To her surprise, she was sad as they walked away from each other.
Chapter Twelve
Saturday afternoon, they had another Christmas planning meeting. Honestly, Roland was trying to figure out how to get out of going. The last time, he had such a hard time not telling Nelly how silly she was being that he wasn’t sure whether he would be able to hold his temper and his words in this time.
She wanted to spend money on all the things that were not important and had no clue that they would bring in new people if they did new things.
Of course he wanted to do something that was associated with Christmas, and of course he wanted to tell the Christmas story, but they didn’t have to do the same exact thing year after year after year.
He tried to calm himself down as he stepped inside the church. It was not going to go over well if he was worked up before he even saw her.
He thought about how well he worked with the Secret Saint and how difficult it was to work with Nelly. Too bad the Secret Saint couldn’t be in charge of the Christmas program. They worked so well together that the Christmas program would be perfect for them.
As he walked in, he noticed the program fund collection container sitting right inside the door in the vestibule.
Everyone knew the church doors weren’t locked, and…that didn’t seem like a very smart place to put it, if anyone came during the day and dropped a rather large donation in.
On that thought, he walked over just to check to see if there was anything in it.
He was leaning over it looking when the door opened and Mrs. Tucker walked in.
“What are you doing?” Mrs. Tucker said, looking at him like he had a spider on his nose.
It didn’t help that he whipped around like he was guilty of doing something bad. She just spoke to him in such a shrill voice that it scared him.
“Just checking out the collection container. It doesn’t seem like a very good place to put it. The doors are never locked, and anyone could walk away with it.”
“You’re absolutely right. In fact, I thought that was what you might be doing,” she said. “Were you getting ready to take it?”
Mrs. Tucker had taught him first through third grade every Sunday morning in Sunday school. He had to admit, he was not the best-behaved child ever, and more than once, his parents had had to discipline him when he had gotten home because Mrs. Tucker told his mother that he was not being good.
It was just so fun to be bad in her class, and he wasn’t even sure why.
But Mrs. Tucker had not been endeared to him ever after.
Of course, Nelly had been in the class too, and that was ninety percent of the reason why he had such a hard time being good. That was before their Valentine’s Day debacle, or at least mostly, and…now that he thought about it, he kind of had a little crush on her.
Maybe the whole Valentine’s Day thing came about because he was jealous that she had given such a nice valentine to Tommy Peterson.
“Why don’t we go in now,” Mrs. Tucker said, waiting for him to step into the sanctuary first.
It irritated him that she was treating him like he was in first grade again, like he hadn’t had a spotless reputation ever since he’d been in her Sunday school class. Well, except for a few youthful indiscretions, which happened to every child, and also the whole competition with Nelly, and the fact that he had older siblings who treated him like a baby.
But beyond all that, there was absolutely no chance that anyone would suspect that he would swipe money out of the collection. It was annoying that she acted like he would.
“Oh, look who shows up. Late,” he heard Nelly mutter under her breath as he walked in. To his consternation, he noticed that everyone else was there.
“Mrs. Tucker came in after me,” he volunteered in a low tone as he walked by her.
The pastor cleared his throat, and Mrs. Tucker said, “I was late because I was volunteering at Helping Hands Daycare, thank you very much. And I had told Pastor Connelly that I was going to be late. What’s your excuse?”
Well, that didn’t go over very well. Normally, he was a little bit more charming than what he had been with Mrs. Tucker, and he hadn’t realized that he was late. He’d had one family at the Christmas tree farm, and he couldn’t leave until they bought a tree. They went around and looked at every single tree before they came back and cut down the first one they’d seen.
It just took forever, and he wasn’t able to leave. His mom was watching the place, but he didn’t want to leave whenever he knew that a family might need help.
His mom still didn’t look very good to him, although no one in his family seemed to care other than him, so he’d quit saying anything.
Still, he wasn’t going to try to defend himself. Not to Mrs. Tucker. Because he certainly didn’t have an excuse like she did.
