Yuletide Peril. Irene Brand

his young friend, Timothy, by saying, ‘God has not given us the spirit of fear; but of power; and of love, and of a sound mind.’ We won’t let that old dilapidated house scare us. Let’s think about how it looked a hundred years ago.”

      “In that picture you have?”

      “Yes. Maybe we can make it that way again.”

      With a wistful sigh, Brooke said, “I do want a home of our own. I’m always afraid I’ll have to live with Dad and Mom again.”

      Janice winced when Brooke expressed the fear that had worried her until she turned eighteen. “I’m your legal guardian now, and wherever I am, you’re going to be with me,” she said firmly.

      “I don’t suppose they’d want me anyway.”

      Hatred, so acute it almost choked her, surged through Janice. Her feelings about her parents had been one barrier she couldn’t overcome to maintain a satisfying Christian outlook. She couldn’t forgive her parents for the way they’d neglected Brooke and her. Leroy and Florence Reid were addicted to drugs and alcohol, and they spent most of their time in bars. Even when they were at home, they lolled around in drunken stupors. Most of their money was spent on alcohol, not food for their children.

      She could have stood it for herself, but when it became clear even to her young eyes that Brooke was in danger of becoming malnourished, Janice had started hoarding away money taken from her parents’ wallets for food. She’d been successful in keeping them alive for six months before her parents were arrested and convicted of robbing a convenience store. They’d been sent to prison for ten years, with the possibility of parole after seven. Brooke had become a ward of the Department of Health and Human Services when Janice had been sent to the Valley of Hope.

      Suddenly it dawned on Janice that it was almost time for her parents to be paroled. Even if they hadn’t contacted their daughters while they were in prison, if her father found out that she’d inherited his brother’s estate, he’d try to take the money away from her. She wished now that she’d been more secretive about where she was moving.

      The compassion of Miss Caroline and the other staff members at VOH had compensated somewhat for the physical misery of Janice’s first fourteen years. But her parents’ neglect gnawed at Janice’s spirit every day, and she didn’t think she could ever forgive them. Even when she’d prayed the Lord’s Prayer in chapel services, she had always remained silent when they came to the phrase, “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.”

      Her unwillingness to forgive had always stood between Janice and a satisfactory relationship with God. She believed that Jesus had died for her sins and she’d accepted Him as her Savior. But could she ever claim Him as Lord of her life until she humbled herself and forgave her parents?

      Chapter Two

      The one-story, rambling elementary school, with a redbrick and stone exterior, was a relatively new structure. Janice halted the car beside a man who was sweeping the sidewalk in front of the school, and rolled down the car’s window.

      “Are any of the school officials in today?” she asked.

      “Yes, ma’am,” he said. “The principal and the guidance counselor are here, and a secretary.”

      “Good. Where should I park?”

      He motioned to the front of the building. “Right here beside the school is okay,” he said. “There ain’t much traffic today.” With a chuckle, he added, “But wait ’til school starts—we’ll have plenty of cars around here then.”

      “Thanks.”

      The man waved a friendly hand and continued sweeping as she and Brooke got out of the car and entered the building through a set of double doors. They faced a long hallway with other corridors to the left and right. An arrow on the wall, labeled “Office,” pointed to the right.

      “I’m scared,” Brooke said, her steps lagging.

      Janice was uneasy about their situation, too, and she muttered, “‘God has not given us the spirit of fear; but of power.’”

      She straightened her back, took Brooke’s hand and headed resolutely toward the office. Her shaky self-assurance suffered an immediate setback when she turned the corner and narrowly missed colliding with the same man she’d bumped into at the convenience store earlier in the day.

      Lance Gordon couldn’t believe his eyes. He couldn’t be encountering this young woman twice in the same day! Normally, he wouldn’t have given the previous incident a second thought, but this woman’s long-lashed green eyes and stubborn chin had flashed frequently into his mind as he’d continued his daily schedule. Assuming that she was just a stranger passing through town, he was surprised at his low spirits when he thought he wouldn’t see her again.

      “So we meet again,” he said, a wide grin spreading across his face.

      “But at least this meeting wasn’t as dramatic as the one this morning,” Janice said, trying to match his light tone.

      Lance glanced from Janice to Brooke, noticing the resemblance in their features.

      “What can I do for you?” he asked.

      “I want to enroll my sister in school.”

      Lance’s heart skipped a beat and he sensed a rush of pleasure to know that meeting this woman hadn’t been transitory. His eagerness to get acquainted with her surprised him.

      “The guidance counselor is the one to see, but she’s busy with another family right now,” he said. “Come into my office. I’ll take down some of your personal information, and she’ll schedule your classes later on in the week.”

      He motioned them to the door tagged with a principal’s sign.

      “You’re the principal?” Janice asked as she walked through the door he held open for them. He seemed very young to be the administrator of a school.

      “Yes. I’m Lance Gordon.”

      “My name is Janice Reid, and this is my sister, Brooke. She’ll be entering the sixth grade.”

      Janice apparently wasn’t married since she had the same name as her sister, Lance thought as he pulled out two chairs from a conference table in his office. And what difference does that make? he demanded of his inner self, looking surreptitiously at her left hand, which didn’t have a ring of any kind. After Brooke and Janice were seated, he took a chair opposite them and picked up a yellow pad that was on the table.

      “Are you living in Stanton or in the rural area of the county?”

      “Does it matter?”

      He looked at her questioningly. “Not at all, as far as attending school here. We serve the whole county, but I wanted to know if she’d travel by bus.”

      “I don’t know. When I bumped into you this morning, literally speaking, that was the first time I’d ever set foot in Stanton. I don’t know anything about the area.”

      “Where are you going to live?”

      “I don’t know that, either,” she said, with a glance at Brooke.

      Momentarily, Lance wondered if he had a homeless family on his hands. But, with the spirit of independence that hovered around Janice Reid like an aura, she didn’t resemble any homeless person he’d ever known. Besides, both Janice and her sister were well-dressed, and if he remembered correctly, the sedan she’d been driving this morning was only two or three years old.

      A slight tap on the door interrupted them, and a child peeped into the room. “I wanted to see if you were busy, Uncle Lance. I guess you are.”

      “Come on in, Taylor,” he said, “and meet a new student, who’ll be in your grade this term.”

      The sandy-haired girl with blue eyes stepped to her uncle’s side.

      “Brooke,