Listen to me tonight on Black Authors Network @ 8PM EST. http://tinyurl.com/64ujfa I'llbe sharing Christian Book News. If you want to be spotlighted, hit me up.
Dee
The Pruning Principle
3 years ago
Monday, June 16, 2008
Talk to Me Tonight On Blog Talk Radio
Listen to me tonight on Black Authors Network @ 8PM EST. http://tinyurl.com/64ujfa I'llbe sharing Christian Book News. If you want to be spotlighted, hit me up.
Dee
Win $500 Zappos Gift Certificate
Win $500 Zappos gift certificate by participating in the What's the coolest thing you can do with a shoe? contest The contest lasts for three weeks. I would love to win some shoes. Let me know if you enter. :)
3 Steps to Self-Editing the Vertical Novel
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Why Evolution Can't Explain Human Existence
It's June 15th, time for the Non~FIRST blog tour!(Join our alliance! Click the button!) Every 15th, we will featuring an author and his/her latest non~fiction book's FIRST chapter!
The feature author is:
and his book:
Harvest House Publishers (March 1, 2008)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
A career biology instructor, Kenneth Poppe holds a doctorate in education and taught in secondary schools for more than 25 years. He is now senior consultant with the International Foundation for Science Education by Design (www.ifsed.org). In addition to working in teacher education and assisting in DNA research of stream ecology, he has authored Reclaiming Science from Darwinism.Product Details:
List Price: $14.99
Paperback: 304 pages
Publisher: Harvest House Publishers (March 1, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0736921257
ISBN-13: 978-0736921251
AND NOW...THE FIRST CHAPTER:
The majority is not trying to establish a religion or to teach it—it is trying to protect itself from the effort of an insolent minority to force irreligion upon the children under the guise of teaching science.
—WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN
BRYAN WAS THE ATTORNEY FOR THE PROSECUTION AT THE 1925 “SCOPES MONKEY TRIAL” IN DAYTON, TENNESSEE THAT MADE EVOLUTION A HOUSEHOLD TERM. THE ABOVE WORDS ARE FROM HIS
WRITTEN CLOSING STATEMENT, WHICH WAS NEVER READ IN COURT.
1
EXAMINING YOUR FAMILY TREE
A Monkey for an Uncle?
EXAMINING YOUR FAMILY TREE
A Monkey for an Uncle?
Consider your biological father. He is responsible for half of the genetic codes that shaped your body, and probably some of your personality as well. Now consider his father, your grandfather. If typical, I would guess at least a couple of your body traits are more grandpa’s than dad’s—having somehow skipped a generation. And how about your great-grandfather? Were you lucky enough to know him, even if just like me, through those vague and shifting memories as a very
small boy? Dare I throw in a great-great-grandfather—in my case known only through legend and those grainy black-and-white photos of a roughly dressed man beside a horse and buggy?
Consider that when your great-great-grandfather was your age, for surely he once was, he could try to reconstruct his lineage just as you have done. What names and faces would he have recalled? And if you could piece great-great-granddad’s and your recollections together, that would create a timeline taking you back eight generations—perhaps 250 years or so! Where would you find your ancestors then? In my case, I’m told, the Hamburg, Germany, area. And would my ancestors then be traced to the nomadic Gaelic stock that inhabited Western Europe before formal countries were established there? And then to where? Ancient Phoenicians, Sumerians, Egyptians? And how about yours?
Now to get to the main point. If you kept traveling back in time in this manner, generation after generation, where would you end up? Where would your dad’s ancestors have been living 1000 years ago? 2500 to 5000 years ago? And so on? Those who believe in strict Darwinism would say an extended family schematic would show your ancestors going back several million years ago where they first evolved on the African continent. And on this reverse journey you would see slowly reappearing total body hair, steadily shrinking brains, increasingly sloping foreheads and jaw protrusions, and extending arms whose knuckles would eventually be dragging the ground, assisting a clumsy, bent-over gait. In other words, strict evolutionists say if you could backtrack your family tree for, say, 5 million years, your ancestors would now be closer in appearance to a chimp than a human. And if you continued farther back in time, the coccyx bone at the bottom of your pelvis would extend into a prehensile tail, and the reappearing grasping toes on your feet would send you back to swinging in the trees from whence you came some 10 to 15 million years ago.
Stop and ponder your supposed family tree in this way—a videotape in rewind. Is this really how it went down? Did humans come from monkeys? (Often a Darwinist will answer no to this question by saying it wasn’t a direct path of evolution. But monkeys have to be on the path before apes, right? And apes would have to be on the path before humanoids, right? So it most absolutely is, in theory, “monkey to man”—no matter how crooked the line.) Now if this isn’t the truth, what’s the alternative? Unless you consult primitive worship superstitions, I’ve stated before that the world’s five major religions give you one origin—Genesis—and it includes a tantalizing tale of an innocent man Adam and his companion woman, Eve, in a pristine garden. But for so many, that’s a fairy tale of bigger proportions than monkeys becoming humans. So what is the truth?
Here’s my response. Regardless of which religious view(s) might supply the answer(s), I will stand firmly on this:
On the contrary, science, and even philosophy, validate the title of this book and its overriding message as stated a few pages ago.
Either-Or
If there is an alternative answer to the totally unscientific view that monkeys slowly turned into people, ostensibly it is one of the religious variety. But before we tackle the idea, let me first share the concept I find continually bubbling up from the origins cauldron: Almost every major issue concludes with just two choices—either it could have happened this way, or it couldn’t. So grab a writing instrument and check your choice of one of two for each of the ten statements below.
It Could It Couldn’t
Happen Happen
_______ ______ 1. The most violent accidental explosion ever, the big bang, was sufficiently self-appointed to create the largest and most fine-tuned object ever known, the universe.
_______ ______ 2. The sheer number of planets in the universe, and the number of years these planets have existed, give us a mathematical chance that at least one would become a fully interactive biological world—ours—by accident.
_______ ______ 3. Blind luck had the ability to construct the approximately 80,000 different life-required protein chains of specifically sequenced amino acids (from an “alphabet” of 20 different amino-acid choices)—even those proteins 10,000 amino acids long.
_______ ______ 4. The RNA/DNA molecules, containing information equivalent to all the books in 20 standard libraries, suddenly appeared by chance in the “primordial soup” before the first cell was a reality.
_______ ______ 5. Almost as soon as Earth’s conditions permitted, a functional cell appeared, selfprepared with a wide array of metabolizing and reproductive mechanisms.
_______ ______ 6. A half billion years ago, in the blink of an evolutionary eye, the Cambrian explosion self-generated the completely interactive gene pool of all 32 animal phyla with complex organ systems. Once complex life didn’t exist, then it was all there.
_______ ______ 7. After the Cambrian explosion, random scramblings of genetic information kept producing improved genetic codes. This allowed life to surge forward as animals kept giving rise to improved offspring with which, suddenly
or eventually, they could not mate.
_______ ______ 8. These accidental genetic surges adequately explain a whole host of large-scale advances— for example, straight bones in fins turning into jointed bones in legs, reptile scales turning into bird feathers, photosensitive cells turning into eyes, births from amniotic eggs turning into births from a placenta, and chordates like cows or hippos going back into the ocean to become whales.
_______ ______ 9. While animals randomly surged forward within 32 phyla from sponges to mammals, plants accomplished a similar advance in complexity from moss to cacti, but did it in only 8 steps, often called divisions instead of phyla.
And central to this book:
_______ ______ 10. Primates like monkeys left the trees and kept getting bigger, stronger, and smarter. About 5 million years of natural selection was sufficient time for hominids to adapt to walking on their hind legs, learn to use tools,
fashion clothes to wear, master fire, develop first spoken and then written communication, and finally organize societies in cave homes among maple groves that eventually became cottage homes on Maple Street.
So how did you score on this checklist? The two most extreme scores would be to have all ten checks in the right column of “it couldn’t happen”—like me—or all ten checks on the left column of “it could happen.” Of course, you realize that one single check in the right column dooms Darwinism to immediate failure. All it takes is one legitimate “couldn’t” check in this either-or set-up and natural evolution has no chance to produce me the writer, or you the reader. If you can, actually imagine trying to agree with all ten statements as checked on the left, and I’ll wager you’ll feel the full weight of the folly of “self-made” life. Therefore, if you find evolution insufficient in even one instance, you need to consider a bigger-than-science connection— unless, of course, you want to remain apathetic. So, if evolution or apathy is not the answer, I suggest you begin a quest to come to grips with the “God” who engineered this miracle.
Rejecting statement #10 above reflects this chapter’s opening rejection of the idea that all our ancestral lines slowly become more stooped and stupider as we observe the reverse of totally natural processes. If the world generally rejected that notion and stood on the “God alternative” with confidence, it would dramatically change the debate on the other nine statements. And yet if monkeys are not our uncles then how do you explain human origin? How do you explain the master plan of God the Designer?
small boy? Dare I throw in a great-great-grandfather—in my case known only through legend and those grainy black-and-white photos of a roughly dressed man beside a horse and buggy?
Consider that when your great-great-grandfather was your age, for surely he once was, he could try to reconstruct his lineage just as you have done. What names and faces would he have recalled? And if you could piece great-great-granddad’s and your recollections together, that would create a timeline taking you back eight generations—perhaps 250 years or so! Where would you find your ancestors then? In my case, I’m told, the Hamburg, Germany, area. And would my ancestors then be traced to the nomadic Gaelic stock that inhabited Western Europe before formal countries were established there? And then to where? Ancient Phoenicians, Sumerians, Egyptians? And how about yours?
Now to get to the main point. If you kept traveling back in time in this manner, generation after generation, where would you end up? Where would your dad’s ancestors have been living 1000 years ago? 2500 to 5000 years ago? And so on? Those who believe in strict Darwinism would say an extended family schematic would show your ancestors going back several million years ago where they first evolved on the African continent. And on this reverse journey you would see slowly reappearing total body hair, steadily shrinking brains, increasingly sloping foreheads and jaw protrusions, and extending arms whose knuckles would eventually be dragging the ground, assisting a clumsy, bent-over gait. In other words, strict evolutionists say if you could backtrack your family tree for, say, 5 million years, your ancestors would now be closer in appearance to a chimp than a human. And if you continued farther back in time, the coccyx bone at the bottom of your pelvis would extend into a prehensile tail, and the reappearing grasping toes on your feet would send you back to swinging in the trees from whence you came some 10 to 15 million years ago.
Stop and ponder your supposed family tree in this way—a videotape in rewind. Is this really how it went down? Did humans come from monkeys? (Often a Darwinist will answer no to this question by saying it wasn’t a direct path of evolution. But monkeys have to be on the path before apes, right? And apes would have to be on the path before humanoids, right? So it most absolutely is, in theory, “monkey to man”—no matter how crooked the line.) Now if this isn’t the truth, what’s the alternative? Unless you consult primitive worship superstitions, I’ve stated before that the world’s five major religions give you one origin—Genesis—and it includes a tantalizing tale of an innocent man Adam and his companion woman, Eve, in a pristine garden. But for so many, that’s a fairy tale of bigger proportions than monkeys becoming humans. So what is the truth?
Here’s my response. Regardless of which religious view(s) might supply the answer(s), I will stand firmly on this:
There is absolutely no scientific support for the
monkey-to-man scenario—absolutely none.
On the contrary, science, and even philosophy, validate the title of this book and its overriding message as stated a few pages ago.
Either-Or
If there is an alternative answer to the totally unscientific view that monkeys slowly turned into people, ostensibly it is one of the religious variety. But before we tackle the idea, let me first share the concept I find continually bubbling up from the origins cauldron: Almost every major issue concludes with just two choices—either it could have happened this way, or it couldn’t. So grab a writing instrument and check your choice of one of two for each of the ten statements below.
It Could It Couldn’t
Happen Happen
_______ ______ 1. The most violent accidental explosion ever, the big bang, was sufficiently self-appointed to create the largest and most fine-tuned object ever known, the universe.
_______ ______ 2. The sheer number of planets in the universe, and the number of years these planets have existed, give us a mathematical chance that at least one would become a fully interactive biological world—ours—by accident.
_______ ______ 3. Blind luck had the ability to construct the approximately 80,000 different life-required protein chains of specifically sequenced amino acids (from an “alphabet” of 20 different amino-acid choices)—even those proteins 10,000 amino acids long.
_______ ______ 4. The RNA/DNA molecules, containing information equivalent to all the books in 20 standard libraries, suddenly appeared by chance in the “primordial soup” before the first cell was a reality.
_______ ______ 5. Almost as soon as Earth’s conditions permitted, a functional cell appeared, selfprepared with a wide array of metabolizing and reproductive mechanisms.
_______ ______ 6. A half billion years ago, in the blink of an evolutionary eye, the Cambrian explosion self-generated the completely interactive gene pool of all 32 animal phyla with complex organ systems. Once complex life didn’t exist, then it was all there.
_______ ______ 7. After the Cambrian explosion, random scramblings of genetic information kept producing improved genetic codes. This allowed life to surge forward as animals kept giving rise to improved offspring with which, suddenly
or eventually, they could not mate.
_______ ______ 8. These accidental genetic surges adequately explain a whole host of large-scale advances— for example, straight bones in fins turning into jointed bones in legs, reptile scales turning into bird feathers, photosensitive cells turning into eyes, births from amniotic eggs turning into births from a placenta, and chordates like cows or hippos going back into the ocean to become whales.
_______ ______ 9. While animals randomly surged forward within 32 phyla from sponges to mammals, plants accomplished a similar advance in complexity from moss to cacti, but did it in only 8 steps, often called divisions instead of phyla.
And central to this book:
_______ ______ 10. Primates like monkeys left the trees and kept getting bigger, stronger, and smarter. About 5 million years of natural selection was sufficient time for hominids to adapt to walking on their hind legs, learn to use tools,
fashion clothes to wear, master fire, develop first spoken and then written communication, and finally organize societies in cave homes among maple groves that eventually became cottage homes on Maple Street.
So how did you score on this checklist? The two most extreme scores would be to have all ten checks in the right column of “it couldn’t happen”—like me—or all ten checks on the left column of “it could happen.” Of course, you realize that one single check in the right column dooms Darwinism to immediate failure. All it takes is one legitimate “couldn’t” check in this either-or set-up and natural evolution has no chance to produce me the writer, or you the reader. If you can, actually imagine trying to agree with all ten statements as checked on the left, and I’ll wager you’ll feel the full weight of the folly of “self-made” life. Therefore, if you find evolution insufficient in even one instance, you need to consider a bigger-than-science connection— unless, of course, you want to remain apathetic. So, if evolution or apathy is not the answer, I suggest you begin a quest to come to grips with the “God” who engineered this miracle.
Rejecting statement #10 above reflects this chapter’s opening rejection of the idea that all our ancestral lines slowly become more stooped and stupider as we observe the reverse of totally natural processes. If the world generally rejected that notion and stood on the “God alternative” with confidence, it would dramatically change the debate on the other nine statements. And yet if monkeys are not our uncles then how do you explain human origin? How do you explain the master plan of God the Designer?
Friday, June 13, 2008
Weekend Chatterbox: What's your Reading Lifestyle?
This week The Christian Writer's View have been sharing their reading lifestyle with each other. I thought I would share my response with the hopes that this weekend you will share yours with me. Since its summer and some of us have a little more time to read than any other time, and since gas prices have some of us locked in our homes I thought it would be a great opportunity to share. Also recommend some great stories if you will. Happy Father's Day Weekend.All Christian fiction genres, all African-American except erotica, but have fallen in love with Nigerian and Black British lit.
2. Do I have a reading schedule?
I am an inspirational reviewer for Romantic Times Magazine, write literary criticism for Mosaic Literary Journal, is News/Books editor for Hope for Women Mag, have a syndicated book buzz column (under an alias), have been a Christys Judge for 3 years now, own Christian Fiction Blog and a children’s book blog, so I must have a reading schedule to stay sane. I use Google Calendar, a monthly planner, and a book reviewer's journal.
3. Must have subscriptions?
Poets & Writers, Romantic Times, Black Book Issues, Mosaic, Essence, QBR, Relief Journal, Salon, Shelf Awareness, BookList
4. Reading goals?
To find more AA children books.
5. Squeezing reading in to life?
6. What determines whether you'll take the time to read something someone gives you?
First line, very unique and provocative synopsis
7. Recommendations:
Claudia Mair Burney's Wounded, Walter Mosley's Blonde Faith and Uwem Akpan's So You're One of Them. Visit the CFB A Store or our Books-A Million FaithPoints Affiliate link for discounts on these titles.)
Steven Curtis Chapman & The WIlliams' Brothers This Weekend For Televised Father's Day Special
FATHER’S DAY WEEKEND ON GOSPEL MUSIC CHANNEL FEATURES STEVEN CURTIS CHAPMAN, MICHAEL W. SMITH,NATE SALLIE & THE WILLIAMS BROTHERS
ATLANTA, GA June 12, 2008 – Steven Curtis Chapman, Michael W. Smith, Nate Sallie, and The Williams Brothers will be featured during Gospel Music Channel’s special Father’s Day Weekend TV event beginning Friday, June 13. GMC will play nightly episodes of its Faith & Fame series, featuring some of Christian/Gospel music’s famous dads. Faith & Fame is GMC’s original biography series that invites viewers to go behind the scenes for a tour of the private world of their favorite artists as they share stories of their lives, family, music and faith.
GMC’s Father’s Day Weekend 2008
Friday, June 13 at 7:30 p.m. ET/PT. Morgyn Sallie’s dad Nate Sallie will be the Faith & Fame subject as the “pastor's kid” from Washington, D.C. shares his journey from sports fanatic to musical star, and the struggles and triumphs in between.
Saturday, June 14 at 9 p.m. ET/PT Father’s Day Eve features back-to-back Faith & Fame episodes with two of today’s biggest Christian pop artists who are as proud of being fathers as they are of their platinum-selling music careers.
First up at 9 p.m. ET/PT is Faith & Fame: Michael W. Smith. Blessed with five now-grown kids - Ryan, Whitney, Tyler, Emily and Anna – Smith recently celebrated his 25th year in the music business and talks about the challenges he’s faced in his life and career.
Following at 10:00 p.m. ET/PT, Faith & Fame looks at the life of Steven Curtis Chapman who, after raising three children with wife Mary Beth, adopted three more daughters from China and inspired them to create Shaohannah’s Hope Foundation. (Chapman’s Faith & Fame story took an overwhelming turn recently with the accidental death of 5-year-old Maria.)
Father’s Day, Sunday, June 15 at 7:30 p.m. ET/PT. A trio of dads and one of gospel’s longest running groups, The Williams Brothers, share their life stories. Faith & Fame’s intimate conversation with current members Melvin Williams, Doug Williams and Henry Green chronicles the renowned group from its founding by Leon "Pop" Williams in 1960 through its five decades of success.
Gospel Music Channel is the nation’s first and only 24/7 television network devoted to the uplifting, inspiring and diverse music that is Gospel/Christian music. Gospel Music Channel is the fastest-growing network in television today and can be seen in nearly 40 million homes on various cable systems around the country and on DIRECTV.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
WildCard: The Summer of Cotton Candy
It is time to play a Wild Card! Every now and then, a book that I have chosen to read is going to pop up as a FIRST Wild Card Tour. Get dealt into the game! (Just click the button!) Wild Card Tours feature an author and his/her book's FIRST chapter!
You never know when I might play a wild card on you!
Today's Wild Card author is:
and her book:
Zondervan (May 1, 2008)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Debbie Viguié has been writing for most of her life and holds a degree in creative writing from U. C. Davis. Debbie loves theme parks and has worked at both Knott's Berry Farm and Disneyland in California. When Debbie is not busy writing, she enjoys traveling with her husband, Scott. Debbie grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and now lives in Hawaii.
Other Sweet Seasons Novels:
The Fall of Candy Corn
The Winter of Candy Canes
Product Information:
List Price: $9.99
Reading level: Young Adult
Paperback: 224 pages
Publisher: Zondervan (May 1, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 031071558X
ISBN-13: 978-0310715580
AND NOW...THE FIRST CHAPTER:
Chapter OneCandace Thompson wondered where her life had gone wrong. Maybe when she was fourteen, she should have babysat her bratty cousin when her parents asked. Maybe when she was seven, if she hadn’t locked the teacher out of the classroom, this wouldn’t be happening to her. No, maybe her life went all wrong when she was three and she knocked down the girl with the pigtails who had stolen Mr. Huggles, her stuffed bear. Yes, the more she thought about it, that must have been the moment that started her on the path that led to the special punishment she was now suffering.
It was the first day of summer vacation, but for Candace, it might as well have been the last. She sat in a dark dreary office, signing away her freedom. The decree had come down from her father: she had to get a job. No job, no cash. No cash, no movies or hanging with her friends. It didn’t matter to him that if she had a job she wouldn’t have time to do the things she would need the money for.
She took a deep breath as she finished filling out the last form and handed it across the desk to the recruiter, Lloyd Peterson, a strange-looking man in a frumpy brown suit whom she was convinced had to be a perv. Hadn’t she seen him on America’s Most Wanted? She slid down into her seat, willing herself to be invisible, or at least small enough to slip away unnoticed.
“Candace,” he mused, “can I call you Candy?”
“Well ...” She was about to say no. She hated that name.
“Great. So, Candy, what makes you want to work for The Zone?”
She didn’t want to work for The Zone, she just wanted to enjoy her summer like everybody else. Her father had put his foot down, though. According to him it was time she learned the value of work and earning her own way. She had chosen to work for The Zone because she had absolutely no skills, and working for a theme park seemed more interesting than flipping burgers.
She sighed and squirmed, refusing to meet the recruiter’s eyes. “I’ve always dreamed of working for The Zone. I want to be part of the excitement and help -people enjoy themselves more.” It was her rehearsed answer, and she held her breath, hoping he would buy it.
He stared at her for a long minute before nodding. Picking up a bright blue folder on his desk, he flipped it open and cleared his throat. “You realize, of course, that if you wanted a summer job, you should have started applying months ago, right?” he asked, staring at her over the tops of his glasses.
She slunk farther down into her chair. She licked her lips when she realized he expected an answer. “No,” she said.
“No? No? Well, you are wrong. In order to get a good summer job, you should start applying at least in March.”
March! All I could think of in March was holding out until spring break without going postal. Her eyes were now nearly level with the edge of his desk. “I just thought, you know, The Zone needs a lot of employees.”
“You are correct, but most of our summer positions have already been filled.”
He stopped and stared at her. She wasn’t sure what he expected her to say, but she was beginning to have the sinking feeling that her summer would consist of asking -people if they wanted fries with their meal.
Just as she was about to get up to leave, sure that the interview had come to an end, he spoke. “We do, however, have two openings.”
She sat up. “What are they?”
“The first is janitorial.”
“You mean those -people who go around sweeping up after everyone?” That might not be so bad. At least I could keep moving, and nobody ever pays attention to them.
He raised an eyebrow. “Some of our janitorial employees do that, but not this position. This one is cleaning up the women’s restrooms.”
Candace’s stomach turned. In her mind she pictured the high-school bathroom by fourth period, and that was only with a few hundred users, not thousands. There was no way she was going there.
“Um, and the other one is ...?” she managed to ask as diplomatically as she could.
“Cotton candy operator.”
“I’ll take it!” she exclaimed, more loudly than she had meant to.
“Good!” Lloyd stood up and opened a drawer in one of his many filing cabinets. He pulled out a stack of papers two inches thick and slammed them down on his desk right in front of her. The desk continued to shake for a moment as though there had just been an earthquake. “Fill those out.”
“Now?” she asked, her mind boggling over the enormity of the task. She moved slightly so that she was eye level with the stack, and she could feel her hand begin to cramp up in premature protest.
“Yes, now. You can, however, use the table in the courtyard if you’d be more comfortable.”
The word duh came to mind, but she bit her tongue and kept it to herself.
“Yes, sir, thank you. I’ll do that,” she said instead, scrambling to her feet and grabbing the stack of papers. She made her way out of the room as fast as she could, taking a deep breath once in the hallway.
The hallways around this place are roomier than the offices, she thought to herself as she immediately began to feel less claustrophobic. She turned around, not sure which way the courtyard would be. She hadn’t seen one on her way in, so it must be in the other direction.
She came to a T in the hall and craned her neck to the right. All she could see that way were more offices, so she turned to the left ...
... and ran straight into a six-foot wall.
“Umph,” the wall gasped as Candace’s papers went flying in all directions.
“I am so sorry,” Candace said, realizing that the wall she had run into was actually a guy, a big guy, a guy with muscles she could see through his shirt. She looked up and forgot what she was going to say next. She was staring at the Lone Ranger. He stood there, larger than life in pale blue, complete with boots and gun belt. Black wavy hair shone from underneath a white hat pushed far back on his head. A black mask covered part of his face.
All this was not what stopped her in her tracks, though. What took her breath away and caused her to stare like an idiot were his eyes. He had amazing eyes that were bright blue and crackled like lightning. He stared right through her, and her heart began to hammer.
“I—I—”
He smiled at her, and she felt dizzy. “Are you lost, my lady?”
She nodded, still unable to look away from those piercing eyes.
“Here, let me help you,” he said, bending down.
For one dizzying moment his face came close to hers, and she thought he was going to kiss her just like in some movie. Instead of kissing her, though, he knelt down and began picking up her papers.
Idiot, she said to herself, feeling her cheeks burning. Her knees began to buckle, and she covered it by quickly dropping down to her knees and scooping up some of the papers that had managed to spread themselves across the width of the hall.
“I’m such a klutz,” she said.
“Not at all. How could you expect to run into something when you’re not looking where you’re going?”
She glanced up quickly, stunned at the rebuke. Then she noticed that he was grinning from ear to ear. They both burst out laughing.
“That should do it,” he said finally, handing her the last sheet of paper. His fingers brushed hers, and she felt her stomach do a flip-flop.
“Thanks.”
“So, where are you headed?”
“Um, um,” she stammered for a moment, her mind going completely blank.
“I take it you’re filling these out?” he said, tapping the stack of papers.
She nodded, relieved as she remembered, “Something was said about a courtyard that had a table.”
“I’ll show you where it is.”
She fell into step with him, and he led her down the corridor. They made three quick turns in a row and arrived at a door leading out to what truly was a small courtyard.
“There you go,” he said, holding the door open for her. She walked outside into the sun and plunked her papers down onto a table.
“Thanks.”
“I live to serve.”
She couldn’t think of something witty to say, so she just stared at him.
He winked at her. “I’ll see you around.”
Then he turned and left. She sank down into the chair, her knees feeling weak. “Who was that masked man?”
˝
Four hours and three phone calls to her father later, Candace finished filling out the application. She stacked up the tax forms, identity forms, nondisclosure forms, noncompetition agreements, and receipt-of-employee-handbook forms. And with a snort, she put the background check and financial disclosure form on top of the whole stack. She was seventeen, and she had no finances to disclose. She’d had a momentary panic about the background check until she realized they were looking for things like a criminal background or drug use and wouldn’t be interested in the fact that she’d had detention twice in seventh grade.
She flipped back through the employee handbook. It was over a hundred pages long. After reading through it, she realized that The Zone had a policy and procedure for absolutely everything. They even had three different emergency-evacuation plans, depending on whether it was fire, weapons problems, or natural disasters. Clearly the -people who worked on the handbook were paranoid, and now, after reading it, so was she.
She dragged herself to her feet, her stomach angrily reminding her that lunch had been hours before and she had missed it. She miraculously made her way back through the maze of corridors to Mr. Peterson’s office. He was speaking on the phone, so she stood in the doorway until he looked up and saw her.
He hung up the phone. “Come in, Candy. I take it you’re done?”
She nodded, handing him the stack.
“Excellent. Well, I’ll take a look at all these. I’m sure they’re in order. Let me just get copies of your driver’s license and social security card.”
She fished them out of her purse and handed them to him. He left the office for a minute and then returned with photocopies. He handed her cards back to her.
“Okay, you’ll start orientation tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” she asked.
“Yes, is there a problem with that?” he asked sharply.
“I just thought I’d have a -couple of days before—”
“Tomorrow’s our last orientation class for the summer. It’s either tomorrow or never.”
Never wasn’t an option, no matter how much she wanted it to be. A vision of a certain masked man flitted briefly through her mind. Then again, maybe this wasn’t going to be so bad after all.
“Tomorrow. Tomorrow is fine for me,” she said.
“Report to the lobby at seven forty a.m.”
There went any hope she had of sleeping in, probably forever. She sighed and nodded.
˝
“What do you mean you have to be home early tonight?” Candace’s best friend, Tamara Wilcox, huffed over the phone. “I thought we were hanging out?”
“We can still hang. I just need to get some sleep. I have to start work early in the morning,” Candace explained. She flipped onto her back and braced her legs against the wall next to her bed.
There was only silence on the other end of the phone.
“Tam, you still there?”
“Uh-huh. Meet me at Starbucks.”
“Can’t. I’m getting a job to earn summer spending money, and Dad won’t give me an advance.”
“I’m buying. Just get your butt over here.”
˝
Ten minutes later Candace was sitting down at a corner table where Tamara was already waiting for her. Without a word, Tamara slid a grande hot chocolate with a shot of raspberry across the table to her.
Candace blew through the tiny opening in the lid like she always did. Tonight, though, the whistling sound it produced didn’t make her smile. She was too busy trying to avoid looking at the daggers in Tamara’s eyes.
“So, you’re ditching me for the summer?”
“No, just five days a week. I should be free evenings and weekends.”
“Did they guarantee that?”
“Well, no, but they said it would likely be that. They couldn’t expect me to work during church, you know?”
Tamara crossed her arms over her chest, a sure sign she wasn’t buying it. “And what about youth group? Even if they don’t make you work Sunday morning they’re going to make you work Friday nights.”
“I should be free evenings,” Candace said, slinking down into her seat and hating that she was repeating herself. Somehow, it sounded less plausible than it had earlier in the recruiter’s office.
“And if you’re not? It’s bad enough you’re going to be blowing off church and youth group, but what about me? I’m your best friend. What kind of summer am I going to have without you?”
“Come on, no matter what hours I get, it will only be thirty-five a week. We can still do all kinds of stuff. And I’ll have the money to pay for it,” Candace said with a sigh. It was amazing sometimes how Tamara could turn anyone’s pain into her own.
Tamara uncrossed her arms and leaned forward, tapping one perfectly manicured nail on the table. “You know, if money is the issue, I can take care of that.”
Candace stared at her. Tamara was rich. Her whole family was. Her monthly allowance was more than some -people made in a year. Candace knew she was serious, and it was a tempting offer.
“I can’t,” she said at last, tears of frustration filling her eyes. “My dad would kill me.”
Tamara sat back, a disappointed look on her face. “Oh, is he pulling that rite-of-passage, learn-the-value-of-work crap on you?”
Candace nodded and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “Yeah, he’d freak if I backed out. And I don’t think you’re prepared to pay for my college tuition.”
Tamara laughed. “Would it get you to bail on this whole Zone thing?”
Candace scowled. “He’s my dad. What can I do?”
“Nothing,” Tamara said, shaking her head. “Parents are so much work.”
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