Renewal Read Online Free PDF

flashlight, each in a different color. Mine was silver. Each light had a little belt pouch made out of black cloth. Dad said, “These are your lights. You keep them with you wherever you go from now on, no matter what. You can keep them in your pocket, you can use the belt holder, or you can hold it in your hand, but you will not leave them anywhere. Ok? And by the way, I know each of your colors, so if I see your light sitting alone somewhere, I’ll know who broke the rules.”
     
    This was serious. Gifts in our family usually came with fun and joy; this came with a threat from our mild mannered father. It had the aspect of a church service, all solemn and serious. We were struck by the tone and took it seriously. He continued, “And these are your knives.” Dad handed Kirk and me a small belt knife. We could barely resist the male urge to pull them out and start cutting something. Lucy got a black Gerber folding knife, and Tommy got a traditional little three-blade folding pocket knife. It was small, but real, and as his first real knife, Tommy took it with great seriousness. Dad said, “The same rules apply. These knives are not toys; they are tools. If I see you messing around with them, you will lose yours. Keep them with you at all times. If you are wearing clothes, these knives are with you. If not, they better be where you can reach them.” We thought it was getting a little overboard at that point, but hey, we got knives! We didn’t realize how important those rules would become.
     
    Mom took Tommy into the tent and lay with him while Dad continued his talk. “Things are ok right now, understand? But…” He looked at all of us in turn, “They could get bad. We’ll talk more about what that means soon, but for right now, you should know that we hit China very hard. China had a lot of short range weapons they used against some of our friends, like Japan. North Korea, which is a friend of China, sort of, is trying to fight us and their enemies in South Korea at the same time. Our friends in Israel, in the Middle East, caught wind of some of their enemies planning to attack them, so they did what is called a pre-emptive strike, which means they hit first with nuclear weapons. The entire Middle East is a wasteland now. Most of our oil comes from that part of the world, so at the very least, gas is going to get very expensive, and very hard to find. People in our country are going to get upset.”
     
    We must have looked confused, because he said, “Listen guys, I know it doesn’t make much sense right now, and that’s not even all of it. Maybe we can find a map so I can show you where all these places are. For now, don’t worry, we’ll be ok. I know it’s early for you guys, but I’d like to try and get some sleep. I think it’s going to be a long day tomorrow.”
     
    We were dumbfounded. Kirk was always the no-nonsense one, so when he stood up and went straight to the tent, Lucy and I gave Dad a quick hug and followed. When we were all in our sleeping bags, and Tommy was sound asleep, my Mom switched the little lantern off, and went outside. She zipped up the screen door, but left the solid cloth door open. We watched for a while as Mom and Dad took everything off the roof of the car, and locked it in the back. Then they got in the front seat, turned on the radio, and started talking. I remember wondering where they we going to sleep as I drifted off to sleep myself.
     
    I woke up confused about where I was, but as soon as I saw my brothers, I relaxed and then it all came back. The next thought was about where my parents were. Someone had zipped up the door panel, and I could only see the early light filtered through yellow cloth, which made it seem sunny, but when I unzipped the door, I realized it was very early, and the sun wasn’t even up yet. My movement woke up Kirk and he followed me out of the tent. Mom and dad were lying on the front seats of the station wagon, which were folded back as