The
Big Pill
The custom of "going on a retreat" has long
been popular among Roman Catholics. A group of adults or sometimes teens would
spend a weekend at a specially designated "retreat house" located in a
quiet residential or bucolic area. There, they would pray, talk about their
faith, sing and, in the case of teens, occasionally engage in social activities
like roller-skating.
Sunday
There were a dozen tables in the huge retreat-house
cafeteria. There were eight plates on each table. There was a big pill on each
plate.
The high-school students, attending a weekend youth retreat,
came in and sat down. Their bodies were stiff with tension.
Father Cushman, the retreat master, picked up the microphone.
"Before you eat," he said, "you'd better take your pill."
Then he waited.
Yvonne looked at the pill in front of her. Should she take
it?
The Friday Before
Yvonne was a little nervous about attending the weekend
retreat. She was painfully, hopelessly shy. If she had known what was in store
for the teens who attended the retreat, she would not have considered going
there at all. But she did not know, and she hoped that she would make friends
during the weekend.
Father Cushman greeted each of the high-schoolers with a big
hug as he or she arrived at the retreat house. The students all loved the warm
reception. Except for Yvonne; she felt uncomfortable hugging a stranger.
Saturday
There were 207 people in the retreat-house gym, roller
skating to music from an old stereo. But Sister Joseph knew that there should be
208. After checking off the young people on her list, she knew that Yvonne was
missing.
Sister Joseph asked Dawn if she had seen Yvonne, who was
Dawn's roommate. Dawn said that Yvonne didn't like roller skating and was going
to stay in her room and read. Sister Joseph reported this to Father Cushman.
Father Cushman went up to Yvonne's room. He tapped on her
door before he opened it. Yvonne's room was dark; he knew that she had not been
reading. Gently, he asked if he could come in.
As Father Cushman's eyes became accustomed to the dark, he
saw that Yvonne was lying on the bed. Her eyes were red and puffy. She covered
the right side of her chin with her right hand.
"Why are you crying?" he asked.
"Because I'm ugly," Yvonne said. She hated crying
in front of other people, but she broke into tears anyway.
Father Cushman couldn't understand why Yvonne thought that
she was ugly until she took her hand away from her face to push herself into a
sitting position. There on her chin was the biggest, reddest pimple he had ever
seen.
"That pimple isn't going to be noticed by most of the
kids, and it won't matter to the rest of them," he said. "There are
lots of people down there who love you. Just come on down and have some
fun!"
"But I don't know how to skate," Yvonne said.
So Father Cushman found two girls who stood on each side of
Yvonne and held her up, "teaching" her how to skate. Yvonne didn't
like it when they went fast, because that made death fantasies zip through her
mind.
Meanwhile, there was a rumor circulating through the gym. As
Yvonne took off her skates, she heard a boy tell Dawn that they were all going
to go skydiving the next day. Skydiving! Was skydiving safe for teenagers? All
the around the gym, Yvonne heard tense debate about the safety of skydiving.
"My mom doesn't know about any skydiving," a boy
named Ivan said. "Shouldn't our parents be notified first?"
"Notified!" a girl named Sarah said. "Father
Cushman should get their permission."
"I'm calling my mom right now," Dawn said. She left
in search of a phone.
"Now everybody's acting as nervous as I've been
feeling," Yvonne thought.
Sunday
The next day at breakfast, Father Cushman announced that the
skydiving rumor was true. But he did not say, "Anybody who wants to go . .
." He just said that they
would "all" go skydiving after supper.
Yvonne was suspicious, because Father Cushman had talked
about the roller-skating event very differently -- as something fun, not an
obligation or a dare.
As Sunday morning went by, everyone became more and more
worried about the skydiving.
"I have a splitting headache," Dawn said as she and
Yvonne sat in their room after lunch.
"I bet you're tense about going skydiving," Yvonne
said. "Here, take some aspirin."
"You carry aspirin with you to retreats?"
"I carry it with me everywhere. I'm headache-prone.
"Then why don't you have a headache now?"
"Maybe because, now that everybody else is tense too, I
feel better," Yvonne said.
After Dawn's headache had abated, she and Yvonne went back
downstairs to join the others. The group was no longer joking or singing.
Skydiving was the only thing on their minds, the only thing they could talk or
pray about.
Sunday At Supper
On each plate was a big pill. Father Cushman explained that
the pills were meant to prevent airsickness. Since they would all be skydiving
after supper, they needed to take the pills now.
There was silence as the young people looked at the meds in
front of them. Father Cushman waited. Yvonne thought that he was watching them
all a little too closely.
Ivan said, "Oh, who cares?" and popped his pill
into his mouth. A couple of girls who liked Ivan took their pills. Sarah, who
had a crush on Father Cushman, took her pill. Twenty more students also took
their pills just because they admired Father Cushman so much.
So many of the students had taken their pills by now that the
rest of them were afraid that they would be laughed at if they didn't.
Eventually, every student there had taken the big pill -- except for Yvonne. She
was still looking around at the others, fascinated.
Then they started turning to look at her. Terrified, Yvonne
picked up her pill.
But Yvonne had never taken a pill in her life. She had been
taught that it's not a good idea to take any pill unless the doctor says that
it's absolutely necessary.
Her hand shook with tension. She hated being laughed at, but
she could not get over her suspicions; Father Cushman was up to something.
Yvonne put the pill back down on her plate. Although her
lower lip was quivering, she was determined not to cry this time.
Father Cushman was baffled. The only one who had the courage
to pass his little test was the one who had been hiding in her room the night
before. He called her up to the front of the room. Yvonne wouldn't go.
Father Cushman quickly sensed why. "I'm not punishing
you," he said. "Come on."
Slowly Yvonne walked to the front of the room. She hated the
mean way the others were looking at her.
Father Cushman took the mic and explained that there would be
no skydiving and that the pills were nothing but sugar. Then he lectured the
teens on how gullible they had been. He told them that they needed to learn to
take what people told them with a grain of salt.
"Yvonne," he said, "why didn't you believe the
skydiving rumor?" He handed the mic to Yvonne.
"I did --" she said, then stopped, frightened by
the unfamiliar echo-like sound the mic emitted.
"Go ahead," Father Cushman said.
"I did believe it," Yvonne said for all to hear.
"Gullibility isn't the point. I just don't fit in." She handed the mic
back to Father Cushman.
Father Cushman must have been angry, although he hid it well.
The cafeteria was silent except for a few nervous titters. Everyone there knew
how much trouble Yvonne was in. Only when Yvonne was out of sight of the priest
did anyone talk to her.
"You do fit in!" one girl said. A few boys
gave her high fives, grinning.
Dawn promised that she would call Yvonne the next day and be
her friend forever. Several other girls took Yvonne's phone number too.
As her father drove her home, Yvonne smiled, thinking of the
seven girls who were her friends now.
Not one of them ever called.
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