An Imperfect Miracle Read Online Free PDF

that Chewy must have had a good life now that she was invisible and didn’t have to put up with people anymore, other than me, that is. Carlos must have seen the gloom on my face and tried to cheer me up, because his smile fired up even brighter.
    â€œWhen you’re the instrument of the Lord, it’s always possible that you might run into some opposition. But I wouldn’t worry about it. Mary is here among us now, and I’m sure she’ll figure out a way to resolve any problems that might pop up.”
    I wondered if he was just being funny, or if he was trying to scare the living daylights out of me.
    â€œWhat kind of problems?”
    He wagged his finger at my nose a few times, which was when I noticed how thick and hairy his knuckles were.
    â€œThe important thing to remember, no matter what happens, is that the power of the invisible is stronger than the things you can see. It’s the power of the invisible that’s at work here.”
    I never remembered Pastor Mike and the other minister at our church, Pastor Bob, the one Mom didn’t like nearly as much, ever talking like that. I was about to ask him what he meant when some people came up and started squawking about the price of the six-by-twelve framed pictures of Mary staring off at a bright red sky. They wanted to know whether Carlos was willing to give them a discount, since they were long-standing members of St. Sebastian’s. I decided that this invisible power was probably just some Catholic thing that didn’t apply to me, and that I could always ask Carlos about it later.
    On account of the mob pressing and shoving to get close to Mary, I couldn’t wriggle in far enough to see if she was still crying, or whether there was anything else that I might have missed about her. I began staring at all the people instead to see if I recognized anyone. But after a while their faces looked like just a bunch of old cracked dishes, and all of a sudden I got bored with it all. As I started to walk home, I noticed Mr. Grimes throwing me a sharp, nasty kind of look. But he was always glaring at me that way at school, and I didn’t think much of it. Then Chewy came over wagging her tail and I felt like petting her up good, but I decided not to with all the people around.

Chapter 3
    Chewy was a mutt, mostly Australian sheepdog with a little German Shepherd and Collie thrown in, at least according to Mom, who rescued her from the shelter when she was just a puppy. She was a good dog though, smart and friendly, and always liked to keep things organized around the house, so that whenever we had company she’d try to herd everybody into the same room where she could keep an eye on us. She liked digging up Mom’s little garden out back too, and she loved car rides, which my dad used to take us on once in a while before he grew a beard and pierced his nose and ran off someplace.
    Chewy was already nearly three years old when I was born, but she never held that against me, and we were friends right from the start. She was always trying to get me to run faster too. She liked to sprint ahead whenever we were out on the street and then bark real loud and run circles around me. Our house was kind of narrow, but it had two stories and she loved to go tearing up and down the steps, until Mom put a stop to it because the little wooden planks in the floor were starting to shake loose. Chewy never slowed down much either, even when she got past thirteen years old, which is pretty ancient for a good-sized dog like her. Then one day she up and died.
    I was way more sad about Chewy dying than when Dad had run out on us. Mom must have been too since she cried almost as much as me. That Sunday at church right at the end of the service when Pastor Mike was praying for all of us, I got an idea. The way our church worked was that when the minister was praying out loud, everybody else shut up and listened. But I decided that this special prayer of