    I didn’t look up when I heard Tyler’s voice.
    â€œHi.” My hands played with the grass. I didn’t pick it and throw it, though. We learned in science about how alive grass was. I didn’t want it to die anymore, so I didn’t pick it.
    â€œCan I sit down?” Tyler asked.
    â€œSure.” I shrugged, but he was already starting to sit.
    â€œSo, do you want to talk about it?” He began to pile a bunch of small rocks together. He liked to throw rocks now that we didn’t pick grass anymore.
    My fingers trailed over the soft grass and I let it tickle my palm. Tyler always came over and talked to me when I sat here. I didn’t sit here a lot, but some of the other kids were starting to say that he was my boyfriend.
    Some people could be so dumb.
    Tyler didn’t freak out about it, though, and I was glad. I wouldn’t want him not to sit by me just because other people were being dumb. He was a boy. He was my friend. But he wasn’t my boyfriend.
    I sighed. “Mom found out God was real today.”
    â€œReally?” Tyler tossed the smallest rock first.
    â€œYeah, she said she could feel Him and she got all tingly and warm and everything.”
    â€œThat’s what happened to me,” he said so quietly I almost didn’t hear him.
    â€œI know.” My fingers stopped trailing over the grass. “What do you think about that? What if God is real?”
    Tyler threw two more rocks and shrugged. “Then He’s real and we were wrong.”
    â€œBut . . . ” I turned a bit and looked at him. “We aren’t wrong, right?”
    He picked up the whole pile of rocks about three inches and let them fall back to the ground one by one next to his side. “Chelsea, I don’t know. It sure felt like God was in my room when I was crying, but I don’t know. What I do know is that I felt happier because of it, and it made me feel like getting up and not hiding anymore.”
    â€œOh.” I didn’t know what else to say.
    â€œYour dad was a soldier, right? And he was strong and brave and everything, right?”
    My fingers left the grass and climbed my jeans to wrap themselves together around my knees. “Yeah, he was really brave.”
    â€œAnd he got to do cool brave military things too, right?”
    â€œYeah, I guess so. But what does—”
    Tyler looked right at me. “Because someone once told me that you had to be really brave to believe in God.”
    â€œBrave?” My brows lowered. I didn’t get it. “How?”
    â€œIt’s really easy to believe God isn’t real, since you can’t see Him anyway. But the people who believed in God—even though they couldn’t see him—were brave, really, really brave. They were much more brave than anyone else because they let their hearts talk to them when everyone else told them to listen to their heads.”
    I thought about that. “My dad was really brave.”
    â€œDo you think he believed in God?”
    I played with the grass again. I didn’t want to answer that question. Instead I asked, “Who told you that? About being brave if you believed in God?”
    Tyler took a deep breath and threw a bunch of rocks at once. “My uncle Travis. He’s a brave soldier