Angry Conversations with God Read Online Free PDF Page A

my fifth-grade birthday party. “Susie, I hear you
     say that you’re angry a lot. And that’s not good because if you’re angry, people won’t like you.”
    Well, that really pissed me off. The reason I was
righteously
angry was because Kirsten was being
evil
to me, at my birthday party, in my house! Mom had invited Kirsten because we had to “be like Jesus and love everyone.” We
     were playing Pin the Tail on the Donkey. When it was my turn to be blindfolded, Kirsten kicked me. So I ripped off the blindfold
     and went after her, but Mom caught me and took me to her room.
    And there we had the same conversation we’d been having ever since Kirsten came to my school. I said I didn’t do anything;
     Mom said there were two sides to every story. I begged Mom to talk to Kirsten’s mom; Mom said Kirsten’s mom was just as bad
     as Kirsten.
    “Then talk to Principal Bergen!” I cried.
    “Susie”—Mom’s voice wavered—“you have to learn to solve arguments yourself.”
    “But I wasn’t arguing!
I had a blindfold on!
“
    “I can’t do the work of two parents!” Mother cried, and ran out of the room.
    I sat thinking about what Mom had said: how I had to learn to solve arguments myself. But from whom? Mom never solved arguments;
     she just ran away. Then I thought of the other thing she’d said: people wouldn’t like me if I was angry. I knew it was true
     because nobody liked my dad.
    Olivet Lutheran School went through sixth grade. On the first day of my final year, I walked into class to discover that Jenny,
     the only girl who’d ever stood by me, had left for TeWinkle, the public junior high. Kirsten sat in the chair behind mine,
     ready for one last year of Lutheran-school tyranny.
    That afternoon I found my mother in the backyard. “Mom, I want to go to TeWinkle.”
    Mom kept her back to me as she watered her roses. The water spilled into her strawberry troughs and on into her nasturtiums.
     Mom put a lot of work into her garden. It was her outlet for being ignored by my father. Like she was ignoring me now.
    “Why do you want to leave Olivet?” Mom’s voice cracked.
    She was acting like I wanted to leave Jesus. I didn’t want to leave Jesus; I loved Jesus. I just didn’t want to be bullied
     anymore!
    Mom began to cry. I went inside. Nothing more was said.
    Three weeks later I was in Principal Bergen’s office, waiting to get paddled. As I looked up at the Nice Jesus on the wall,
     I thought of how much he reminded me of my mother. Maybe because they were both brown-haired, Norwegian, and depressed.
    Principal Bergen came out and sat next to me on the hard wooden bench. Miss Bergen spoke in a calm, Lutheranmissionary voice.
     She had lived in Madagascar with pygmies. She had eaten monkey meat and intestines and shrunken heads. Nothing frightened
     Miss Bergen.
    “Susie, do you know why you’re here?”
    That afternoon, Kirsten had gotten me out in a game of dodge ball—and she was on my team. Kirsten had been knocked out first.
     And every play that I stayed in, she got more jealous. She whispered to our teammates, and they stopped passing me the ball.
     She whispered to the opposing team, and they aimed only at me. But I was fast, agile, and pissed. I dodged; I jumped. I caught
     the ball. I hurled it back. I hit boys out. Hard.
    Finally, our team whittled down to two players: me and Edith Knapp, a slow girl who never got the ball because the boys didn’t
     want cooties on it. Kirsten walked over and handed the ball to afat guy on the other team. He slammed it at my thigh, and
     the ball fell to the ground. I was out. And Kirsten danced in triumph.
    I ran at her, face pulsing, grabbed her thick, red ponytail like a lasso, and spun her around. Then I let go. Kirsten flew
     outward. She skidded across the blacktop, scraping knees and elbows, the pebbles ripping into her powder-blue pantsuit. The
     crowd gasped. Kirsten stared at me. Then she started bawling. The boys whooped. My secret